I am so glad Livi is home again and eating. I feel so bad that you are so tired and truly wish I were there to offer some help feeding or whatever needed to be done. Try to get some rest and hopefully Livi's uterus shrinks on it's own so you can all get back to being healthy and enjoy those precious new puppies. Live is adorable even with all she has gone through. Hugs to youand smooches to Live and the puppies.

Tammy, just praying that you all had a better night and you got a little rest! Please give little Livi and her sweet babies extra hugs for us.

Hi Tammy . . .just checking in to see how your night went . . .hopefully you got to rest a bit . . .hope Livi is doing well this morning . . .:)

Ok, Livi has now decided to stop eating. :( I was up until 2ish am and she was eating for me then. I went to bed but woke up around 3 and asked my husband to see how her and the babies were doing...I could hardly open my eyes so thankfully he is so nice to help. Around 5, she wanted to get in bed with us just to give me a kiss...with her little tail wagging. :) That was it, then she wanted down so I got up with her...took her out to potty and tried to feed her. Guess where that got me.....NOWHERE! She won't take anything at all for us this morning. We are cooking hamburger as I type so maybe she will take that. I wil keep trying because I am suppose to call the vet this morning and let him know.

I really do not want to have Livi spayed right now, if we can help it. We almost lost her and she is still fighting to get stronger. I cannot even fathom her having surgery in the condition that she is in....even though she seems better. She has been an EXTREMELY sick girl...very very frightening to think about how close we came to losing her. :(

Tammy i am praying that Livi gets much better soon, as long as she eats something i wouldn't worry to much, my girls are not big eaters when they first deliver

Tammi, I pray she starts eating. My main concern it that you are giving her too many different things to eat and that could actually upset her stomach. I know she has to eat. Have you tried Pedigree Healthy Digestion? My dogs all love that canned food, it has chicken and brown rice in it and it is easy on their stomach. How about scrambled eggs? Are you giving her nutri-cal and pedialyte? I know you are doing all you can. Is she on antibiotics? If so then she will need some Bene-bac or if you don't have that then yogurt would help. I pray Levi gets well soon.

try sprinkling a little Parmesan cheese on her food to entice her.
I have also had luck with cesars food even though its not a great food it usually works in a pinch if their being finicky.

I know...it's a concern of my as well, but they STRESSED it did not matter what...she HAS to be eat. They said give her anything!! I think that they are not as worried about the upset tummy as they are about the bigger picture. Once we can get her to really eat, we can then get the food choice under control...We just have to get her stronger. So far, no upset tummy. She ate whelping pudding and a little bit of chicken and a tiny amount of turkey last night. At 2am, she ate a small amount of ice cream (this was because the tech said to even offer her this). I know that it may sound like a lot, but it's not as much as some give to their girls even without something going wrong like it did with Livi...some give cottage cheese, ice cream, hamburger, chicken, dry dog food, canned food, yogurt. She did like the hamburger meat this morning so I will continue to offer her that today, but if she decides to stop eating that, I will have to offer her something else. I hate having to so this to her tummy, but I watched my fur baby almost die....I'm willing to do anything.

I will try the Pedigree that you mentioned, but it's really hard for people to understand what I mean by, "she has stopped eating". Literally, cannot entice her to eat when she gets like that...even the vet clinic was shocked.

Oh, yes...I did give her Nutrical (once this morning), but no Pedialyte. I will have to call the vet again to see if she can do certain things since she is on medication (Metronidazole). Oh, and the eggs...yep, offered her eggs...she was not interested, at all.

Missed checking in yesterday, iced in but glad to see Livi is home but
sad to read she's not eating yet. This must be so stressful for you. I hope
and pray today is a better day for both of you.
Eat Livi, PLEASE.


Hugs,

Geoff called the clinic this morning and told them that she ate really well for us last night and that she seems to be doing better. We don't have to take her back today....YAY!!!!! I went ahead and took out the IV needle (yuck). You would think after all that I saw and experienced during the birth of her puppies last Saturday, I wouldn't be bothered by removing this...but I was a little queezy. Oh well...that's done and over and she was so glad to have it out. :) My husband told them that she had not eaten yet (this was before she ate the hamburger for me)...she told him that it's probably because she hasn't had a bowel movement and her tummy is now dealing with that.

She has since eaten for me, but I have had to syringe water in her mouth...hopefully, she will get better about eating and drinking throughout the day.

Thanks again for all of your concern!!! I am going to have positive thoughts and say that today is the start of things going great! :)

Tammy I know is not the best quality food but i had a bitch that would not eat, while she was preggo and besides the pedialyte the only other thing she would eat was those little Caesar dog food the smell alone could clear the room but she ATE them the way my kids can eat fast food.. and amazingly no upset tummy either, so maybe you want to try that.. hope she is doing better for you today.

I am glad to hear she is eating better. Are you letting her nurse her pups? If she is on Metronidazole she should not be nursing pups. How are the pups doing? I do know what you are going through. I almost lost a female one time that got a uterus infection when her pups were just a few days old. Luckily the vet saved her and lucky for me I had another two other litters at the time and those momma happily adopted her pups.

