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A true tale The Foundlings © Christopher Brisland, 1998
It should have been just another walk with the dog down to the village to collect the mail, nothing more - nothing less. Our new home (the Aegean island of Kos) was at last basking in the sunshine; the last few days had been a trifle windy and damp (and that is putting British "understatement" to one of its' hardest tests yet!) But that is the way of the winters here, you get a few days of stormy gales accompanied with heavy downpours followed by a pleasant warm spell. We haven't been here all too long yet, but many of the people in the village know us by sight and greet us with their typical Greek friendliness. Besides, how can they not fail to take notice of that 'crazy Brit'? After all, no 'sensible' Greek dog owner would even dream of taking a dog for a walk. And then of course there's Sam! A black Labrador, weighing close to forty kilos, seems to command a lot of respect from the adults: "Does he bite?" or "Is he dangerous?" Unfortunately, my Greek isn't up to scratch yet - what's Greek for "Labradors - dangerous? Who're you trying to kid? Sam is a typical Labby - patient, gentle and nosy." But I suppose a big black dog sniffing at your trouser leg, and drooling while he does so, could be a bit disconcerting... Anyway, back to the
walk: out of the 'Post Office' (merely a small two-roomed building where
the Greek equivalent of 'Postman Pat' drops by for half an hour every
morning to sort our mail into the respective boxes, sell a few stamps
and hand out the pensions every month) along the main road and turn right
into the dirt track. "OK Sam, off with your lead. Go and play a bit."
What a beautiful day it was, sunshine again! As I approached, I could see that his attention was riveted to one of those blue plastic bags that litter the countryside of just about all tourist resorts around the world. Someone had probably disposed of their barbecue leftovers and Sam, ever thinking of his stomach, most likely fancied a spot of breakfast. Nothing of the sort! Sam nudged the bag and it started squeaking. Everything fell into place at once - some ******* had disposed of an unwanted litter of baby animals! My heart beat faster as I undid the knot. It was a sad sight that met my eyes: there were five puppies, wringing wet, ice cold and almost asphyxiated in the bag. Three black ones, a reddish coloured one and a blonde one. Sadly, the black ones were already stiff. There was no time to lose; the two light ones needed urgent help! Holding the survivors close to my chest, I picked up the bag, called Sam to heel and headed for home. Now I'm not the fittest any more, but I gave Sam a run for his money that day. My wife almost had a fright when she saw me stagger in through the door, out of breath and panting like a steam engine with terminal bronchitis. "Take a look at this, Bianca, these little ones need help!" Quickly I explained the situation and opened the bag - another surprise: my shambling jog-trot had revived the other three. First things first: they needed a dry bed - "Sorry Sam, but it is for a good cause." So there we were, five tiny puppies huddled in Sam's blanket and us without clue what to do next. Sam seemed concerned as well and kept nudging his way in to get a look at the puppies. I trawled back through the memories of my army first aid teachings, exposure - warmth! "That's it! Bianca, fetch your hair dryer from the bathroom and bring a couple of the dog's towels as well please." It was now a life-or-death race against time. Could we get them dry and warm, or would they die? One of the black ones had what appeared to be a fit and then he went rigid, but a long buried memory told me that it couldn't be rigor mortis yet. For want of anything better, I tried a spot of chest massage and blowing into the tiny nostrils. The last thing I wanted to was to blow the puppy up like a balloon, but how much puff is enough for such a tiny creature? It's not the sort of thing you can practice on one of those blue track-suited "Resusci-Annie" dolls... It worked, "Number five's alive!" In the meantime, Bianca had phoned our friends Lakis and Andrea, they had lots of small animals in their back yard - perhaps they could help? "We'll be right over," was Andrea's reply. Two extra pairs of hands were soon at work drying the still wringing wet bundles of fur. It was a race against time, which sadly "Number Five" lost. He died in my hands. But now at least we had the others warm and dry enough to risk a trip into town to gain professional advice from the vet. Poor old Sam, all this fuss had left him somewhat confused and then we simply left him alone without so much as a by your leave! The vet was not very optimistic. He examined the puppies and concluded that they were no more than thirty-six hours old, to judge by the condition of the umbilical cords. "If they haven't had any mother's milk, then they'll not have any antibodies to combat any illnesses. It would really be best simply to put them to sleep." I pointed to a couple of yellowish droppings in the blanket, "That certainly looks like excrement from a milk feed, perhaps - just perhaps - there might be a slim chance..." He went on to explain just some of the many problems that would be facing us; a syringe full of the deadly fluid had already been drawn up! "I'd like to
discuss the situation with the ladies first, can you give us a moment
please?" Lakis hadn't come with us, work called, so it was up to
the three of us to decide upon the fate of three unlived lives. Now some
readers may recall that Carla-Faye Tucker had recently been executed in
the USA and that according to the reports, her "passing on"
lasted eight minutes - that's about the time taken to smoke a cigarette.
