Thanks guys.
I'm not even sure what happened. One of my Golden Retriever puppies had a horrible stool with some blood in it, so I took the sample to the vet to see what was wrong. It was determined that somehow that pup had coccidiosis, which we think was brought in by me on my shoes and some of the pups like to chew on my shoes when they are playing in the kitchen... my puppies are not allowed outside or around any other dog outside of its mother. (Ironically so they do not catch anything).
Even though the other puppies seemed fine and another stool for another pup tested fine, I wanted to treat the whole litter to be on the safe side, which meant I had to take the whole litter in in order to be prescribed medicine. (The vet didn't charge for complete exams on all the pups, but said by law in order to prescribe meds, the pups at least had to make an appearance at his office)
A young guy works there and he was helping me carrying the crate full of puppies to my car and I had already asked to take a break to set the crate down for a minute because it was heavy. I was thinking I needed/wanted another quick break when I saw we were only 12 feet from the car, so I decided I could finish without the break.
Then all of a sudden I heard and felt a loud pop. Dead center of my back. So I lowered my end of the crate and was trying not to cry, but I couldn't straighten up and I'm whining like a baby due to the pain.
He had heard the pop and thought it was the crate and was kinda freaked out when he realized it was my back that made that sound.
We stood there for a couple of minutes, him hanging onto my arms with me still trying not to cry and telling him I was sorry and embarrassed about this. I was slowly able to straighten up enough to walk funny and slowly moved around the parking lot some while he finished loading up my pups.
Driving home hurt like hell and I took tylenol right that second and as soon as I got home, took ibuprofen and tramadol before I even called my kids. They came over and got the pups out of the car and medicated the pups for me and filled the woodstove, etc.
The vet and I had discussed the puppies and decided I should not allow any to leave for a week so I can keep an eye on them and they will be on 2 different medicines, one for a week and the other for 2 weeks.
Problem is, I had allowed one pup to leave the night before as she had that pup picked out and a deposit on him shortly after he was born. So I called her and she didn't want to meet me at the vet's office (they wouldn't give me meds for that pup unless I brought it in with the rest of the litter).
I told her I have never sold a sick puppy EVER and that I wanted her to take her pup to a vet and have it tested to be on the safe side, and that I would be voiding her check (essentially giving her the pup for free) for her trouble. She did say that her pup seemed fine and his stools were good.
In the meantime, I had already advertised the pups and have all kinds of calls and people wanting to see them. I'm not sure how to handle that. Other than the one puppy that had the bad stool, the rest of the litter with the meds and the wait time is more of a precaution, but I'm afraid people won't understand that and I'm not sure how/what to say to people.
I can pull my ads, but I came home to lots of phone calls that I haven't returned.
The bright side is, this morning all pups seems fine and no nasty stools.
My back hurts like hell, but I was able to get wood in the stove this morning and adult dogs pottied, but I haven't tried to give meds to the pups yet as that requires a lot of bending over.
I don't really want to take pain meds before I medicate them as I'm afraid of screwing up the dose, but damn, I'm dreading the bending down, etc.
Okay, sorry for going on and on, I just hurt like hell and can't think straight about what to do about phone calls on the pups. I have a great reputation for having healthy puppies and I don't want that to change and I think if I say the pups can't leave for a week, people are going to immediately think “backyard breeder with sick pups”.
