My friend had a litter of French Bulldogs. After a few days of the mom pushing this girl aside and her trying to bottle feed some to get her going she was going to give up and I asked if I could take her. Just curious, How many of you think that when the mom pushes them or they are a fading puppy it is best to let them go??? Ok so we are on 5 weeks old tomorrow and she is 14oz, wants nothing to do with soaked or soft food just a bottle. We did a sonogram and vet said maybe some extra fluid but not enough to declare her hydro?? I thought for a while she might be deaf but she does kinda try to find me when I call her. I have fallen in love with this little hampster size puppy. Vet does not know what to look for without it costing a lot and she said if she is retarded then there is nothing to fix that. She is not a sick puppy just not right I guess. Any thoughts other than just love her? The breeder says she has a home for her and the lady has the money to test her for all kind of stuff and treat her. I guess I just worry because of everyone around she responds to the sound of me and and in the dopey bow-legged way she walks she gets on my should and sleep under my hair. She does sleep a lot for a 5 weeks old puppy. Just got teeth this last week as well. She seems happy or as least not unhappy. Does not play or run as if she does not know how. Just eats, potty and sleeps for the most part.

Poor baby. Maybe she's just delayed. I've often wondered if dogs can have some of the mental handicaps that people have??????? Let us know how she does.

Well that was what the vet said was that her best guess was like down syndrome. She has these bulging eye balls that has only gotten worse as she gets older. She is a great cuddle bug though. I will keep you posted as I think she is a neat little girl.

If you took her when she was a few days old she didn't have the siblings to play w/ so she may not know how to play. My mother in law had a Dalmatian she got at 5 wks and she never played like she should have. I would also have the vet listen to it's heart again to see if that could be why it is to small.
Good luck w/ her.

It is possible it might be heart related. I whelped a litter a number of years ago ( 90's ) sired by a popular stud dog that produced TVD. The breeding took place before any knowledge of the TVD situation. Most of the puppies were born dead or dying but I did have two living yellow girls. The dam kept pushing one of them away and I kept returning her ( many times she picked the pup up and deposited her out of the box ) and I also started tube feeding the puppy. Mom finally accepted her but as the puppy grew it was obvious something was not right. The pup hardly had any energy and her normal sibling didn't play with her or do anything with her that normal pups do. At 6 weeks she was euthanized for PDA. Lesson I learned was don't mess with Mother Nature and the dam always knows if something is amiss.

I too learned to take cues from the mother of her litter. When she pushes a puppy away most times there is a reason.

Though, I've had a couple dams not push her pups away when something was wrong with it..such as a cleft palet. Sometimes first time moms will not quite pick up on congenital things in one of their pups and will go about nursing it as normal.

On one of my first litters there was this very runty looking puppy that the mom kept trying to push away. I didn't know better so I kept putting him up to the milk bar for the first 3 weeks. Then the puppy started getting girgly sounding so I took him to my vet. My vet exrayed the little guy and found him to have lots of water on his brain and he was blind. I had no clue he was blind because his eyes had opened up with the rest of his litter mates but how he got around so well was his keen sense of smell. He had developed pnemonia as well so I had him euthenized at 3 wks old.
Another one of our earlier dams had whelped her first litter and her first born was very very small. She didn't have all her hair on her like normal but she didn't look deformed. She was active that first couple days but the momma kept trying to eat her. Finally, I took her instincts to heart and had her euthenized when she was under a week old.
We also had another dam who was such a happy momma when she would whelp her puppies. She could care less if one of them had something wrong. She would clean them up, nurse them but I had to step in and take the pup out and to my vet to be euthenized. This particular dam truely loves all her pups unconditionally and all the other pups born here.

She has been to the vet for little things about every week. until the last week she has always aspirated and gurgles on milk. Then it clears up a few minutes after. At four weeks my daughter stepped off the couch and she cried for the first time for about an hour. Vet could not find anything broken so we waited it out and she was fine after that. She is back to not making a sound. When we first got her and she went from mom to formula she could not poop and had to have an enema. So vet put her on laxatone and I started adding more water to her milk. So now she has had water diarrhea. So next trip I am going to do a fecal and maybe see if she can check her eyes. They have always had a little bit of haze to them.

So sorry to hear about this puppies many problems. Has your Vet checked his abdomen with an Xray to see if there are Intestinal issues? It sounds like its an absorbtion issue as it is so small as well as only appears to want liquid food? What formula milk are you giving the puppy?

I started her with Esbilac from the vet. She was not growing so i went to a home made of Goat milk, yogurt, egg yolk, and karo syrup. She still did not grow so i thought it was not the formula and went back to the esbilac. I was thinking about asking my vet about something a friend told me once. Said she had a puppy with a fold or retracting intestines???

Formula I have used successfully as well as many other breeders. Esbilac just does not seem to have the ability to sustain puppies correctly.


Boil one large piece of liver in a cup of water (add water if needed) until it is very cooked. Strain the liquid and freeze leftover liquid in ice cube trays and keep in plastic bag. Don't worry about liver being a filter and having toxins. So does cat poop, but the dogs will all eat it and have since they first evolved. Hasn't killed them yet.


One 10 can of goats milk
3 oz of Liver water (above)
One raw egg yolk
One cup of whole fat live culture yogurt
One tablespoon of mayo or canola oil
One dropper of infant vitamins
One teaspoon of Karo...light or dark...doesn't matter which

Mix in a blender, keeps in your fridge for 7 days. This is a thick formula, so adjust holes in nipples if necessary. It can be tubed. It has 10-12 calories per cc which should allow for good weight gain on your babies.

This is my thought on this formula

It is thick enough to avoid aspiration
There is enough yogurt to avoid diarrhea issues that are so common with tubing
There is enough glucose to avoid hypoglycemia
There is also enough glucose to avoid constipation, common with tubing
There are enough calories to set up a weight gaining pattern immediately
Amino Acids in sufficient quantities to avoid juvenile cataract
It is high in Fats, Proteins and Carbs with vitamins, minerals and iron and designed especially to head off the problems we all seem to have with tubing/hand raised babies.

Hopefully your Vet will be able to see if its intersuception or telescoping of the intestines? Please let us know. Wishing you good thoughts on the pup.