Another Stray

[mafitz701]

Three days ago we had a female chihuaha puppy adopt us. We have no idea where she came from, and no one has called about her. She is in okay health. Hubby says we can keep her if no one claims her, and it is looking like we are going to end up keeping her because as I said, no one has even bothered to call about her.

The girls named her Peanut today. Before that we were calling her doggy. She is all black except for a little white spot on her chest. Our boxer boys have taken her in and adopted her as their new sibling. The two cats con't care what she is doing as long as she is not trying to do it around them.

She is going to vet next thursday and then I am hopeful to get a better idea on her age. She has all her puppy teeth, and her fur is still babysoft. She is the size of a 16 week old kitten right now. The girls taught her sit already, and she may have been kenneled because she is only pooping on the sidewalk, but doing okay with the housebreaking. She has not been as easy as the boxer boys were to housetrain.

[warhorse46]

Awwww, congratulations on your new baby girl!

[Spyder88]

Congratulations! Ya old softie! :beer:

[Noahs ARK]

Awwwww - congratulations to you and to Peanut!!


What a cute name....:wub:

[mafitz701]

I have been away but Peanut passed away today. On Monday this week she started throwing up water and within an hour of that she had a very bloody diarrhea. I called our vet and he took her in about an hour after that. He tested her for Parvo automatically because he aproximated her age to be around 4 months. She came up positive. Since then the vet had her on an iv and was giving her antibiotics, anti-inflammatory meds and steroids to try to help her fight this horrible virus.

But she just could not handle the sickness and died. My daughters took her death very hard. We really believed she would get better. It shouldn't bother us but well it does. We have never seen a dog suffer through Parvo before, and to see this tiny little thing going through it just killed us.

The only peace we have is that we were at least able to give her a home and some love before she left. The vet is cremating her for free for us and we have decided to plant a tree with her ashes. The difference this time is that our daughter Erin wants to keep her with us no matter where we go so we are going to plant something that can thrive in a container. We are wanting something that is tree-like. Something we can keep at the front door outside so that when we come home, in a way, Peanut will be there to greet us.

If any of you have any ideas on what to plant please please suggest. This one totally blindsided us because it came out of nowhere. She was scheduled for her vaccinations, and I am kicking myself right now because I keep thinking if I had just vaccinated her right away maybe this wouldn't have happened, but our vet keeps telling me it would have just made it worse?!?

Its really hard. The vet thinks she might have been a chihuahua/pug mix because her nose was crunched a little and she was badly undershot.

I am sorry for rambling, I am so mixed with emotion that goes from rage to absolute agony. I am angry because someone turned this little dog out, and I am in pain because I keep thinking if I would have just put the damn needle in her with the vaccine I could have saved her. I hate this. I hate loving dogs so much sometimes because it ends up hurting deeply. I should be tough enough by now, but it never changes. Its like each and every one of them have something that makes their lives so special, and when their lives come to an end before they have lived it its absolute hell.

[Gowanda1]

Mafitz, I am so sorry for your loss of little Peanut! It IS horrible each and every time, I agree with you. I don't know how we come to love them so deeply so quickly, but they just have a way of worming themselves into our lives and our hearts. I once rescued two day-old kittens. Some girl had found them in a field alone supposedly and picked them up, thinking she was saving them, not realizing that Mama Kitty was probably just out hunting for food. She wasn't going to take them back--she wanted to take them to a shelter. We know what would happen to them there, so yours truly reluctantly said I would try to raise them. Bought the bottles, the formula, etc., fed them, kept them warm and cozy, and fell in love immediately. They died the next day. I cried and cried--did the same blame game you're doing. Maybe I should have left them at the vet, instead of taking them back home. But I was following their directions, so I really couldn't blame myself, and neither can you. The truth is the same for you as it was for me--they were already ill, and we gave them a warm home with lots of love, and a safe place to pass on. My baby kitties didn't have to die alone and cold in a field (if they truly had been abandoned), and your puppy was already sick before he came to your house as well. You gave him love and made sure he was well taken care of. He was in the best place he could be, and you did a wonderful thing. I'm so sorry he's not in your life anymore though! It hurts--I know how it hurts. I have lost many many pets over my lifetime, and it never gets easier. Please don't blame yourself--you're obviously a very loving person and you did everything you could for that puppy, and I'm sure he was so happy to be with you and your family.

[withay]

Mafitz, I am so sorry that Peanut did not make it. I know it does not take long to fall in love with a puppy. I am glad that you were able to let her know what it was like to be loved and treated right. Don't second guess yourself. Oprah, with all of her money, lost a puppy in the spring to Parvo.

