Well, we had a bit of a scare with the Olena x Crunchie babies. On Monday after lunch Mark and I were messing around with the pups and found a BIG lump in the lymph node region of two of the pups - Twizzler and Skittles.

We called over to the Clinic and after discussing symptoms and the puppy's behaviour (completely normal - nursing, playing, etc, etc) they scheduled us in for an appointment the next day.

Never having experienced anything like this with a litter before, I did some searching on the Internet. All references to swollen lymph nodes in pups pointed to 'Puppy Strangles' - not a nice disease, but they didn't seem to have all the typical symptoms of that either.

So yesterday afternoon Olena, all the pups, Mark and I headed into the vet - at just under 3 weeks, they still travel anywhere as a family.

Collin quickly pronounced the lumps, which were now bigger, as abscesses. Both pups had their little throats shaved (well more like trimmed, rather then a real shave) and a hole put in the accesses for them to drain. They were also put on a week of antibiotics (liquid ones as they are too little for pills).

Why we have two with this is a puzzle. As I said, we have never had anything like this in any puppy before, let alone 2 in one litter. But, it seems to be resolving itself well in both pups after treatment.  I can't find any trace of a lump on Skittles today, and Twizzy's lump is almost completely gone.  Both are still fat and sassy and never missed a meal or a play session because of their issues.

Phew!

Karen