ZCOTS STORY

the heartbreaking story of a puppy who first refused to die, and then had to live with a handicap.

This is the story about Zcot, a collie-puppy born october 17. 2000. He was one in a litter of 7 puppies, their mama`s 3. litter.

On the evening before this litter was born, my husband got very ill, he sweated and tossed in bed all night, and I could not sleep. In the morning I had to call an ambulance to get him to the doctor, and from there he was sent directly to the University Hospital in Tromsø, 210 km away.

I had to leave the expecting mother alone, as I went to the doctors office to supply my husband with necesseties for the hospital stay. I left in good faith, for the litter was not due in another 5 days.

But all the excitement around my husbands illness had obviously affected my bitch, because when I came home, she had already had the first puppy. It was born just inside my front door, and I had to rush the puppy and the birthing bitch off to the prepared place, "the litter-box" in the puppy-room.

As my husband was ill, the task of tending the cows fell on me, and me alone, and when another puppy was born, I had to leave them alone to go to the barn for the evening milking session. Whenever I could leave the cows for a moment, I ran back in to see how the bitch was coping. It was not ideal, but the best I could do. I had no-one to call for help, since the time was so short, and my helpers far away

When my work in the barn was done, and I could concentrate on the birthing bitch, she had finished, all her seven puppies were born. She had managed gloriously on her own, with no other helper than my cat, Amanda. She had even cleaned up every single trace of blood and birth-covers from her beddings. But the puppies were born five days ahead of schedule, and were small and fragile. Still, all seven lived, and I spent a sleepless, but more or less peaceful night with the newborn litter and the mother. Next morning I had to leave them again, to tend to the cows, but before I left I had the bitch out for her needed tasks . She is a very good mother, and usually don`t want to leave her newborn puppies at all, but have to be mildly forced.

The return from the barn was dreadful. The bitch had gotten diarrhea and had pooped all over the floor in the puppy-room. It was a mess. I had to let her out again. She ran to and from all that day, and the next, with a running stomach, and totally refused to eat. She took no food, and almost no water, and soon lost all her milk.

After a few hours the puppies got noisy, obviously hungry, and I decided I had to make some additional food for them. Since the nearest Zoo-shop is 75 km away, and it was impossible to get milk-powder, I had to make the milk from a recipe I had found in a book. I started feeding the puppies tiny drops of extra food, but two of them were already so weak, they would not suck, and did not want to swallow on their own. I had to massage their neck to make them swallow. This task took a long time to perform, all of them should have had a drop every 15 minutes, and none was too keen to feed from the bottle, so as the hours went by, the puppies got weaker and weaker.

When I had to leave them for the evening work in the barn, I feared for their lives. And rightfully so, because when I returned, the smallest one had died. During the two next days I fought for the puppies lives, and lost one by one. It seemed to me each time I had to leave the litter, to tend to the cows, I lost one more, until at last, after 3 more sleepless nights, the mother got better, and started eating. I could feel her tits grow. The milk was coming back.

By that time I had three little ones still clinging to life, and Zcot was the smallest one, the next on the death-list. He weighed only 120 g when he started on his 5. day, 70 g down from his birth-weight. But he was clinging to life, desperately sucking for milk at his mothers tits. Still he could not get any milk because his mother didn`t let it down. That was when I took into use the last remedy I had.

We sometimes get oxytocin from the vet to give to the cows, to increase the giving down of milk. Now, I got out my vet-book on dog-obstetrics and found the right dose to give a dog. Then I set the dose in under the mothers skin, and watched the puppies have their fill from their mothers milk, for the first time in 4 days. That was a great sight. But Zcot sucked so hard and long, he obviously had to much for his little stomach, and he started whining for pain. For two hours he whined like a little siren, while I rubbed his belly with a cotton-ball soaked in oil. Suddenly he had a belly-emptying, and then he fell asleep, and was silent. I can not remember ever having been so relieved!