It was this analogy that struck me as we stood outside the vet's practice,
smoking a "fateful" cigarette. That was enough to swing the
decision for me, "Let's give the puppies a chance, I know it's going
to be difficult, but..." The vet's grin said it all as we left the surgery - he's not just a good vet, he knows his people too! If there's one part of the job that he hates, then it's unnecessary euthanasia. I can imagine his thoughts as we headed back to the car, "They haven't got much of a chance, but even if just one survives, then I'd bet that Sam's owners will keep it. They're not the kind of people who would give up on a helpless animal..." So there we were, back home with a Labrador, a tabby cat and four damp puppies! It was time to take stock of the situation, what had we got? 1. Three tins of "Nou
Nou Light" (Greek condensed milk, low-fat as recommended by the vet. Then I started to make notes about the puppies progress in my table-diary: 1 - female, reddish fur. 2 - female, black with white stripe from chin to belly. 3 - male, all black. 4 - female, blonde. Heavens above, three more women in the house! What do you say to that Sam and Pit? (Pit is our house-tiger that I mentioned before). What about their weight? Out with the kitchen scales... 330, 395, 280 and 370 grams respectively - they were tiny! Now that we had managed to get them reasonably warm and dry, it was time to see about getting some milk inside them. For someone with experience this would have been a simple matter, but we had to learn from scratch and no time for mistakes. We didn't even know if the tinned milk was the right stuff, the vet had simply said that whatever we did, we must not give them milk that you can mix up for human babies. There is far too much copper in human milk, and that is poison for dogs. Goats' milk is too rich and we didn't have a cow handy... Poor little pup, fancy having to suckle on a hard syringe. Number three was first, "I sorry little one, but I haven't got anything like a mother's teat handy at the moment." I pushed the plunger down a little to dribble some milk into the little snout. Although the hard thing may have seemed strange, the smell an taste were at least familiar, instinct took over and pretty soon I had managed to feed two cubic centimetres of milk. Not much, but it's a start. Pretty soon we had managed the same for the other three - at least they were showing the will to survive. It is amazing what a few drops of warm milk, a comfortable bed and warm surroundings makes. Looking down at that mixed batch we couldn't help but wonder what they would turn out like. We continued to blow warm air over them for a while - not too much, but they were still cold to their tiny cores. We gave them some more milk an hour later; again I was amazed at their will to survive. Were we doing the right thing though? Time alone would tell. Suddenly number two went limp, took one deep breath and went rigid. But before I had time to react, she had recovered. Although we were amazed by their will to live, we were beginning to have our doubts about their strength. These were reinforced during the course of the afternoon as number two had several more "fits" before finally slipping away just before eight o'clock that evening. In the meantime, we still had two other members of the family who required our attention. Sam was moping around like a rained out Sunday afternoon and Pit had disappeared in disgust - more dogs in the house, terrible! Suddenly they both seemed to have slipped down a few points in the popularity stakes. Besides which, we hadn't even had time for a shower or to brush our teeth and Sam's need to go out for walkies had to be considered as well. Bianca took this chore on quite happily; the last thing she wanted was for one of our foundlings to die in her hands. I felt sorry for Sam, poor old soul, it must have been quite distressing for him too, despite the fuss we made of him for his heroism. So now it was the first night of their new lives, numbers one, three and four were still with us. It was to be a long night: peer into the basket every few seconds, warm up some milk every couple of hours, fill the syringes and "a tank full of copper free, if you please." They were even managing a couple of syringes full now, although it still wasn't easy to get them to accept the hard plastic as a substitute for their mother's teat. But then, at seven a.m. it was as if someone had thrown an invisible switch - they finally accepted the syringes as if they had known nothing else. "MILK! YIPPEE! Give us more! Come on, come on - you're not pumping fast enough!" They had broken the ban, and although we had crossed a major hurdle, we could start to relax a little. It would be touch and go for the next few days, but now we could start to think of a future for the pups. But that wasn't the only surprise that Saturday morning. Sam must have seen our fumbling efforts at cleaning the puppies' mess away and finally decided that enough was enough. Whether it was instinct or not, he turned out to be the perfect surrogate mother. Nature doesn't provide "Pampers" for baby animals, so it is the mother's job to lick the young's droppings away. We'd tried, using a damp cloth, but it was Sam who did the right thing: "Move aside Boss and let the professionals show you how it's done..." It certainly made the difference at feeding time, us taking care of the input and Sam licking away at the puppies tummies to stimulate the digestion, as well as cleaning up the droppings. Things were looking good. Now it was time to think of possible names for the youngsters and to make notes about their progress. The following is an excerpt from my desk-diary: Number 1 - Ronja Difficult! Wriggles like an eel at feeding time. Still fights against the hard plastic syringe, but still manages 10 CCs of milk in one go. Oh well, if it means more frequent feeding, then so be it. At least she's managed to take 60 CCs on board