Emergency, and Vet won't asnwer phone
 

I brought my 11-wk old 1.07 lb dog home yesterday. She got checked out at the vet and has a cold/respiratory something going on. The vet said just to keep an eye on it.

She drinks lots of water, but hasn't eaten much of anything since she came home.

I just got home. Husband has been home with her. SOMETHING IS WRONG. She can't stand up straight, and keeps turning to her right. She is listless and doesn't want to play. I tried to turn her around and upright, and she immediately twisted her body into turning rihgt. What is wrong?! My vet wont answer - not even on their emergency line, and I'm in a total panic. Pleas.e.. help.

From your discription...it sounds like a hypoglycemia attack. This can be life threatning and must be treated ASAP! Please rub a little Nutri-cal, or Nutri-stat, or Karo syrup on her gum's every few minutes until she shows improvement. This will save her life.

You can also use honey if you have none of the others on hand. If the puppy shows no improvement within a few minutes after giving her one of the treatments mentioned, then she should be taken to an emergency vet asap!

I totally agree with the above poster DO NOT WAIT

NUTRICAL OR HUNNY ANYTHING another thing you can give is chicken weinies by gerber in the baby section... Stimulate her feet rub her feet and get her help ASAP....:eek::(

Try to get her to eat some food such as cottage cheese, yoghurt, turkey, chicken even ice cream if that what it takes and do this in addition the above suggestions. Do you have any 24 hour emergency vets in your area? If you do, call them if you see no improvement in several minutes. She is very tiny which puts her in a higher risk of danger. Good luck!!!

How frightening! I see the OP is offline at the moment so hopefully she's got her little one to a vet. I hope her puppy is well, and that she keeps us updated.....am sending hugs and prayers xxx xxx

I agree. Hypoglycemia can be so frightning...even to the seasoned breeders who have seen it a time or two.

To the OP...I hope and pray the little one is doing better. Please update us when you get the chance,

Hi Everyone,
Thank you so much for your responses. I rubbed Karo syrup on her gums and let her lick it, and took her to the vet asap. This is such a nightmare.

Now she's hospitalized. First they rubbed Nutri-Cal on her and took a blood sample. Her blood sugar level was at 18. The doc made the lab tech retest it because she didn't believe it could be so low. It came back at 13. They immediately put a catheter in her neck and started her on a glucose drip. They are keeping her overnight, but they can only check on her only every 4 hours. I am freaking out. Is she just too small?! I'm not a person who needs some tiny Paris Hilton dog. I just fell in love with her.

It's all because she isn't eating. How do I get her to eat!? She was obviously eating for the last 11 weeks before I got her. The vet isn't ready to dismiss distemper (there's no blood test, apparently?), but right now the symptoms are all pointing at screaming, "hypoglycemia." But the question is --- what is causing her to not eat? Being in a new environment (I just brought her home yesterday), or distemper? She was vaccinated against distemper, but the vet thinks it could possibly have been done too early.

I am sick to my stomach with all of this. She has this giant bandage around her neck and a catheter sticking out, and now she has to sleep in an unfamiliar place. Okay, my house was probably unfamiliar enough to her, but at least she had lots of love and attention.

Help.

Prayers for you and your puppy
 

Thanks, Patti!

I'm thinking of you and your little one....I pray she has a swift recovery. Hugs to you xxx xx

Thanks, Claire! I appreciate it. We will take all the prayers we can get.

I hope your little one has improved. Will keep her in my prayers!

Have you tried getting her to eat wet food? Chip was bigger than that, but he was 7 weeks when we got him and I believe he had a hypoglycemia attack and was dehydrated. He wouldn't eat and kept throwing up, so we gave him some wet food and was fine. We figured out that he actually wasn't able to eat the dry food that the "breeder" told us he could.