I really don't understand the vets logic about getting her to eat just anything because from my own experience if a dog gets a tummy ache they won't want to eat any food until the tummy ache is over. My babies don't do well on anything with beef in it. I guess it all comes down to what they are used to. I do pray that Levi and her babies continue to do well. I know you are totally frazzled from dealing with all this. Hugs.

Barbara! You are correct....that medicine should NOT have been given to Livi...what were they thinking?! This is the same vet (the repro specialist) that we had some concerns with in the past. The morning that Livi got so sick, we took her there because no other vets handle emergencies and the actual animal emergency clinic kept telling me to give her Calsorb even when I would call them again, telling them that her temp was still going up and she was falling down. When I asked the emergency clinic about bringing her in, they told me that they would give her calcium like I was...they wouldn't do anything different. So, it was that moment that I told Geoff just to take her to the repro vet because he will take emergencies and I didn't know whatelse to do....the doctor that we LOVE was not open at 6am. So here we are again....questioning the repro vet even more than we did before. I just got off the phone with my husband and he had called the vet that we like (the one that did Livi's ultrasound the day before she had them). She said what you did...shouldn't be given. I also called the repro vet office back to question them about this medicine and why they gave it to Livi. They told me, again, that is just fine to give to her. :mad:

I will feel horribly guilty if something now happens to Livi's babies. We did all we knew to save her life Wednesday morning and I still feel like she was taken care of....but they messed up big time when it comes to the puppies. When I asked one of the techs about this medicine, she told me..."Well, you said you were supplementing." :confused: Yes, I said this because we were talking about Livi having to stay at their clinic all day Wednesday and Thursday....DUH!!!! In fact, it was the doctor that told Geoff that the puppies nursing should help Livi's uterus to shrink.

I am sooooooooooooo upset!!! What is going to happen to the puppies now?? She was on this medicine both days that she was at that vet and then I gave her one dose this morning. I have tried and tried to do this right and to make sure that my babies are okay....and now this. :(

Happy to hear Mom is back and happy and eating well !!

Tammy,

Just to ease your mind.....flagyl is fine on a nursing female, it will not harm the pups, however, not good to give to a female when she's pregnant. So, don't worry too much. It does not hurt the pups? Do they have Livi on antibiotics? Her uterus not shrinking is due to the infection, but I'm sure your vets are watching her.

As other stated she can be spayed and still nurse, but at this point, the way she is not eating, her milk will soon dry up.

Maybe Livi isn't hungry or eating well because of the metronidazole. I thought that some of its side effects were lack of appetite? :confused:

Wow what a scary ordeal! Bless Livi's little heart in those pictures! And yours! You are doing a great job...I could never do it, big props to you! I have always been too scared to think of my baby having babies...haha...but thank God for you that are so brave to do it!
Keeping you both and the babies in my prayers....I'm hoping you find out the meds are not harmful to the pups...

Tammy, I've found that boiled beef liver is something that I've never had any of my girls turn down. In Livi's depleted condition, a nutrient dense organ meat would be good for her if she'll eat it.

She also really must get plenty of fluids if she's to continue to produce milk. You may want to try some goat's milk for her if she doesn't care for water now. My girls have never turned this down, either.

Just a couple of suggestions to add to the good advice you've already been given. Best of luck with Livi and her babies.

Jim

Guys....the puppies arent doing well. I don;t understand why this has to happen AGAIN!!! i AM GOING TO CALL MY HUSBAND AND SEE WHAT WE CAn do.

What are you supplementing them with?


And what do you mean by not doing well?

Oh no, what's wrong with the puppies? Are they refusing the formula, losing weight??

Tammy, did you try the premie bottles that I mentioned? It really helped with Ellie's litter. They took them better than they did the syringe with the nipple and the little bottles that are made for puppies. Are you using the goats milk to equal parts water?

I agree about using the goat's milk w/ water for formula. I also add a little karo to it. I've read that goat's milk has a lower sugar content than canine milk so a little karo helps.

I don't use a commercial milk replacer. I've used Just Born in the past and the pups got constipatiion. Also, with Esbilac, there's a thread in the breeder's forum about the dangers of it. Here's the link if you're interested.

http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/bre...ment-milk.html

I'm just posting this as general info since you're not on right now and I don't know how the pups are doing or what you're feeding. Also, generally speaking, a hard belly can be gas or constipation. You have to watch it with newborns as their systems are very delicate and easy to upset.

Sending prayer's your way Tammi for those puppies.

:(:(:( Tammy...I'm so worried for you and the pups and Livi.

Do you have another breeder you can call/consult with?

oh my Tammy...i hope all goes well!

Praying so hard for these babies. :(

That's definitely true. When my puppies were on flagyl they would NOT eat. I finally took them off the flagyl because I was more worried about the lack of appetite. It's a vicious cycle sometimes, unfortunately.

Oh Tammy :( Just sending hugs and prayers for you Livi and the babies. Hoping you have another breeder close by that you can consult with/and or get some assistance?

thoughts and prayers go out. let us know when you can ...