Any vets or breeders around, please?!

[PurpleDachshunds]

Hi sorry I've posted here and in aibu, as were desperate for advice.

We had some beautiful little puppys born a week ago, when we went to weigh them this morning we noticed this appear on all 4 of the puppys shoulders.

We of course took them straight to our vets, who were amazing. But basically said if it doesn't clear up in a week or start to improve then its likely a very painful genetic condition which is sadly untreatable. Meaning we'd have have no other option than to pts.

Obviously we want to and will do everything we physically can for them, I just wondered if anyone has any idea or experience with what this could be, please?! We wondered if it was possibly down to the collars rubbing? But we're truly clutching at straw's.

Any help or advice we'd be incredibally grateful for. Thank you.

Were the parents of the pups health tested? I'm really sorry but that doesn't look good, poor little things

Ah gorgeous, sorry no advice but fingers crossed for them op.

Are you experienced as a breeder or a first timer who thoroughly did your research?

Were both of the parents health tested?

This was our first time.

We had all the breed specific health tests/dna tests carried out. We also made sure the stud we chose was throughly dna tested and have kept copy's of all his paperwork.

Don’t suppose they could have burnt themselves on a heat pad or similar?

Tamingofthehamster that was our original thought, we thought it was maybe the heat lamp as the heat from it is a little dry, although the temperature was on low.

But the vet said its in the wrong place to be effected by the lamp.

What condition did the vets think it could be?

@PurpleDachshunds did the vet give you something to treat them and are they any better today or is it getting worse ? I can’t see how it can be a genetic thing if both parents have , as you say , had clear health screens as surely the gene must have come from one of them .

I’m no vet, but I’m not aware of any genetic diseases in dogs that cause lesions like that in newborn puppies..
My (entirely amateur) guess would be burns from a heat lamp

What did the vet say?

There are quite a lot of reasons for scabs on puppies from not too serious to very serious.

Your vet must have given some indication. Did they take tissue for checking?

If @Lonecatwithkitten is around she knows everything and may be able to help.

The pictures are a little hard to tell, but one thought that springs to mind is juvenile cellulitis. Though it is usually individual pups.
Health testing only checks for specific conditions so it does not rule out all genetic disease and definitely does not rule out the sporadic weird and wonderful ones.
I would check your heat lamp ( I prefer ceramic bulbs that give out only heat not light) it should be nowhere even close to being able to touch the pups or mum.

In the meantime take the collars off in case they are rubbing. Fingers crossed for them, OP!

Not a vet (obviously!) and this is probably a very silly suggestion but, if they all have the skin lesions in the same places, could it be that their mother is licking them a lot in one place? Just thought of this as saw The Highland Vet the other week and a calf had a full thickness wound on its back leg through its new mother licking it incessantly on the same spot.

What genetic conditioning did he think it could be ? Can he not test for it ?

What breed are they - are they a large breed?
Are all the puppies the same sex?

If they are giant breed puppies it could be Osteochondrosis.

@MikeUniformMike

What breed are they - are they a large breed? Are all the puppies the same sex?

I’d assume dachshunds by the user name...

Hmm. But they're not purple puppies.

I suppose any week-old puppy would be growing very rapidly.
How distressing.

Thank you all so much for your advise. Its been an emotion few days. After further investigation, we realised the cause was very likely the collars which were included in our whelping kit.

After researching similar collars, we found out other people were reporting very similar things happening.When we initially took the puppies to the vets, we had removed one of the puppies collars, so the vet had assumed that it couldn't be the collar causing it.

We had thought it was the heat lamp that had caused it, so we didn't even think to mention that they did all have collars (we weren't allowed in the vets due to covid).

The puppies are doing well, and the wounds are healing nicely. We are so upset that this could have been prevented and will do all we can to warn others of these collars. However, we are incredibly relieved that this is now unlikely to be a genetic condition.

Thank you again to everyone for all your advice, support and help, we didn't know who to turn too and were incredibly grateful for all the suggestions and advice we received here. Thank you

Phew I am so glad there is a happy ending. Thank you for letting us know

That is good news @PurpleDachshunds, hope the pups get well soon.

That’s good news , get well soon puppies .

Good news, beautiful pups

Great news. Strange though as they look like pretty standard whelping collars to me. Mind you, most of the breeders I know (labs) that use whelping collars (lots don’t like them) only collar their litters once they are a good few weeks old. I don’t know anyone who collars the babies at a week old. They are identified by Sex, colour or distinguishing marks. If that’s not possible, they each have a little bit of hair clipped off in different places to ID them (eg, ‘yellow collar’ becomes ‘behind left ear’). Maybe their skin is still a bit soft and sensitive to the outside world at this point?

So pleased they are going to be ok and it's nothing serious! Can I ask what breed they are? They are super cute