during the past 24 hours and she's not lost any weight. The signs are good. Number 3 - Snuffles This one is undoubtedly the runt of the litter! He'd lost 10 grams during the nigh, but he seems to have put it back on now. Fidgets a lot when being fed, but at least it's going in. Has found his voice at last - noisy little blighter at feeding time! And as for table manners... what table manners! Had a few "fits" during the night, but came back each time. Let's just hope hi didn't suffer too much brain damage in the bag. Number 4 - we'll let Andrea think of a name for her Now here's a food disposal machine! She only needs to sniff the first drop of milk from the syringe and she's clamped on. We'll have to be careful with her, or shell swallow the syringe whole, or worse still, she could injure her gums. Suckles so hard, that we could probably hold her in the air just using the syringe. It's not surprising that she has hiccups. There's only one cure: pat her on the back just like a human baby... you should hear her burp! Right greedy little thing. It was now Sunday morning. The previous twenty-four hours were pretty much a repeat of Friday night - feed, feed and even more feed. Bianca and I feel somewhat washed out. Suddenly there was a commotion from the puppies' basket, a scrabbling noise, a dull thud, squeaks and more scrabbling, Snuffles had decided to do a bungee jump - without the bungee! There he was, scuffling around the kitchen floor, in search of milk. Unfortunately we had to take the animals over to Andrea that morning, we had to go to Athens - the trip was unavoidable. The following days were full of worry for us, how were the puppies getting on, was everything fine? I'd asked Andrea to take a few notes about their progress while we were gone, so I'll let her words tell the next part of the story: Andrea's Part Our foundlings arrived at eleven a.m., Chris and Bianca had already briefed us about the problems with the "fuel injection" feeding. Lakis has been giving the problem some consideration - we'd bottle reared a lamb recently, perhaps the teat might work, although the puppies are very small. Twelve noon: our first attempts with the lamb's bottle were a roaring success. Ronja and the little blonde pup both managed fifteen CCs each and even little snuffles managed ten. It was amazing just how easy it was with the bottle (even though the teat seemed enormous) - we just held it up to Ronja's little snout. There was a slurping, gurgling noise, and before we could say "Nou Nou Light" the bottle was empty! Wouldn't that just make ideal advertising for the milk company? Later: Snuffles is whining and squeaking! Is he hungry again? You bet! Fifteen CCs without pausing for breath! Ronja too and even little Blondie managed a good helping. Nevertheless, we are still somewhat worried about Snuffles; he's crying all the time now. Lakis had a look - perhaps the puppy's mouth and nose is dry. A few drops of water did the trick - he was asleep almost at once. Perhaps their noses are getting too dry under Chris' sun-lamp. I'll brew up some camomile tea in the morning and let them have a few drops of that every now and then, Ten-thirty p.m.: all three have managed ten CCs and are sleeping now. All is quiet in their basket. It's been a hard day for them... and for us too, good night. Half past three in the morning: a terrible discovery! Snuffles has died. I do hope it had nothing to do with his "bungee jump" Excuse the interruption here Andrea. We went through the photos and videos later. It seems to us, that the puppies knew instinctively whether or not the others would survive. "Blondie" and Ronja were always snuggled up together, but the other two are either seen off to one side or they try, unsuccessfully, to crawl up to the two girls. The photos from Saturday clearly show Snuffles "segregated" from the other two and I recall that he had quite a few "spastic" fits during those first forty-eight hours with us. Granted, the bungee jump left a "bump on the head" but it shouldn't have been fatal. Their second night with us. Ronja and "Blondie" (I still haven't thought of a suitable name) both slept through until half past six; we didn't need to wake them during the night for a feed. It seems that they are finding their natural feeding rhythm at last. During the daytime they're hungry every four hours or so and they manage a good sic hours sleep during the night. And so it went on for the next few days: feeding, sleeping, observation and putting onto the scales. The two girls really did well. At the end of their week with us, we could proudly report that Ronja now weighed five hundred grams and "Blondie" has shot up to five hundred and eighty. One more interesting thing has happened that is worthy of a mention here: the pups obviously needed a teat of some sort to suckle on. We'd discovered that they had taken to suckling each other's behinds and that was causing sore skin. This behaviour was a bit worrying, so I tried a baby's dummy - can you imagine it? A puppy suckling on a dummy? No? Then take a look at the photos - it works... We were able to present Chris and Bianca with two extremely healthy and lively pups on their return from Athens. They going to be well cared for until the time comes for them to find a new home and family. It's now late July
(1998) as I write this. The little ones are still with us - did you really
expect anything different? Andrea couldn't think of a suitable name for
"Blondie", but the pup made her own name known: Greedy! It suits
her to a T! Five and a half months old and eighteen kilos on the scales
- Ronja weighs in at just over twelve. Sam has cast his "mother"
role aside at last and is now the perfect big brother. The plight of animals
on the island is unchanged - Sam found a two week old kitten the other
week - its' mother had been run over (I couldn't find any others nearby
- let's hope that they didn't suffer...) Fortunately we found a caring
family for her. |