Mouth-to-Mouth

Now it can be told: our dog (Bunny) had her puppies under the back steps. She dug a nice hole, actually unbalancing the steps themselves. We knew it was prone to flooding so we moved a dog house Bunny frequents in the rain near the back steps. We moved her and puppies into the house Thursday night as rain threatened. (It drizzled). Friday we moved her back to her preferred spot under the steps.

Monday I posted on our weekend trip to the Camden library. As we headed back towards Bethune, it was raining a bit-nothing to worry about. But as we neared home, we noticed (the rain had stopped) the puddling was pretty hefty. Earlier I had been teasing daughter about the rain and the puppies as she had been expressing concern all along.

We arrived home and daughter dashed to the back steps. Bunny was in the dog house, but the puppies were under water underneath the steps. Daughter cries for help and starts retrieving puppies (white skirt and up to her elbows in mud and water.) We start patting (to get them to spit up the water) the puppies and rubbing them. All look dead or close to it-but none are. One died shortly. Number 3 son-our dog expert-says that mouth-to-mouth rescuitation on dogs is possible, "just put your mouth around the mouth and nose of the puppy" he tells us. So daughter starts. It was not my favorite thing to do, but with daughter doing it diligently, what else could I do? She and I did this to two pups in particular for about an hour. The rest seemed okay after patting and rubbing. Although within a couple hours another had died. Bunny took all the remaining into the dog house. (Bunny, by the way was crying, shaking and distraught the whole time.)

Of the two we administered mouth-to-mouth, one died that day. In the morning two more were dead (possibly one being the other pup we worked so diligently on.) Five pups left-seemingly healthy-this being now 4 days after the drowning.

My kids have certainly seen their share of animal death around here. I am not an animal lover by any stretch, but here I am hand-feeding rabbits with a syringe and now giving mouth-to-mouth to a dog? I must be crazy. Maybe I should move to the backwoods...