In a three day old litter there's a male pup that's particularly noisy, he also happens to be the runt. He whines and screams more than any other pup exposed to the same stimulus. By contrast there is one pup that is noticeably less noisy than the rest, he is one of the better developed pups. Does anyone know how this translates into temperament in an adult dog? Is it a matter of temperament or just underdevelopment due to a particular pup being conceived later than the rest?
If small...he was probably just kicked off the nipples more and hungry. Could be due to late conceivement, but could be a number of other factors as well. I would just give him time and not judge the pups until they are at least 6 weeks old or older...which by now they are. On that note, sorry for the late reply. How did he turn out?
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The runt was born last, limp and not breathing, I thought he was dead. I thought I caught a twitch of a leg the moment he came out, but no movement or breathing after that. I decided to take a chance and try resuscitating him. I started by swinging him in an arc from over my head to the floor, then blowing on his face and massaging his chest, and he came to. He was gasping for air for an hour, I didn't think he was going to make it, I kept massaging his chest and finally his breathing normalized.
This pup was born fighting, then he was fighting to feed. He was outmatched by the bigger stronger pups and I spend a lot of time putting him on good teats. The other pups kept growing and leaving him behind, he didn't seem to be growing at all. At times I thought it was a wasted effort, but he showed so much desire to feed that I kept with it.
He was the first one to find the water when I put it in the whelping box. He was the first to find solid food and ate all of it voraciously. He was the first to walk and the first to explore. When the pups were weaned he was still the smallest but wouldn't back down and defended his food that the bigger pups tried to take away.
Of course he was the last one left because no one would buy him as long as the bigger pups were around. At 7 weeks the weight average of the other pups was 10lb, he was 7.75lb. He turned out to have nice conformation and an outgoing temperament. He had the brightest most aware look I've seen in a pup's eyes.
I really wanted to keep him but since my objective with the two litters was to keep back a female from my dog and I already had her, it would have been too much work at this point to keep him. It's very hard to raise two pups properly. Still I thought if nobody buys him I would be happy to keep him. At 8 weeks and 1 day I put a collar on him, this meant that it's time to start working with him as if I was going to keep him.
Then that very afternoon I got a call from interested people. 30 minutes later they were at my place checking him out. No one could not love this little pup and of course they took him. This was the first time I felt tears well up when a pup was leaving, great little guy, but the people seem like a nice family, already have a small dog, and live near by. For sure I'll be checking up on him in the future.
Noisy little pup
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