L & T have been an integral part of my life, for over a year now. While raising them, I have often realised that finding stuff specific to Indies (as Indian dogs, and Indian-mix breeds are casually known) has often been difficult. Though I did benefit from a host of articles, blogs and journals maintained by people with dogs. I regret not archiving/ bookmarking many of the resources I came across over the past one year. But lessons have been learnt and I have now started maintaining notes on the topic.
L & T (and their two other littermates B and J) were born a year ago to my friendly neighbourhood stray, Lucy. Unfortunately Lucy didn't survive beyond three weeks after their birth, and I had four orphaned puppies in my backyard with nowhere to go. Partly besotted by guilt for not reading the signs and not having taken Lucy to a vet, me and my husband (with a couple of neighbours and friends) took to fostering these babies.
A previous experience with a triplet of foster kittens, had made us better equipped to handle the situation this time. This is what we put together the instant we decided to take the puppies in the house:
We were lucky to have a good samaritan drop a stack of hay for the pups and the mom when they were born. We used that to make a bed for them in the box when we took them in. (A few weeks later we lined the base of the box with a plastic sheet). We covered it with lots of newspaper. The light bulb is let inside from the corner of the box diagonally opposite to the one in the photo. The box was covered with a light cotton bed sheet with a small opening in the corner for air circulation.
Sometimes instead of the bulb, we'd place hot water bottles under the hay. Then put some rags and paper in there. If they felt cold, they'd go and lie exactly on the hay above the bottles.
We improvised a lot as the situation demanded. So things were added and removed. I had hoped to create videos documenting the whole process, but things were often quite overwhelming, and we were perpetually the sleep-deprived zombies like most new-parents for the first few months.
I will write more about the raising experience in a couple of days.
L & T (and their two other littermates B and J) were born a year ago to my friendly neighbourhood stray, Lucy. Unfortunately Lucy didn't survive beyond three weeks after their birth, and I had four orphaned puppies in my backyard with nowhere to go. Partly besotted by guilt for not reading the signs and not having taken Lucy to a vet, me and my husband (with a couple of neighbours and friends) took to fostering these babies.
A previous experience with a triplet of foster kittens, had made us better equipped to handle the situation this time. This is what we put together the instant we decided to take the puppies in the house:
The orphaned puppy/kitten starter kit
- A box, big enough to house the baby (babies).
- A large thick plastic sheet to waterproof the box.
- Lots of clothes/ clean rags/ blankets.
- Newspapers
- Tissue rolls (you'd need a lot of those, so go for the 6 pack set)
- A dustbin
- A heat source. We used a 60 W light bulb, hot water bottles, and a blower at various times.
The bulb and hot water bottles are ideal, since that will create a localised warm space in the box, and if the babies feel its too hot, they can move to the cooler section. - Start with a milk replacement formula. This is generally milk+egg yolk + water. The proportion will depend on how young the baby is. Alternately you could use lactogen (baby formula). There are also animal milk replacement formulas available in the market, they generally tend to be expensive though.
- A feeding bottle/ bottles if the babies are less than a month old.
- An apron. the feeding and cleaning can be a really messy affair.
- Zymopet - anti-flatulence medicine (absolutely must have if bottle-feeding).
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| L, T , B & J sleeping after a meal, nearly 4 weeks old |
We were lucky to have a good samaritan drop a stack of hay for the pups and the mom when they were born. We used that to make a bed for them in the box when we took them in. (A few weeks later we lined the base of the box with a plastic sheet). We covered it with lots of newspaper. The light bulb is let inside from the corner of the box diagonally opposite to the one in the photo. The box was covered with a light cotton bed sheet with a small opening in the corner for air circulation.
Sometimes instead of the bulb, we'd place hot water bottles under the hay. Then put some rags and paper in there. If they felt cold, they'd go and lie exactly on the hay above the bottles.
We improvised a lot as the situation demanded. So things were added and removed. I had hoped to create videos documenting the whole process, but things were often quite overwhelming, and we were perpetually the sleep-deprived zombies like most new-parents for the first few months.
I will write more about the raising experience in a couple of days.
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