Four days for a lifetime - Jacob's story
While yesterday was a happy tail of epic proportions, not all days in rescue are happy ones. Sometimes you have to find the joy in the sadness and the hope in the pain.
That is Jacob’s story.
Jacob was born last Thursday night 1/9/25 sometime around 2 am. His mom, Nelly, is a heartworm positive hoarding case survivor who came to us 12/28/24. Nelly, along with 44 of her friends and family, were taken in by animal control after their owner overdosed and died in their wreck of a “home.” We have no idea who dad is except one of the many dogs trying to survive and create some sort of existence amidst the trash and filth of a drug addict’s life.
Nelly went to the vet Wednesday 1/8/25 and was x rayed, confirming 4 babies waiting to make their introduction into the world. That is the last full night of sleep I’ve had since that day. Nelly didn’t wait long. We barely had her nursery set up when, about 2 am, she started birthing. She wasted no time. By 4 am she was done. I kept an eye on her and was simply there for her but she knew what she was doing and turned down my help. She had this. She did not need me. She was ready for her family.
Two boys and two girls were born.
It took only one glance to see that we had a huge difference between pups.
It wasn’t just the size. Jacob was not like the others.
Jacob’s legs were not working. His feet were there but that was all. They hung and turned back, useless. He could wiggle his whole body but he could not push towards mom with his back legs. He could suckle but he could not knead the nipple to stimulate more milk production with his front feet. He was strong in his core but not elsewhere. Jacob was different.
We are drawn to different here at the poodle farm. We all love to be part of the story of overcoming adversity and pushing on. We love to make winners. I talked to our vet and sent pictures and video. Yes, he said, sometimes, the body would correct this. Give the pup a chance.
We try with all of our dogs to make them the best they can be. We set about making Jacob the best he could be.
Nutrition is the key in a puppy’s first week of life. The first 24 hours it is absolutely essential that puppies nurse from their mother. Mom is making something called colostrum that first day. Colostrum is super milk, highly charged with antibodies and protein that only occurs in the first 24 hours. It’s job is to jump start the puppies into health, loaning them an immune system created by mom herself until their own can kick in. Getting colostrum into Jacob was our first goal.
Jacob’s suckle was strong on Thursday and Friday. He could hang on and use his mouth to bring that life giving fluid into his body. We rotated the pups, making sure Jacob and Judy, the other tiny one, got full nursing sessions every 3 hours around the clock. It’s exhausting but oh so relaxing at the same time. You simply sit with the family and time it. Pups should nurse for 45 minutes at a time. When bigger siblings Richard and Virginia would try to push the tiny ones out of the way, we diverted them with snuggles from humans and blankets to climb, all the while keeping the littles at the milk bar. By Saturday, Jacob was gaining just a tiny bit of weight. Not much, not like his brothers and sisters, but a little. We knew we would go to bottle feeding soon but I was trying to give him every bit of mother’s milk that he could take.
Sunday, Jacob started slipping backwards in weight. He would try to nurse but he was weak. He could not hang on to the nipple. A 45 minute nursing turned into 40 minutes, then into 30..and he would slip off. He tired with the least bit of effort. This was more than nutrition. Something else was wrong.
By the time we got to the vet Monday, things were looking very dire. Doc found he had not one but two hernias inside. They were, at that point, the least of our worries, but it made me wonder what else inside was not strong and healthy. His legs, which had started kicking a bit at the knee, now hung useless.
Nelly and her family spent Monday in an incubator at our vet clinic. Every hour, Nelly was milked and Jacob was tube fed. His temperature stayed dangerously low, between 95 and 96 degrees. He could accept about 1 mL of food every hour. That is not enough but it was what he could do. When we picked him up at 6 for night shift, you could see he was struggling.
We kept trying. Settled at home, he started getting a little warm. We switched to formula and kept the tube feeding up. I knew at the 11 pm feeding, that he felt different. He was fussy, uncomfortable. He was so weak and his little cry broke my heart. He was leaving us.
He passed just before 2 am. I sat with his little body and then gave him back to Nelly. She tucked him under her and looked at me with big, sad eyes. She knew but she was not ready to give him up just yet. I let her keep him with her for a while. She was his mother. She needed to say goodbye.
20% of liveborn puppies die in the first 21 days. 70% of those die in the first week. (source Royal Canin on infant mortality in dogs and the role of colostrum in the first few days ). It is what I absolutely hate about birthing puppies because life is precious. All life. It breaks my heart that there is such a high chance that you will be burying a baby. But it is part of it. To avoid not having to bury a puppy, you have to say no to all the puppies. To avoid the pain, you also must avoid the joy.
In this case, the joy is we got to save Nelly. Nelly was in a shelter. She had already been passed over by several other rescues because she tucked herself way in the back of the cage. She was pregnant and alone, homeless and scared. She had no time or energy to try to impress a human with all that going on. But - she was pregnant. Leaving her was not an option. Knowing the heartache we were setting ourselves up for, we said yes anyway.
In life, you can live in a bubble. You won’t feel pain. You won’t feel joy. You’ll be safe and you will be starved - starved for the things that make life worth living. To get those, you have to take the risk. That is, to me, Jacob’s legacy. To remind us that we take the risk. That we gave him a chance. That his brother and sisters will go on to happy lives.
That we’ll do it again. Because there is joy in this sadness and there is hope in this pain. They are all together. You don’t get one without the other.
Sweet dreams Jacob. You weren’t here long but you made an unforgettable impression.
Donna - you & everyone else involved deserve a hug. The love you gave Jacob in his short life was so special. Thank you for everything every day at CPR!
Thank you for never giving up on these babies. Mary Jean