[Noahs ARK]

I'm so sorry to hear about Peanut. :crying:

Thank goodness Peanut found love during her final days.

[mafitz701]

Thank you so much everyone for your kind and supportive words. It means a great deal. We had a really good cry and today my eyes are still a little swollen but my heart feels less burdened.

I was told that giving a dog parvo vaccine could actually quicken the virus if the dog has it (the virus) already and make it worse. This was the only reason we held off, and just waited to see if she had any signs of illness. Does anyone know more about this? Because now my instinct is to just give the vaccine regardless of what I am told, but I don't want to do that if it could actually make the pup sicker.

I was also told that if the dog had been vaccinated with Parvo recently then giving another vaccine could reduce the immune response of the dog. Do you think this could be true or not?

I use the Duravet Spectrum 7 vaccination kit. I have looked all over the net to see if the Parvo is a live vaccine or not in that kit but I can't find anything.

I am going to call my vet and get some clarification on this today, because we just got him (the vet) a year ago for the care of our two boxers and two cats and have only needed to see him three times in the last year. We had one rescue that we found last year and brought into him but that was it. So I don't have a history with this vet yet and everything I am going on was told me by my old vet.

[incidentally]

Mafitz,

I'm sorry to hear about Peanut. I took a bit of time to look up some information for you. I hope it helps.

Should Live or Killed Vaccine be Used?

Killed vaccine is the least effective at penetrating maternal antibody. It is also associated with more vaccine reactions (since more stabilizing chemicals are used in a killed vaccine). We recommend using live parvo vaccine only unless there is any question about the immunologic competence of the dog to be vaccinated and the dog is an adult. Killed vaccine should probably not be relied upon for puppies.

http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&C=205&A=589&S=0
--------

Canine Distemper-adenovirus Type 2-parainfluenza-parvovirus Vaccine
Spectrum 7 contains a Modified Live Virus

http://www.drugs.com/vet/canine-spectra-7.html

I find the first link to be very informative.

[mafitz701]

Thank you thank you! The parvo vaccine we boostered the boys with is a high titer but it is also live which means they will be shedding the virus for a little bit longer, which means if we were to expose a puppy to them right now it would be at risk. (I am pretty sure).

I had to spray my entire yard which is close to a 1/2 acre and just got done. It took me 3 hours!

I am calling the vet right now to get his opinion. My damn hubby whom I love more than anything has decided that the girls should each get a teacup chihuahua because they took peanut in and cared for her so dilligently. I am in disagreement with this but he has already bought them and now I get to drive 6 hours away to see them. The only thing I can say he did right was that he made sure this is a responsible breeder.

I think I will vaccinate him with a boot up his butt! :rolleyes: Hubby also went online and found a germicide that is supposed to work as good as bleach without killing your grass and plants and staining your carpets. Its called Shaklee G. He ordered two bottles of it. It is supposed to not only kill parvo virus in the yard and house but it also kills feline leukemia and other viruses. I am going to hit the house and yard with it and between that and all the bleaching I have done, we should be good to go in a couple of weeks.

[mafitz701]

I don't know if I mentioned this but I was really stressed about our boys coming down with Parvo because they are 2years and 1year (just over for both) and this year was the first year we didn't include the Parvo in their booster vaccinations. So before we boostered them we had them checked for the presence of the virus and they were both negative. Then we boostered them just to be safe.

[mafitz701]

Okay three myths that were told us by our old vet that our new vet has disspelled. The first is even if you vaccinate a puppy that you don't know has parvo, the vaccine will not bring on or worsen the illness already present. So in future I will just vaccinate instead of the two week wait. If the virus is present it will show up within the two weeks it takes to get an immune response.

From the time of vaccination it takes two weeks for the immune response to kick in.

And last even if vaccinating with a live Parvo virus vaccine your dogs will not shed the virus.

[mafitz701]

Well I just caught up with one of our neighbors. They had 3 puppies. Two of their pups contracted Parvo at the same time that Peanut was showing the symptoms. One of them died as a direct result. One of her pups had received his vaccinations well before but the other two had only had their vaccinations for 5 days prior to getting sick.

We are positive now that Peanut had the Parvo before she showed up on our street. The irony is that I was going all over the neighborhood telling everyone that she had had parvo but it turns out that this neighbor had been unavailable because her dogs were sick and she took them to her parents house while they were sick to take care of them. Another thing I know now to do is when something like this shows up I need to leave notes at the houses where no one is home.

I gave her a bottle of the Shaklee so that she can kill it in her yard as well. We have so many different wild animals in this area from raccoons to ground hogs and even a coyote looking dog that lives in the woods at the end of our street. There really is no way to know where it originated because of this, but really drives home the importance of vaccinating your dogs and cats against everything.

