Hi everyone.
I wondered if anyone could offer me any help and reasurance. My beautiful girl gave birth to her second litter of pups on 4th Jan.  It quickley became apparent that one of the pups had a feeding problem. (she had 7 living 2 still born) As the little girl pup was feeding, milk was coming back through her nose. I had already checked for a cleft palate and hadent found anything. I was very concered about her having milk on her lungs and took her to the vet. He checked her and said he could not see a cleft palate or anything else as to what was causing the problem, he gave her an injection of antibiotic and more to take home,(she did have milk on her lungs) he also told me to take her away from mum and hand feed her so the flow of milk could be better controlled. She is 2 weeks and 2 days today and I have been feeding her day and night every two hours and the problem is not getting any better. She will not feed from a sringe so I have a baby bottle and let her feed for a few seconds then remove so she can take a breath. Even then you can hear her gasping I feed her every two hours working on the little and often princable. She is gaining weight, but I am very worried about what will happen when she is put on solid food, will she start to choke? Has anyone ever come across this before? If anyone could offer some help I would be really be gratfull.
Thankyou

It could maybe be a neuromuscular problem? I think I'd tube feed this puppy for a bit to give her lungs a chance to get properly cleared up. Sorry, no ideas on how things will go when she is weaned.

Sometimes pups do better with a slightly thicker food anyway! Apart from that...it would be better for the Vet to re-assess her swallowing reflex?? There are several malformations of the endo-tracheal tract that can cause this type of problem...all the best, good luck, Dawn X

Did the vet check REALLY carefully in the mouth? Cleft palates doesn't have to be an actual cleft, at times it can be a tiny hole which can be hard to see.

What breed is your puppy?

I have had this twice in the past few years.  The pup seems unable to suck properly from the mum (a lot comes down the nose) but can manage a bottle.  Both times they sounded really chesty and rattly.   I was convinced each time it was a cleft palette (quite common in my breed), but the vet said not.  I had to rear them with the bottle and they reached weaning age half the size of the other pups in the litter, as I was afraid to give too much milk in case it was regurgitated and went down into the lungs, making the problem worse.

However, by 8 weeks they had caught up completely and although I explained that there had been a problem to their new owners, they never experienced anything adverse at all.  Photos received show big healthy dogs in both cases.

I think now it may have been either a pin-prick sized cleft palette that closed or a soft palette that hardened as the pup grew.  Anyway, keep feeding from the bottle until weaning when things should turn around.  By the way, I also found that it took a few days longer than the rest of the litter for the pups to be able to eat the mushy weaning food properly.