If you were to ask Michael what drives him absolutely crazy about his wife, he’d say that I’m impressively bad at picking up after myself (in my defense, I get around to it eventually). But if you were to ask him what else drives him crazy, he’d probably respond that I’m prone to bringing home any number of critters at random times (I have no defense to bring here, I’m guilty as charged).
We were planning to rear one litter of Scotties that year and we had plenty of prospective puppy owners decorating our wait list. We were hoping for a September whelping and all was going according to plan. Until I saw this:
This lovely Aussie mix was locked in the Marshall County Animal Control, along with five other pregnant dogs. Marshall County is the only municipal shelter local to us that euthanizes dogs for space. With this many mamas under one roof, the amount of puppies they’d have to care for would be obscene. I knew that if they didn’t get out of there that a lot of lives would be lost. But, I couldn’t risk having a mother dog of unknown medical background around our planned Scottie pups. On the other hand, local rescues were full and there was nobody with experience whelping dogs to foster her.
I knew that if I did this, that I’d have signed myself up for an extremely lengthy, very expensive decontamination process once all the pups were gone. I also knew that it meant taking not just one year off from breeding, but two. Some diseases have the ability to stick around on surfaces for years, and I wasn’t going to risk breeding again until a significant amount of time had passed between these litters. It would be a significant setback to our breeding goals.
I’m not sure what anybody else would have done in this situation. I suspect most breeders would have tsked a bit and then moved on to the next post in their feed.
What did I do?
…I cancelled our breeding plans and brought her home.
Fortunately, four other fosters were found for the other ladies. We’d banded together as a community and managed to get them all out. It was a Herculean effort. My friend mentioned that she used to have a dog just like her named Juniper. She needed a name and it seemed apt, so that’s what she came to be called.
She was heavily pregnant and had obviously had several litters in the past. She had likely been fed off of the bare ground, as every single tooth in her head had been broken off as the gumline. On top of this, she was absolutely terrified. I couldn’t get her to walk at first, she would just pancake on the ground. Moving her required the use of multiple belts to haul her to her feet and get her to move even the slightest bit. After about three days she warmed up, but my back still hurts thinking about it.
A week later, she whelped 12 puppies. Nine survived. Having never assisted such a large batch of pups before, I’m not sure if this rate of stillbirth is expected or not. Either way, the surviving nine did fantastic.
…At first.
Six days later, my favorite pup (the little teal collared boy named Harley) began to tremble and foam at the mouth. He cried pitifully with every breath. I gave him some Karo syrup to ward off hypoglycemia, but it didn’t seem to help. Even though the odds are slim at such a young age, I packed him up in a tiny basket and rushed him to our veterinarian. They whisked him back as soon as we hit the door and did a chest X-ray to check for pneumonia. His body temp was dangerously low, so he was rewarmed. He was given subcutaneous fluids and an additional oral glucose solution, but there was no definitive cause found for his symptoms. They prescribed him some medications to take every six hours, but he was still listless and wasn’t looking great. I didn’t have high hopes.
For the next three days, we syringe fed that little boy every three hours around the clock. My mom just happened to be in town at the time and she was a huge help. We rotated feeding times. It was clear that he had the drive to swallow, but he couldn’t latch on a bottle. I started giving him subq fluids twice a day as well. That last night, I thought he’d finally turned a corner. He was eating more readily and seemed to be perking up some. But when I woke up for his 5 AM feed, he’d passed.
It’s so exhausting and so heartbreaking to lose a pup, especially one that you’ve put so much time and effort into. I knew his chances weren’t good anyway, but I’m not gonna lie…that one hurt. It was also confirmation of my biggest fear: this litter was an active disease vector.
Which disease?
Who knows.
The rest of the pups continued to do fine. They grew like weeds! Juniper was such a gentle, attentive mom. She dutifully stayed with them as a mama dog should, rarely opting to jump out of the box to escape the heat lamps.
They grew and grew! I began posting about them on social media and several of my acquaintances were interested in adopting. The first one to be claimed was the little purple collared female, who her new owners named Layla.
One of the black short-coated females was the smartest little pup I’ve ever met. She could escape any enclosure no matter how secure. Every morning I’d walk into the kitchen and find her sleeping on the living room rug. Eventually I just gave up on keeping her with the rest of the litter and she roamed with us and the big dogs instead.
Then, Layla began exhibiting the same symptoms that Harley had. She tremored, foamed at the mouth, was listless, and refused to eat. I was terrified that we were about to lose her too.
I rushed her to the vet as well. Despite being wormed on a regular schedule, she was infested with an overwhelming amount of roundworms. The whole litter was placed on a potent antiparasitic medication and Layla also received steroids, subq fluids, and antibiotics. At seven weeks of age, her chances of survival were much better than Haley’s. Happily, she did pull through!
At ten weeks, the puppies were fully weaned, finally healthy, and ready to go. They traveled to a rescue up north and were all successfully adopted. I still keep in touch with most of their owners, although two never reached out to me to establish contact.
What about Juniper?
I became very attached to this beautiful, sweet, calm momma dog. I thought very hard about keeping her for myself. But ultimately, I knew we weren’t the right household. We don’t have enough space for a herding type dog, and it would have been cruel to force her to live on our little postage stamp of land. Even though it hurt tremendously, I passed her off to an old friend of mine back home in Southern Illinois. I transported her personally so I could eke out every last minute with her.
She’s done so incredibly well in her new home. She’s a beloved family member of the Smith clan, just as she should have always been. That girl truly is something special, and I’m glad she ended up finding the perfect home.
I spent the next several weeks after their departure going through an obscene amount of KennelSol. This is not an inexpensive solution, but I knew the price of entry before I volunteered to take them. This experience was so exhausting, heartbreaking, and at times demoralizing. I’ve never had a litter with this many illnesses and losses before, but with a lack of any prenatal care I suppose that’s not surprising. But it was also incredibly rewarding.
Together, we managed to save over forty canine lives from euthanasia. These dogs didn’t stand a chance without us, and we put in the work to make it happen. I’m so proud of this massive rescue effort that involved three separate organizations working together for the common good.
But it cost me a significant chunk of time. Skye will likely only be able to produce two litters now, instead of the three or four I’d originally planned. Considering how unusually low her COI is, that’s a loss for the breed overall. Scotties are becoming rarer by the year, and every bit of genetic diversity must be preserved.
Even knowing this, would I do it all over again?
The answer to that question is easy and immediate.
Yes. Absolutely, yes.
Dupplin Scotties 