[mafitz701]

One more thing is that hubby got the girls each a little chihuahua. They are older pups from a puppymill that was shut down in the state of Kentucky. We checked their vaccination records and each had over a month from the time they had their parvo vaccinations so we vaccinated them right when we picked them up.

They are both male and the girls named them Dink and Micko. We have put them into a quarantine for two weeks just to make sure the vaccine is in full effect before they are exposed to the yard as a safety measure. They are tiny so it is easy to do. We are using a playard to keep them on the driveway for potty time and not letting them out of the house except for that period. They are crated when we are not right with them so we can control their environment.

So along with that is the challenge of rehabbing a couple of 4 to 5 month old pups who have lived in a cage for the whole of their lives and have been mishandled so badly that they are terrified of human contact. Thankfully our daughters have compassion and hearts of gold, so the little guys are coming out of their shells and taking a new step every day.

[withay]

One more thing is that hubby got the girls each a little chihuahua. They are older pups from a puppymill that was shut down in the state of Kentucky. We checked their vaccination records and each had over a month from the time they had their parvo vaccinations so we vaccinated them right when we picked them up.

They are both male and the girls named them Dink and Micko. We have put them into a quarantine for two weeks just to make sure the vaccine is in full effect before they are exposed to the yard as a safety measure. They are tiny so it is easy to do. We are using a playard to keep them on the driveway for potty time and not letting them out of the house except for that period. They are crated when we are not right with them so we can control their environment.

So along with that is the challenge of rehabbing a couple of 4 to 5 month old pups who have lived in a cage for the whole of their lives and have been mishandled so badly that they are terrified of human contact. Thankfully our daughters have compassion and hearts of gold, so the little guys are coming out of their shells and taking a new step every day.

My mini doxie, Oscar had been kept in a cage most of his life when I got him. It took him a while to warm up to me but now he is a little lover. Best of luck with your two little ones.

[mafitz701]

My mini doxie, Oscar had been kept in a cage most of his life when I got him. It took him a while to warm up to me but now he is a little lover. Best of luck with your two little ones.

How old was he? These two are 4 and 3 months old (supposedly). They are normal chihuahuas as far as size goes but the one who is supposed to be younger looks older to me. He was very timid but by day two he was socializing with the boxer boys and trying to hump poor Beta boy which also has me wondering about his age? Dink the one who is supposed to be older, and is the one who seems to have been more traumatized. He stiffens up and raises his head with his snout straight up when he is lifted up.

We had to do the open door crate exercises with them for the last 5 days before we finally had them going into their crates without acting like they were being punished. And it took 3 days just to get them to accept treats even if we left the treats on the floor for them. I have never had a dog refuse a liver or freeze dried lamb treat.

We are just past day 7 with them and now are in the people attachment phase with them freaking out the minute one of us leaves the room they are in, and I mean freaking! I am used to dogs being up my butt when they finally get it into their heads that we are good people who love them, but these two just freak with the yipping and the crying and they run around like chickens with their heads cut off and try to hide.

We are trying to train them but to be honest its a lot harder than working with the larger breeds because their breed description says they will rule the roost if limits are not clearly set, but they have been traumatized so we are trying like mad to find a healthy balance between training and making them feel secure.

I am getting nowhere with my emails and calls, so if anyone who knows any experienced Chihuahua rescues (ones that you actually know are experienced and willing to share some wisdom on this breed after they have been traumatized) that I could call for advice would be much appreciated. I get the distinct impression with these little neurotic bundles of joy that if we don't secure them and train them right they will never come back from this and maybe get worse.

[mafitz701]

Little chihuahuas are doing so much better. Dink is calming down and now we are just having to work him out of the food aggression and housetraining.

Micko had a med emergency when he ingested pieces of the boxer boys' ball and had one stuck in his intestine. Thankfully the meds the vet put him on coupled with the laxative helped him pass the lodged piece of ball.

He is a boob personality wise, just wants to be babied which is perfect because our youngest daughter has grieved the loss of her old Basset Hound and cuddle buddy for the last 6 years, and Micko is loving the fact that she just wants to love on him.

They are both finally leash trained and giving us their attention when we call them by name.

Another stray puppy showed up in the neighborhood. Our neighbor found the little pup and couldn't get anyone to claim him so he took him up to the humane society. Sadly he has tested positive for parvo, I found out because they use the same vet we do and when we took Micko in the poor little pup was in there. He is solid black and looks to be a lab/hound mix of some sort. We are all getting worried because that now makes two stray pups that have been dropped off in our neighborhood with parvo. It sure would be nice to catch the person/persons responsible.