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Location: IRELAND
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 2,632
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the saga of starvin marvin, northern inuit
you probably all know about freyas babies, but you wont know about my other litter, they were born on bonfire night to young bitch as the result of an accidental mating, purely my own fault for not realising just how resourceful, males can be when a bitch is in season, anyhow, tukki jumped the fence and i hoped that thy hadnt been together long enough for anything to happen, 5 weeks later however, i noticed she was putting on weight and realised that my worst nightmare had come true. so as i say, the puppies, 10 of them , were born on bonfirenight. poor girl was not prepared for such a big littr and didnt have a clue what to do with them. we eventually got them suckling, but she really wasnt keen. the puppies dropped like flies, i would get up in the morning and she had pushed them as far away as possible and they were very cold, 3 puppies survived, the biggest and healthiest, but again. i went in one morning and another was dead, and then again the next day, so i was down to 1 puppy. i decided to take him away as i think she was mauling them, wether unintentionally or not, i'll never know. she wasnt the least bit bothered to lose the last puppy and happily went back to join her kennel mates as if she had never given birth. let my story serve as a warning to others as i would hate any one else to go through this.
so i had to bottle feed a 5 day old puppy, he was nicknamed starvin marvin as he was forever hungry. after a few days, i noticed he had a lump in his tummy and thought it might be an umbilical hernia, but the vet said it was an infection in the umbilical tract which was still open as he was so young and we had to be careful it didnt get into his blood stream or he could die. so now hes on antibiotics and will be 3 weeks old on sunday. he's a little behind in development as he's been on a mix of whelpie and goats milk instead of mums. but he has a good appetite and is thriving so heres hoping he will survive. here are a few pics taken over the last 2 weeks of marvs progress.
the strange thing is, timber, my 5 year old bitch who has never had a litter and isnt too keen on puppies, has taken to licking and washing him and sits by his box constantly, i cant make up my mind if shes trying to mother him or taste him lol.