I agree with wet food...as long as you get him to eat...My baby was very small...You can't pick who you fall in love with....She is a happy , healthy 5 lbs. of energy now ..at a year old...When I got her I had a tube of nutri cal...never had to use it ...but I did go thru a lot finding the right food...Good Luck ...I am praying for your baby...

I agree. I would try some wet food or even baby food meats to try to get her to eat. Definitely keep some nutrical on hand. That must have been frightening. How is she this morning?

Oh even some plain yogurt just to get something in her tummy. Maybe some cut up boiled chicken?

The vet left an eleven-week-old puppy alone who had almost went into a coma due to hyglycemia and now has a jugular catheter?:eek: Is this the only vet available?

There are so many things it could be, but with sugar that low, it is likely hypo.
Have you tried canned food? Boneless chicken white meat chicken and rice?

Following this thread my prayers are with you please keep us updated:(

I have a 2lb 4 1/2 month old. When we first got her home she wouldn't eat at all either.

Try to soften her dry food with warm water. Then add a little cottage cheese to it.

If she doesnt eat give her the karo syrup.

Other options if that doesnt work is adding some wet food with the dry or giving her boiled chicken but use that as a last resort because you can create a very picky eater that you have to cook for everyday.

My Sophie is still not such a good eater but she is doing much better.

Good Luck with her!!

Hoping and praying your little one is doing better. Please keep us updated when you get a chance.

I am so sorry your new puppy became so sick .... How is he doing today at the vets? I am sure the vet will do everything possible for your baby. I know that a big move can upset a new puppy and then the baby will not eat.. But, the smaller the puppy is the more of a chance of a hypo eposoide can occur, especially if the baby won't eat. I'd try wet foods, and boiled chicken, cheese, Yogurt, anything special that the puppy may eat. i hope things are better for your little puppy. :aimeeyork

Yes, this is the only vet available since I live in Korea on a military base. All of the vets I could go to speak only Korean. I know.... not ideal. The vet has been frustrating and hasn't volunteered any tests to eliminate various diseases. I asked her to draw blood when I first got Meg checked out, and she said that Meg was too small to draw blood from. Well, she drew blood during the emergency episode, although she had to try several times. I guess she just didn't want to have to put effort in the first time we went. UGH.

Thanks to EVERYONE for your thoughts, prayers, and suggestions. And thanks to all of you who have sent me PMs. I can't tell you how much I appreciate the outpouring of help you've all given me. I love YorkieTalk!

The Update: Meg is now up to a blood glucose level of 90 (from 18!), is on an IV antibiotic drip, is still on the dextrose drip, is on a antibiotic eye ointment, and is starting to eat wet food (Nutri-Cal liquid mixed with something else). She had a soft poop, so the vet wants to keep her for longer to observe her and make sure it doesn't become diarrhea, in which case they would need to up the liquids. The good news: no vomiting (she never had any), no more hacking up of the clear foamy, bubbly saliva, no dry heaving, and not getting any worse. The vet says she is about the same as last night after they started the glucose drip. She's not up to normal puppy behavior yet. I wouldn't want to play either with a catheter sticking out of my neck and a big neck brace/bandage on to hold it in place, but they want to keep her to observe her, and I am fine with that for the time being. I'm going to visit with her today. I'll update this thread again after I get back.

Anyone have any ideas on what the clear, foamy, bubbly "hack up" stuff could be? It seemed to be coming from the stomach/abdomen, since Meg's whole stomach was heaving during the hacks. The vet said some dogs do it, but she couldn't' tell me if I should be worried or if it's a normal dog thing to do occasionally.

That does not sound normal to me :confused: I will pray for your little one.

I'm so happy to hear her levels are back up!!! You must be so relieved. It sounds like she'll be ok. :thumbup: Here soon it will be hard to even imagine you had a sleepy lethargic pup at one point... and you'll get to start worrying more about her peeing and pooping everywhere instead of her health!

