…FADING PUPPY!! POSSIBLE CAUSE…

 Hours after birth, mother and babies are given a clean bill of health.  Daily monitoring of the puppies showed normal progress on their individual charts for tracking weight, size and activity.  At 5 days old all four were fat and sassy.  Then 6 days into their life one of the puppies didn’t gain like his siblings.  By the 7^th day still stable at his 5-day weight but very vocal and agitated.  While brothers & sister were nursing he was over in one corner of the whelping box, or cuddled up under his mother’s neck.  Efforts to reposition him to feed were to no avail.  He would immediately move away to his favorite spot on the heating pad.  At this point supplemental feedings of Esbilac were bottle fed.  He would take the first couple of drinks and then turn his head away from the bottle and when the nipple was re-inserted he would refuse by clamping his little mouth shut.  While his mates were starting to look like cute Lhasa puppies, Squirt was looking more and more like a relative of Yoda from Star Wars.

Noticeable differences were beginning to be very obvious.  Some of the comments in his chart were:

1. Size & weight gain compared to litter mates.
2. Size & shape of his head compared to body.
3. Fontanelle on litter mates were almost closed, his was still quite open.
4. Dryness of skin and dullness of coat.
5. Spit up after formula feedings.
6. Quivering while being fed formula.
7. Refusing to nurse on mother.
8. When being bottle fed, it appeared that he had a rattle when trying to breathe and nurse at the same time.
9. A musky odor to his body.
10. When mates were nursing he was off by himself.
11. Very vocal and active.
12. His stool had a slimy consistency and a real bad odor.

Off to the Vet we go again.  Her diagnosis was “Hydrocephalus”, she had to explain what that meant as I had never heard of the term.  She suggested I get a second opinion.  Upon returning home I set up an appointment with the staff at the University of Colorado.  The earliest I could get was 3 weeks down the road, so I took it.

Squirt spent more time hanging around in my pocket or tucked away safely between my blouse and nice warm sweater than he did with him mother and mates.  While standing at the kitchen counter mixing formula for a litter of pups (puppy sitting for a friend) that were 3 weeks older than he, he almost leaped out of my pocket.  I placed him on the counter top where I was working.  He dove into the pan of formula (ground up puppy food, water, corn syrup and a liquid vitamin).  When I tried to pluck him out of the pan, he wiggled so that I put him back down.  He scurried across the slick counter top and plopped himself back into the pan of liquid mush formula.  He lapped up the formula like there was no tomorrow.  This was to be his first decent meal at 21 days of age.  From that day on, he got 4 feedings a day.  His weight started to pick up immediately, the musky odor of his body slowly disappeared.  There was no more crying at all hours of the night, he was content after feedings and was back to being a happy puppy except for the shape and size of his head which took till he was eight months old to match up with his body.

With access to medical books (Physicians References) I was able to do research and with the process of elimination, diagnosed what Squirt had.  The symptoms for Hydrocephalus and PKU (medical term for human babies with a Lactose Intolerance).  We kept our second opinion appointment with CSU and their extensive testing on Squirt confirmed the PKU diagnosis.

Looks and symptoms can often be deceiving to the novice and even to the professional.  As you can see from the following table there is only a slight difference between the two.

 Although blood phenylalanine levels are normal at birth, they begin to rise within a few days.  In the case of Squirt it took 5 days.

This story has clouds with silver linings, so to speak.

a)      Squirt is living the live of a normal Lhasa.  Lactose Intolerance for a dog is easy to deal with as soon as the pup is converted to dog food and supplemented with another nutritional food for the nursing period.

b)      Squirt found himself a wonderful home with the vet (Sally Todd) that took care of him during his 1-1/2 day stay at CSU.

c)      The Morris Animal Foundation received copies of all of my records, data and a copy of the CSU report.  If others have come across similar symptoms, they would be more than happy to receive information so that they can create a history.

What you can do to save the life of such an affected puppy…

1.       Get them off mother’s milk and supplement feed them.

2.       Have available  (from Health Food Stores) a product in tablet form such as “Say Yes to Dairy”.  This tablet can be crushed into powder, placed in a small container or zip lock bag and stored in a cool place (such as a refrigerator).  Only mix the amount you need with water based on the size of the puppy and feed with/or through through a dropper or a nursing bottle.  After the pup has had a chance to digest this, he can be either put to nurse on his mother, or bottle fed.

3.       Have available also, a good liquid vitamin (such as Lixotinic) and again, use dose appropriate for size.

This will help keep the PKU puppy up to his litter mates.

 Good luck.

 Fran Strayer

©®copyright by Frances Strayer