Thur 20th Feb: Five little surprises

This was Cara with Scarlet's puppy

A couple of months ago I knew almost nothing about dogs giving birth (whelping), as the only real experience I had were the hardy mixed breeds who seem to have no trouble reproducing.  Now thanks to poodle Scarlet and poodle-cross Cara, both of whom gave birth during or shortly after being abandoned, I'm very aware that stress results in the mother not being prepared, not having any interest in her newborns or producing milk, which is supposed to start before the actual birth.  Neither Cara nor Scarlet's pups survived, and both adults have since been adopted so their stories did at least have happy endings.

Mother and five panda babies

Today in the late afternoon a woman came to our Ap Lei Chau Homing Centre with a bichon frise she had very recently bought from a "breeder", and asked to surrender the dog's five newly-born mixed-breed puppies to us. The mother wasn't producing any milk and the woman had no idea what to do, so I agreed to accept the pups on the condition that the mother could stay with them, at least temporarily.  Even if not able to feed her babies she could take care of them by licking and nursing, and from the experience with Scarlet I hoped the milk would start once the pups were suckling.  Luckily we had puppy milk to feed the little ones and they accepted the bottle while I posted an emergency call for help on Facebook.  We were incredibly lucky to receive an instant offer from a couple living very close to the Homing Centre, and they took all five babies along with the mother (on loan from the owner), and you can see photos and video updates on https://www.facebook.com/hkdogrescue/.  So far it seems everything is going well, and hopefully the milk will start flowing from the mother very soon.

Zing feeding a baby at the Homing Centre

Thank you to everyone who offered to help with fostering, and we may need to call on you if circumstances change but if at all possible it would be best for the family to stay together as long as possible.  I have already received a couple of adoption enquiries, but obviously it will be some time before the pups can be separated, and it should also be remembered that the father is unknown so the pups may grow to be much larger than their mother.

Now that the immediate crisis of finding a place for the pups has passed, I want to know more about the mother and where she came from.  What kind of breeder sells a dog that's just about to give birth?  With Scarlet, who came from AFCD and gave birth shortly afterwards, she had no milk and only two puppies so it was hard to tell that she was expecting, but the bichon had five puppies inside her. Even without any milk you would have thought there would have been some indication that she was in whelp (pregnant).  This is a reality of the pet trade and breeders, and why we try so hard to dissuade anyone from buying from either.  The behind-the-scenes cruelty and suffering needs to be exposed on a continuous basis until it sinks in.