I know you’re all anxiously waiting a Hope update. I’m sorry I didn’t get you an update yesterday. Doggie duties took up my morning, then it was off to town for an elderly friend’s memorial service. By the time I got home there was just no time left.

(In case you were all wondering why I seem to vanish a bit over the weekend, we are Sabbath keepers. So from Friday night sundown to Saturday night sundown we set aside the usual business activities for an appointment with God.) 😉 Don’t worry the critters are cared for, emergencies dealt with if necessary and I might still share an occasional adorable puppy picture with you, and I get to spend more time playing with the babies. But the business aspect; emails, puppy matching and all that stuff can wait 24 hours. Thanks for understanding. 😊

So back to Baby Hope. The vet confirmed my suspicions of a cleft palate. It is way in the back of her mouth in the soft palate area.

So what’s next; most likely surgery when she’s older. My vet called a surgical specialist in Spokane to see about a referral. I called later and set up an appointment for February 8th for a consultation appointment.

So what do we do in the meantime? Well, we keep tube feeding. Which honestly, is getting very challenging. Hope graduated to a bigger feeding tube because the volume of formula she gets at each feeding required it. So you can imagine, she’s fighting it even more. I feel like I’m sticking a garden hose down her throat; poor girl. And of course the whole time I’m trying to get the tube down her her front legs are flailing and impeding the process. Once the tube is down, I have to use my left had to hold her muzzle and the tube so she doesn’t pull it out while my right hand manages the syringe. She is struggling and squirming the whole time. It’s not a pleasant ordeal for either of us.

Unfortunately, I can’t offer her any more canned food, as it seems to plug up the “hole”.

I won’t have any more to share until we have our consultation with the specialist. I don’t know how “bad” her cleft is. I don’t know what the success rate or outcome of  surgery might be. So I don’t have a prognosis on what’s down the road for us. What I do know at this point is:

• The doctor’s want to wait until a puppy is old enough to survive anesthesia and surgery which is 12 weeks to 18 weeks.Which is weeks more of tube feeding….. 😳
• The surgery estimate at this point (just from my vet talking to the referring vet) is more than I can afford. We might need to take out a home equity loan or start a GoFund Me page! 😜)Just kidding. I’ll figure something out! Hmmm…”Rent A Husband”? He can fix most anything. 😁

The one hopeful thing I did read (of course, I’ve been doing some reading and research on the internet on the subject) was there are some dogs that don’t require surgery and can actually live a pretty normal life eating dry food (which bypasses the opening) and water (which kind of ends up flushing partly out the nose, but they get use to it.). I don’t know if Hope is a candidate for that. But I did buy some small bites dry puppy food in hopes that’s the case. She’s not quite at the point of being able to figure out how to eat it though.

Hope is on my mind a lot of course. The bulletin at church this morning was a good reminder of Who cares for Hope even more than I do. ❤️