I had not had a wink of sleep since the day before my husband got ill, that was going on 6 days ago, and I was so tired, I almost fell apart, but I knew I had to stay awake with the puppies still another night. That night I fell asleep twice, and was startled by the whining puppies trying to feed. I was so tired, I hardly managed to help them.

From now on the puppies started growing, slowly but surely they got bigger and developed into fine little dogs, alert, full of fun and looking beautiful. Zcot was the smallest one, but not any lesser in spirit than his sister and brother.

Then one morning when the puppies were 6 weeks old, I came to get them out of the puppy-room, where they spent the night together with their mother, and found that Zcot was paralysed. He could no longer walk, but dragged his hind-legs after him. I rushed of to the vet, 45 km away, with the little one in a bag.

A thorough examination by x-ray and other means followed, but did not reveal any severe damage to cause this paralysing. The vets, three of them who participated in the examination, agreed that he must have had a minor damage to his spine, and that he most probably could regain the use of his hind-legs. But it would obviously take time. I got some cortizone-medicine to give him for the next 10 days, and then went home with my poor  little boy.

For the weeks and months to come, I watched my baby fight his way back up on his feet, stumble and fall, start over again, and never, ever giving up.

He had no obvious pain, and this was a great comfort to me, but I could see him fight two steps forward, and fall one step back all the time. Growing steadily bigger, but still stumbling ahead in his own unsteady way. And during this time he had his eyes checked, and proved to be all clear of CEA. His littermates left for their new homes, but he remained.

He was so full of spirit, never complaining, never giving in to his faith, and never even considering to give up. I think he never accepted that he had a handicap, and he behaved in every way like a normal puppy, playing with his mother and big sister, picking up toys, running around after balls, and constantly craving evrybodys attention.

And as the snow and ice left the grounds of my native country, and the dry soil became his normal walking-ground, he quit falling, quit stumbling, and started to regain the full use of his legs. In the end a small limp in his left hind-leg was the only thing to give his former handicap away.

Five months old he was able to run up and down the steep stairs in my house, and found it so amusing, that this became one of his favorite hobbies. That was when I decided he was ready for a new family. And off he went, to a new life, as the pampered pet of a young family with their own sheep-farm, and the promise to become a shepherd dog in the future. I honestly had no doubt he could do it.

But 5 months later he returned. He had grown big and beautiful, his limp was down to almost nothing, but his family prooved to be too slack for him. He took over the ruling of this little family, and since he was not old enough to be a leader, this made him very stressed. He was returned because they could not handle him.

I used a lot of psycology to make him realise he did not have to make his own decitions any more, and he was soon back to his old calm and comforted self. He still got stressed, but that didn`t last for long.

He prooved to be a true male, when my neighbours golden/ES mix suddenly had a litter of 10 puppies no-one had expected, and half of the litter showed a definite merle pattern. No other male dog around could have given that color!!! And he was only ten months old at the time the mating took place.

Zcot stayed with us for another year, and in spite of his limp he had his hips x-rayed and prooved to be free form Hip-dysplacia.

But in the winther of 2003, with tempatures down to -40C for weeks on end, he started to show signs of discomfort. His limp became more and more pronounced. He no longer enjoyed to climb stairs, and started to bark whenever climbing stairs was needed. As you can imagine this caused a lot of stress, both in  him and my other dogs. I discussed this behavior with my vet, and we decided that this was a sign that he was in pain. He needed to get an adrenalin kick before mounting the steps, to avoid the pain. We decided to let him end his short and painful life.

On january 20. 2003 Zcot fell asleep for the last time, while I held him to my chest and tears rolled down my face. He was a brave and valiant dog, with high spirits and a marvellous courage. He would have been a great working-dog, done wonderful in all kinds of dog sports, and made a fine breeder if he had had better luck as a puppy. I will allways remember him with pleasure and delight, for his mind and spirit was so very close to my ideal for a collie.

My Chieftain O`Zcots was special and unique. I guess he will always be.