Sometimes even your best isn't good enough....

Tuesday night, a lady came into my clinic with a brand new born chihuahua puppy. Apparently the mom got a little overzealous when chewing the umbilical cord, and managed to lick it right out, including part of the skin of the pup! His little tiny liver was poking out the hole. :(

I held the little guy with literally two fingers from each hand, while one of my favorite doctors , Dr. Simon put his liver back in and stitched him up.

The owner was afraid that if she gave the pup back to mom, the mom would lick open the stitches and kill the pup. We told her that her best bet then, would be to supervise the interaction between pup and mom, which meant getting up every 2 hours to put the puppy back with the mom to feed. She also had 3 other puppies from that litter and said there was no way she could devote the kind of time necessary to ensure the survival of the pup. She begged us to take it. After much debate, it was decided that it was ok for her to sign the pup over to the clinic. I volunteered to be foster mom.

I took him home, and both the animals were very curious about him.

I got up every two hours and bottle fed the little guy, and took him everywhere I went, ensuring he stayed warm and fed.

Unfortunately, it didn't turn out as I'd hoped. Wednesday morning, while I was in my math class, he aspirated on some of his milk and quit breathing. I managed to massage his chest and get him to cough up the milk and begin to breathe again! It was both terrifying and amazing.

He was very weak and had had quite a traumatic first day of life. I was amazed he made it through the night, but sadly, he stopped breathing again and this time I was unable to resuscitate him. He died around 3pm on Wednesday.

I did the best I could, but I'm still bummed out. I had really hoped I could have saved him.