Yes, you read correctly.
I'm sitting at my laptop, with a partially squished Coca Cola bottle, filled with 2lb. of boiling water. It's wrapped in a cut apart dog bed covering to stop Annie, the now 12oz puppy, from burning herself. And there is A LOT of milk. She drank 10oz. of Lactol baby animal formula this morning, but most of it went on the blanket. The blanket being my fleece jumper. I was finally smart enough to change the then-blanket into an actual blanket, so that I wouldn't ruin the remaining try spots on my jumper. Not that I'm wearing it before it's washed.
I'm sad to say that Annie seems to be doing worse. Lady keeps pushing her away, and I've had to ask my mum to bring one of my dogs down so that Annie will be cleaned properly. A damp wash cloth and warm tea-towel only goes so far. Yesterday, Lady was being a good 'mumma dog' and cleaning Annie whenever I put her back, but it didn't last. *Sigh* Thankfully Marco is a very interested dog. He wasn't at all aggressive toward the puppy, thankfully, and, although he was on a lead and being watched the entire time, actually snuggled up to Annie and kept her warm while I fixed up her "Hot coke bottle".
The Way didn't last long, either. Instead of sucking on my finger, she's now just resting it in her mouth, so I've had to just shove the bottle in there and let the milk trickle out slowly, or else she'll choke. **Sigh** The good thing is, after an hour of bottle feeding (I managed to empty a 3oz bottle in that hour- she drank it all!) Annie actually went back with lady and started drinking properly. It didn't last even five minutes, but she was getting more milk while I was re-filling her hot coke bottle.
Marco has now headed home with mum, and I've decided that I won't be leaving anyone down to keep an eye on the puppies at night anymore. I know that my dad probably did all he could to keep Annie fed and warm, but I'd rather look after the puppies at night. Annie started getting better, and then dad stayed down, and she went poof. Not that I'm blaming. I'm actually grateful for the lie in. I stayed in bed until 2PM. My cousin, Samuel, woke me. It was amusing. A series of "F*ck off"s and half-asleep punches took place before I decided to get up.
For the passed 9 days, my life has revolved around the 8 day old puppies. I went down when Lady was whelping, and then at 3:35AM the same morning, she had the first puppy, which was, oddly, the runt, who is Annie. So I've been at my uncles house just off of Yorkshire for 9 days now. I haven't seen friends, I've only seen my mum twice; once to walk the dogs, and once so she could bring Marco down to be 'mum' to Annie. I've been getting constant E-mails from 'Kelly' who is my "mentor". She's been helping me with the puppies, telling me what to do and what not to do. I was worried about using a hot water bottle, because you can't really feel exactly how hot it is, so she suggested an empty plastic drink bottle, not completely full. It worked perfectly.
Anyway, two other puppies are skinner than the other 6, but not half as skinny as Annie. They weigh just over a pound at 17 and 18 ounces, and Annie weighs 4 ounces under a pound. When I remove the six "Gremlins" from Lady in an hour, I'll have to bring one of the two under weight puppies in and feed him at the same time as I feed Annie, and then switch. That way, all underweight puppies will be getting enough milk daily to keep them alive, and the fat ones will be put in a small warm box (washing up bowl with hot water bottle and thick wool blanket...) to sleep. Hopefully it will work.
Sadly, the clocks go back tonight, so I'll be up an extra hour than I would have been yesterday night.
I'll be updating again sometime this evening, of course...Until then,
Eli & Annie, of course...
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