So if you read my previous post about Smudgie’s delivery you know that was Monday. On Tuesday my dad was flying in to stay with us a couple weeks. I knew it would go well if hubby had to be the one to pick him up at the airport but I really wanted to do it myself.

Thankfully with Smudgie home and settling in, I felt comfortable leaving hubby to watch her and the babies so headed out Tuesday morning to get my dad.

But first some drama….my brother and sis-in-law were dropping dad off at Sacramento airport for a direct flight to Spokane. (We wouldn’t have flown him had there not been a direct flight. And “shout out” to all the amazing Southwest people that wheeled him on and off the plane so we didn’t have to worry about him trying to do it with his walker!) So they get him all checked in, got a security pass so they could take him all the way back to his gate and waited.

Fifteen minutes before he was supposed to board, I get a frantic text from my SIL…”Computers are down no one is boarding 🙁 ugh” I called her, “pray, sister, pray” she said. And we did, and my Facebook friends did. And God is good. They had things fixed and everyone was able to board. The flight would be thirty minutes late but he was on his way!!

I got him picked up without a hitch without a hitch about two and a half hours later. We decided to head to my son’s house so “grandpa” could see their first little home and visit a few minutes. I knew he was tired so we didn’t stay long. We grabbed a late lunch/early dinner on the road for home.

We arrived back at the “farm” and got dad all settled. It had been a long, tiring day for him so he was happy to plop down on the couch.

Not long after that I noticed Sky in her crate acting a bit “off”. She was due anytime, but her temperature that morning and the night before hadn’t indicated that she was ready to deliver.

A bit later, I hear her moving around a bit more, peeked in the crate and there was a baby appearing. Well, I didn’t expect that to happen today! But so thankful I made it home before it did!

(This was the purebred Poodle litter I was waiting for from Sky and Clancy. Clancy is solid red and Sky is white with light apricot spots, so a parti. Clancy does not carry for parti, but I was hoping we’d have some red or apricot with some white face markings and perhaps a chest spot).

The first pup was an apricot male with curls for days!

About an hour later she delivered number two, another male but this one was cream colored.

And then she plopped something else out ten minutes later which I thought was the afterbirth from the number two puppy. But then I took a closer look and, no! It was a tiny puppy moving inside its sack.

It was sooooo tiny! Seeing the squirming creature though the clear sac it appeared like some premature puppies I’ve seen that aren’t quite developed and don’t even have hair yet.

I quickly scooped the tiny bundle up and worked furiously to get the slippery sack broken and the puppy out, grab the suction device and start clearing it’s mouth and nose and rubbing it dry with a towel. Thankfully it didn’t look as “scary” out of the sack and it did while still in there.

It did have hair. But it did look way behind compared to the first two pups. Something had to have happened in utero for him to be deprived of the needed nourishment for him to grow and develop properly.

I don’t have big hands you guys. Look how small it is in one of my hands. It literally looks like it has no body fat on it 🙁 It kind of reminds me of a baby squirrel.

Sky went on to deliver the last puppy about forty-five minutes later, a healthy, light apricot girl.

I’ll be honest and a bit embarrassed to admit, I was so tired after our long day and I really didn’t think it would survive, so I did no heroic measures and just put him in a clean bed with mom and the others for the night and went to bed.

The next morning, I got up and that little fellow was still with us. I didn’t think it was even possible for it to compete at the milk bar with the normal-sized litter mates. By the way, the other pups were in the 8-9 ounce range. This pup was 3.2 ounces at birth.

I mean, look at it next to the others…. :O

Well, it made it through the night so with renewed determination I pulled out my tube feeding kit. Although I honestly didn’t know how I’d hand raise another puppy with everything else going on at home. (In my mind it would be fed every four hours like an orphan).

Then I had a thought! One of the gals at my vet’s office is a total Poodle lover and recently put down her last elderly dog. Maybe she would like to hand raise him as her own?

So I emailed my vet. She wasn’t sure if that gal was ready for another dog but would share my email with all her employees. Before I could even read her response she sent another email that one of the gals would take him!

We chatted a few minutes later where I found out she was very experienced raising orphan kittens and puppies and she was happy to take him. But she wasn’t planning on keeping him. They would find him a home through my vet’s rescue.

Let me try to explain what was going through my mind. I offered the pup to the one lady for her to raise as her own pet. That was my intent with the idea. But I felt like I was copping out on the pup if I just handed him over to basically the rescue instead of taking care of him myself. Does that make sense? I know they would keep me in the loop and let me know what great home he went too, but it wasn’t the same idea as my original thought. Does that make any sense?

Call me weird, but I told her I would go ahead and keep him and try myself. I know she would’ve done an awesome job and had the vets at the clinic as a resource should a problem arise, but I just couldn’t follow though with it. He would stay with me and we’d make a go of it.

I still don’t know if he’ll survive but I’ll tell you what, this little guy is a fighter! I started my feeding regime with him on an “orphan” schedule thinking there was no way he could compete at the milk bar with those bigger pups. (I did have mom out and made sure he latched on to get the colostrum but it was a struggle. Mom did not want to be away from the others.)

But that later that same day I went to get him for one of our scheduled feeding and he was latched on nursing! Happy day!

I’m still supplementing him of course, but no quite as worried about keeping him on an orphan schedule (like dragging him to Spokane with me on Sunday so I could feed him) now that I know he is able to get in there and nurse on his own.

Time will tell what happens with him. He’s far from out of the woods but we’ll give him every chance we can. If he does make it the first couple of months he will be thoroughly examined by our vet and will be staying on here longer than his littermates before he heads to a new home.