On a side note, if you do feed her and all she eats at one point for some reason is something odd like yogurt... don't freak out if her poop looks like yogurt. I know this sounds obvious, but... Nikko did this to me one morning - all I could get him to eat was a little bit of yogurt, then an hour or so later he went out and pooped some really scary looking white stuff. I totally freaked out for about two minutes until I realized why, lol. The next stool after some more normal puppy food looked like normal (though soft) dog poo.

I look forward to another update, once you get her home hopefully. :) And don't worry too much about tons of sleep, like everyone has been telling you. Just for fun yesterday I timed how much my pup (a lil over 4mo old) slept... He was fully awake for about six hours total, psycho-play puppy for about 4 of those hours, and was laying down quietly asleep or half-asleep for the whole rest of the day. He basically has two "awake" periods - once in the morning, and once before bed at night. He sleeps almost all through the whole middle of the day.

We're thinking of you and Meg. :-)

Lauren & Nikko

Good call on the food-poop texture relationship. Who would have ever thought I'd be worried so much about Meg's digestive track?! I thought this is only something new mothers (of human babies) do?! :)

From what the vet said this morning, I don't know if I'll be able to talk her home today, but it's only 10:30am here, so maybe I will be able to take her home tonight.

i totally understand what your going through.. i had an eerily similar experience with my baby about 2 weeks ago but not as drastic, when we first brought him home. luckily when i got him they gave me kyro syrup to keep on hand (i strongly suggest buying that) but use that incase of emergency. nutracal is what you should use daily about half hour before meals. i use about 3 fingertips but she weighs less then my pup so maybe u should use less? i feed prince 3x a day. he was a VERY picky eater as well and scared me sometimes. if she refuses wet and dry food, u can boil plain chicken breast or baby food(with no onion and garlic in the ingredients). you may have to hand feed her for a little while..sometimes its hard but you have to make sure they eat.. it takes them a little while to warm up to their new home and their enviroment. its very nerve racking for us & the puppies:( one last thing.. you should restrict her playtime until she starts eating better. a lot of rough play and running around may cause her sugar to drop especially if she isnt eating. 10-15 min intervals of play.. it may take her a few days to become her normal self. i hope this helped! she is in my thoughts:animal-pa


p.s. i learned all this from yorkietalk! you see why you guys are the best!

I have Karo syrup and we rubbed that on her gums. Poor thing is now going to need a bath to get all of that crusted sugar off her face. Meg hasnt' even had 10-15 min of real play yet. She explores her toys and her area for maybe 5 min, but then she just snuggles down on top of a toy. She seems like a very sleepy, bored dog, but I guess that was because she was already in teh beginning stages of hypoglycemia. I thought she was just freaked out about her environment. She acted the same way at the vet. First she pushed her body right up against mine (she was on the table, and I was standing next to her), then she started to explore the table after 5-10 min.

I am going to the grocery store today to pick up all of the things I will attempt to feed her, or mix with her crushed up kibble:
cottage cheese, yogurt, organic baby food, plain boiled chicken, boiled baby carrots, even ice cream. Should I not try feeding her any red meat yet? Will it be too hard for her to digest? I have also contacted a holistic vet in the US who will hopefully be able to share some wisdom as to how I can get her to eat and how I can boost her immune system (more of an issue with her cold/respiratory thing, not the hypoglycemia). I'll let you know what she says.

Oh, I am more than willing to hand feed her. I tried to do that before with her kibble, but she would sniff it then walk away. Guess it just wasn't appetizing for her. And then what's up with the licking of the food? I almost think this ISN'T what she was eating before I got her, even though this is the food she was sent home with.

Melissa, thanks for letting me know how often you use Nutri-Cal. I was unsure about that myself. Do you let her lick it, or should I rub it into her gums?

:thumbup::thumbup: You\'ve learned a lot!!

To the OP- good luck with your puppy. It is so scary when things like this happen. I wanted to give you MAJOR KUDOS for getting her to the vet asap, and not just hanging around here waiting for someone to give you a "home remedy." You are going to be a great yorkie mom!!