Monday, June 27, 2011

A pattern emerges

Gimpy puppy + seconds from euthanasia = goes home with me.



photo photo photo


Meet Flipper. Yes I named him that because of his leg. Yes I may be a bad person. He's orphaned and two weeks old and I have no idea what he'll look like as his mother was described as "medium sized mixed breed". I've never bottle raised a puppy. It'll be a good learning experience.

9 comments:

jen said...

heavenly :)

I like the name.

MJ said...

I'm not surprised ;)

Can't wait to meet the new addition. My pup will love meeting someone closer to her own size.

Keep up the good work. Rock on Sista!

Retrieverman said...

I saw this really good show on Animal Planet about this golden retriever that was born with no hind legs.

They eventually made him two prosthetic legs, which had to be adjusted as he grew.

Betty White paid for almost all of it.

admin said...

I am not keeping this one, guys! I'm fostering him until his forever home comes along. I swear.

Jess said...

Hand-raising pups is extremely rewarding. At least you have a job where you can take the wee one to work and no one is going to look askance when you have to feed the puppy!

admin said...

Jess - I'm the perfect position to hand raise a little pup. Really, my only concern is the high risk of parvo, but that's a problem in the entire region and is something I'd have to contend with as soon as we start potty training outside on the dirt. And I have a nice little corner of the dog food storage room to stick him at work. Away from high traffic and sick animals.

Jess said...

Does your employer carry an in house titer test? Just due to risk, I'd be inclined to test him. You can calculate when to vaccinate because the titer will drop by half every ten days. Or you could vaccinate and titer to be sure of seroconversion. There is a new(ish) study out on vaccinating at four and five weeks of age with one of the very high titer Parvo vaccines.

You know we are in a very high risk area for Parvo, feel free to drop me a line if you're curious about my vaccine schedule.

admin said...

Our area has a very low demand for titers, so we don't keep them in stock.

I think I've seen that study you're talking about. I was thinking of vaccinating at 4-5 weeks anyway just in case and then maybe sending off for a titer to see. If nothing else, it would be interesting.

admin said...

Jess, do you have that study handy?