Losing four legged friends

[Pony Soldier]

I've put down a number of dogs, cats and horses. Most because of old age or sickness. I find it easier to take when I have replaced them before we get to that point.

 

[Feisty]

My wife and I bred one of our hounds in February and she birthed 4 puppies this week. (Her 2nd litter). We’ve lost two puppies since Friday from mom crushing them. We have a whelping box with bumpers for the little hounds to be safe when mom lays down, and a heating pad to keep the puppies warm. All puppies arrived safely with one pup being in the other uterine horn and caused a delayed delivery between the first 3. We’ve lost the smallest female and one male.

A truly heartbreaking and harsh reality of breeding dogs and my wife and myself are both devastated. I know time heals wounds but this is very devastating for us both as we planned to keep the smallest female. Friday we found a male had passed from being crushed and there was simply nothing we could do. So at around 2:45 AM Saturday morning we woke up to one crying and we believe mom laid on the runt and had a 3 am visit to the Vet ER. Some trauma to her left eye and nostril. We got home around 5:30 Saturday morning. We stayed with them all day yesterday. Last night I set up my hunting sleeping pad and slept beside the mom of the pups and monitored as we were having trouble with the runt fading away from the other 2 that are healthy, and last night she nursed throughout the night and even weighed 2 oz more this morning and everything seemed fine and she seemed to turn a page but passed later this morning with what appeared to be a hematoma that was most likely caused from Saturdays early morning incident.

I suppose I’m more venting and getting this off my chest as I know Mother Nature is beautiful but also very cruel. What’s meant to be will be.

Hang in there, big guy!

 

[B_Reynolds_AK]

@jjordan355 These creature take up a large part of our heart no doubt.

One of the hardest things I’ve personally had to do was to choose to put down my 12 year old house bunny, Bun Bun’s, last week. We had him since he was a kit and our lives really did revolve around him. Feels like the house is incomplete without him around.