the cutest thing you have ever seen

Sometimes a puppy needs a little help.  Sometimes when a puppy is born it struggles to nurse for some reason.  I had one in my very first litter and he needed to be hand-fed every 2 hours for the first 2 weeks.  To say we were exhausted would be quite an understatement!  However, it was worth every sleepless night because he grew into a fabulous dog of great character and health who is still making his family happy now, 2 months before his 10th birthday.

I have never before had a puppy who started out strongly enough but then didn't thrive like the rest.  Normally, you think that if a puppy survives its first week, then he's going to be ok and grow on.  By the time they are 2 weeks old, their eyes are opening and I'm getting ready to start introducing solid food to them.

However, little Dizzy wasn't doing so well. When he was born he was only 237 grams, and believe me that is tiny for a Lappy puppy.   However, he was strong, vigorous and noisy, so I had high hopes for him.  Then he carried on gaining about 10% of his body weight each day, as expected and like his brothers and sisters.  That did mean he was still quite a bit smaller than the rest, of course, but as long as he was growing at an acceptable rate in relation to his own size I wasn't too worried.

Then in his second week his growth slowed down to where he wasn't gaining even 5% of his body weight each day.  As the 10-days-old milestone came and went, most of his brothers and sisters were opening their eyes but he didn't.  Time for intervention.  He was still happily nursing from Kaija, but I started to hand feed him some supplementary meals of Lactol puppy milk, and that did the trick.  Eventually.  At first he was difficult to feed using any of the methods I have tried in the past, but after 3 or 4 attempts he finally got it and then he was well away.  As it turned out, he just seems to be a bit rubbish at sucking!

And now you, you lucky readers, are going to get to see the cutest thing you have ever seen:  a 2-week-old Finnish Lapphund puppy nursing from a sponge.  Enjoy!