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"I
received this in today's email September 19 1998 from Owen Gaede"
Thank you for posting this information on the Web.
It has saved another puppy. We have a litter
of five labrador retrievers that are now almost 5 weeks old. One
week ago we were very depressed. My wife had just taken one of the
yellow pups, "Belle," to the vet. We had
become concerned that despite the fact the litter was nearly 4 weeks old,
she hadn't gotten up on her feet yet like all her litter-mates. Our
vet was very concerned and suggested putting her down, but agreed with
my wife to "give her five days." We tried doing physical therapy
with her, but last Sunday I was really concerned as she had not shown
much progress. My wife mentioned to me that the vet had mentioned
the phrase "swimmer puppy," so I did a search of the web. I didn't
come up with much, but I did find your site.
We immediately made a "jacket" for Belle.
Immediately we noticed she would stay laying on her side when placed in
that position. Wearing the jacket, she would also nurse on her side.
Amazingly the next morning, we noticed a significant improvement in
her ability to raise her head off the ground. Each day since, she's
made great progress. By Wednesday, the day she was to be put down,
she stood for the first time. Today we
put her and her mates in the grass for the first time and she actually
ran around! She's now playing with her litter-mates and holding her
own.
She still wobbles and has a lot of development before she will
catch up to the rest, but she's going to make it and have a full life.
She'd probably be dead today if it weren't for the information on your
site. When we told our vet this story, he asked us to fax him copies
of your web pages, which we've done.
One suggestion I might add: Because Belle was a big puppy, standard
socks were too tight for her. We used the largest women's "stretch
top thigh highs" that are 92% nylon micro fiber and 8% lycra spandex, available
at Walmart. These had enough stretch in them to accommodate her.
Also, while we started using cotton balls as you suggested, we found for
her two blocks of foam rubber worked better. It was lighter, cooler,
and gave her higher elevation than did the cotton.
Thanks again from the bottom of our hearts.
Owen Gaede
Tallahassee, FL
Belle's photo will be posted later at (web site longer active)
http://home.earthlink.net/~cgaede/puppies5.htm
Thank you Owen for the suggestions and pictures of Belle, every bit
of information added to this site will help the next puppy.
Coreen
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