This will be long and I know it will (hopefully) all be well in the end but we are in such an awful situation at the moment. I'll keep it as brief as I can.
Background - we bred a litter of puppies born back in November. We did all the health tests as did the stud dog owner. All very carefully researched. I slept with the mum from about two weeks before the pups were born and then until the pups were three weeks old. Mum had to have a section as two pups were head butting each other at the top of the birth canal. We brought home mum and five pups, one of which we had put to sleep at ten days old as it became clear that he had suffered brain damage at some point. During those ten days I was bottle feeding him every couple of hours.
During those bleary eyed nights I noticed that one of the other puppies, a gorgeous chunky little girl, was wet down her tail and legs. She had suspected ectopic ureter which meant that her wee fed into the wrong place and she had no control. The stud dog owner said she would have her put down but we were not that hard nosed. We were put in touch with a specialist and kept the puppy, along with our chosen puppy, until she could be seen by the specialist in the hope that this could be sorted by laser ablation. So in the meantime we could get nowhere with housetraining, even with our healthy puppy as they were together. Obviously we did all the usual things but we were fighting a losing battle.
Then, three weeks ago, we took her to her appointment. Sadly, nothing could be done for our girl and we brought her home and had her pts. Our other pup went to daycare/homeboarding for the two days we were away.
So we tried to put the sadness behind us and concentrate on our pup. Unfortunately, she came back from daycare seeming fine but next morning we came down to a sea of diarrhoea. We have been backwards and forwards to the vets and she is gradually getting better but by no means completely right. She is on a course of antibiotics which have improved matters this week but she is still quite sloppy although perky in herself now.
I'm happy that we are getting there but I feel so ground down at the moment. I would add that one of the adult dogs has an eyelid injury and needed extensive repairs last Friday so I'm sleeping in a separate room with her at the moment. It has all got on top of me this week, especially as I've picked up a throat virus and earache. Sofa is not comfy to sleep on and dog crashes around with her bucket on her head.
I'm just looking forward to being able to have a good night's sleep and some measurable progress on the toilet training front which, realistically, isn't going to happen until she is completely recovered from the gastric bug.
Thanks for getting this far. I feel better just writing it all down.