Wow! It's been a while since I've posted! We had a very busy weekend. Ben and I went back to Decatur because two of our good friends, Whitney and Brian, just bought their first house together and they needed our help moving in! They have the cutest house, and it was so fun getting to hang out with them while moving all of their stuff over. It was also good exercise for us too! But boy, were we exhausted Sunday night! After we finished moving everything, Whitney's parents so graciously invited us over for dinner. Henry had grilled steaks, and we had baked potatos, salad and bread. One word... delicious!!
After dinner, we headed back to my house around 8:30 P.M. and planned on packing up the car really fast to head back to Birmingham. Unfortunately that didn't happen. When I walked in, I noticed that Ellie didn't run to greet us like usual. She was sitting on the couch with my mom and I walked over to see her. She was shaking all over. At first, we thought maybe she was just cold, so my mom wrapped her up in a big warm blanket hoping that would help. It didn't. The more we thought about it, my mom started to realize that Ellie really hadn't been eating much all weekend. I of course started to panic.
As I've mentioned before, luckily my dad is really good friends with our veterinarian. We called him and described Ellie's symptoms. He said that it could be a sign of a really really serious condition called Eclampsia, where her body isn't producing enough calcium when there is such a high demand needed for the puppies. He said if it keeps on and gets worse, she could potentially have seizures and it could be life threatening! He gave me some suggestions of things to try to get her to eat, and said that if it got worse she would need to go to the pet hospital and get an IV.
We tried and tried to get her to eat. We mushed up her food, put it in the microwave, mixed it with chicken broth... you name it, we tried it. Ellie wouldn't go near it. So we continued to worry. Ben went to the grocery store and bought some canned puppy food. After shoving it in her mouth on a spoon, she started to eat a tiny bit on her own. She eventually quit shaking, so we thought she might be feeling better. I didn't sleep at all that night because I was so worried about her, and also the puppies because they weren't able to get any milk from her.
I actually ended up going and buying puppy bottles and formula, so I'm now feeding them that way. In the next few days I'll start trying puppy food, since its about time to ween them from their mama anyway. Yesterday Ellie still wasn't back to normal. She was so lethargic, and wouldn't eat... not even her favorite "Beggin' strips." I've been having to hand feed her, and I'm giving her "Tums" as a calcium supplement. Finally, this morning we got her to eat and she seems to be much much better now! I'm hoping and praying that she doesn't get sick again and we don't end up at the pet hospital! Who knew that a small breed dog having puppies would cause this much trouble? This is definitely not what I signed up for...
On a puppy update... they are SO cute. They are starting to get little personalities and are really starting to walk around a lot more. They even play with each other every now and then. One of them is finally wagging his tail all the time now, and also makes little growling/grunting/barking sounds. It's precious. I'll try to post pictures or a video of them soon! As for now, I guess thats about it for an update so far! Stay tuned!
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