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For the last few days we have been leaving Princess alone and quiet as much as possible to try to relieve any stress that she may be under, however this morning she now only has 4 remaining pups. We have noticed that one of the pups, a very active sable, has a severely distended tummy and looks almost as though it is going to burst.
We take the decision that, though removing the pup may mean that the mother rejects her we need to take the poor little girl to the vets. We are not very hopeful and our fears are confirmed when the vet confirms that something is indeed very wrong and that the kindest thing would be to put the pup to sleep. The vet believed the pup had fluid building up in its body at an alarming rate and though the cause wasn’t known thought this would indicate a serious problem in so young a pup.
So today was not such a good day and we are now left with just three pups, these, thank goodness, so far look fit and healthy. Princess is taking care of them very well and they have been observed today leaving the nest and eating the food that Princess is leaving around the cage, but also eating out of the food bowls.
We are left wondering whether there were similar problems which led to us losing the other pups, but I guess this is something we will never really know. We will have to consider whether we breed from Princess again, however we may give her one more breeding in the future before deciding as the lack of success with this litter may just be bad luck.
The pups we are left with are very easy to identify, all being different. We have a sable roan (like Princess) a sable (black fur with a pinkish undercoat and pink around the eyes) and either a mink or a mink roan (like Dad, spud) we cannot tell whether this one is a roan fully or not as yet as the fur is lighter than the other roan’s and so it is harder at this stage to see whether it is also ticked through with white, although this will be clearer as her fur grows.
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