Friday, May 9, 2008

Small Setback

I was in NC for two days for work and everything went smoothly at home while I was gone. But what big puppy changes in so short a time! Lauren was happy to have me back and everything seemed fine. I had planned that Friday would be half day working from home and half day at the library, but it wasn't to be. David checked on everyone at 3:30 a.m. and all was normal and good. When I went downstairs at 7:30, Lauren had had several accidents (not that unexpected, I usually have her outside by 7) but she was listless and had vomited her dinner from Thursday night. A quick check of her temp showed a fever of 104.5--off to the vet's we went! Lauren has mastitis and it was treated aggressively (and expensively) with surgery at the Leesburg animal hospital.
I had planned on starting to supplement the puppies this week-end anyway with goat's milk and baby cereal in conjunction with the move to bigger quarters, but now we've gone to complete weaning. I was surprised to find out the puppies have teeth! (they didn't before I went to NC) They are chewing on every nipple I try on a bottle (perhaps that explains the mastitis?) so I dug out the "flying saucer" bowl and they've quickly learned to lap up their gruel. The only silver lining in today is that Lauren sailed through surgery and the two smooth girls can now eat their fill. Dot and the boys had surged ahead in growth in the last couple of days, I think they were pushing the two little smooths out of their way. Now, I can feed them first and after just one day, they seem bigger! The pups seem to miss mom so I'm spending lots of cuddling time with them.

No comments: