Oh, it was sad and though it has been years ago, I still miss her. She was so lovely and good but she became septic somehow due to her milk, the vet said. I still have nightmares of hand raising 5 Dobie puppies from age 3 days. I was so closely bonded to those little sweethearts that by the time it came to place them with forever homes at 5 1/2 months, I was devastated. Kept one - just couldn't lose my connection to those sweeties. "C" was his name and he was a big, black beauty and loved his momma! And I loved him more than I can say. He was essentially stillborn, still in his sac, cold, not breathing or moving and his mother had cast him aside when we arrived home from work. We didn't even see him at first as we were so busy with the first two puppies and he was hidden by a blanket. That morning CobraBlue was fine when we left, she was sleeping in her bed next to her whelping box - no indication of whelping near. Anyway, my husband called the vet and told him we were on the way as I got C out of the sack and started stimulating him. I had no idea what to do but you remember movie or TV scenes of people trying to revive newborn animals so you try those things. I turned him upside down, rubbed him hard with a towel, whacked him on his little body, and in the 1960's though I didn't know CPR yet, but I breathed tiny breaths in his closed muzzle and held him by his hips upside down and drained something out of him and he began to move some. I worked on him for 15 minutes while Jimmy got the car ready and off we all went to the vet, C craddled in a blanket in my arms. Cobrablue was straining in the back but we made it to the vet before 4 and 5 arrived. We named them A, B, C, D, E and F at first as we had no time to think of names. C stayed at the vet a day and came home a warm, wriggling little baby Doberman. Two days later Cobrablue died and our hearts were broken but we were so busy we didn't have real time to grieve her until the puppies were older. Jimmy worked but I was only working part-time so I took time off to raise the boys. At four months, one of the boys looked so like his mother and then her death really hit us. But we had all those boys and they helped so much. I wouldn't have sold one of those boys at 6 or 7 weeks for ANYTHING! EVER! How can so-called breeders stand to part with little bitty helpless things like that? When C's four brother left one at a time, I cried like a baby each time. Somehow we never got around to naming him anything other than C as that somehow just fit him.
Oh, yes, it is heartbreaking to read these stories of these poor little things just taken from their mothers and placed in totally new surrounding by poor unknowing, blissfully happy new dog owners who don't know better and soon are crazy with worry and fatique. It's awful for all of them! People who knowingly sell these little things like this should be turned in by the buyer to Animal Control and fined for each dog they do this way. I know that in these hard times that's not going to happen as our counties and cities can barely manage crime let alone bad dog breeders but I can wish. |