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Berni's Pregnancy
Berni had a relatively normal pregnancy until she reached about
day 25, when she developed the most horrendous ear infection I had ever seen. There was no way that this nasty infection
was going to clear up on its own, and even though I always try and avoid giving a pregnant dog any kind of antibiotic, I knew that I had no option on this occasion. I took
Berni to the vets were I made it most clear that she was 5 weeks pregnant, and for them to ensure that anything they
gave her would not affect her and her babies. I was given an antibiotic in liquid form that I had to put in her ears
3 times a day. After a week the infection cleared up and all seemed to be fine.
The day that Berni was due to
have her puppies came and went, she'd had pups previously and everything had always gone smoothly so I was getting
very worried. I rang the vets and arranged to have an X-ray to see what was going on. Things just went from bad to worse, the X-ray machine broke down,
so after four x- rays we only managed to get a very poor x-ray of 2/3rd's of Berni's womb but we could clearly
see one puppy. I took Berni home on the agreement that if she did not give birth overnight then I would bring her back the
following day and have a CS. Nothing happened overnight so we went back to the vets in the  morning, the 12th January 2006, and a CS was done. Much to our amazement when I went to collect her, there were two pups not one, the
other pup was obviously on the part of the X- ray that didn't come out.
I took Berni and her two babies
home and settled them into the whelping box in the lounge but the pups did not seem to be feeding very well, they were both
quite small. The following morning I was not happy at all with their progress and I noticed that one of the pups, the apricot girl
was very weak, the black girl was slightly stronger but not much. Berni did not want to know them, she would move across
the whelping box and stay as far away from them as she could and had an absolute fit when I tried to get them to feed on her,
I thought this very odd but I could not mess about as these pups were not going to make it. So off to the supermarket
to get some condensed milk and a baby bottle and I bottle fed both pups. The black girl sucked well, she was very hungry
but the apricot girl did not do so well and later that evening she sadly passed away. This just made me more determined
that I was going to keep this little black girl alive. So that’s how it all began
Abandoned and Fighting For Life
I made up a small box, put a heat pad in the bottom with a thick warm towel and a black cuddly
dog toy, this was the puppy's new temporary home adjacent to the sofa, that was now my temporary home. I fed the pup every
3 hours day and night, this made for exhausting work and I felt like a walking zombie most of the time.  The little black girl fed from the
bottle well and there were no concerns at all until she was about 10 days old, that is when milk started coming out of
her nose while feeding, because she had fed fine for the first 10 days of her life it never occurred to me to check for
a cleft palate. A few more days of feeding and she started to rattle when she breathed so I knew we had a problem. I
made an appointment with my vet and took my little baby to see what the problem was. The vet could not understand it
either, as she had been fine for 10 days but she was completely amazed when she noticed that this little wee baby had a huge
cleft palate. I was shell-shocked and so upset I had to fight back the tears because I knew this was not the best
of news, milk through the nasal passages will cause inhalation pneumonia and for such a wee baby  there was a slim chance of battling though it. She went through all the options and the one she advised
was to put the little pup to sleep, I just would not consider it.
This little baby had fought against all the
odds to make it this far so I was not going to give up on her. As long as she fought I would fight too, I looked down
at her laying in the towel in my lap and said to the vet that I was going to take her home, if she was only going
to have a short life then it would be one filled with love for as long as we had her for. I asked her to give me some antibiotics
to clear the infection then I would battle on and see how we go. Immediately
on return home I hit the internet, I searched the entire world for information as to rearing cleft palate puppies and I came
across a website in North Carolina, USA (Henwood Labradors) she had hand reared several cleft palate puppies
and had written all about the special care they require on her website. http://henwood.tripod.com/id88.htm This was just  what needed, a full guide on how to care for these special puppies.
It was time to give this little girl a name and what else could I call her but 'Bubble' (as she blew milk bubbles out of her nose). I carried on feeding her and giving her the antibiotics, but after a week the infection had not got
any worse but it had not cleared up
either. Bubble was not doing very well at all. So I took her back to the vets as the website that I had been referring
to advised that most vets prescribe one of the penicillin family such as Amoxicillin, Clavamox or Cephalexin, Bubble
had been prescribed Clavamox but Cephalexin was the only antibiotic that consistently prevented pneumonia. So I
told my vet all about this website and about trying a different antibiotic, (she said they don’t usually prescribe this
antibiotic because it can cause liver damage if used frequently) but liver damage in the future was the least of Bubble's
problems so she agreed to switch the antibiotic to Cephalexin. One week later and Bubble was still battling on, we decided to keep her on a
small liquid dose of antibiotic alongside her milk to try and prevent this for happening again but she was still struggling
with drinking from her bottle and small amounts of milk were still coming out of her nose so I knew that it was a  waiting game to see if I could keep her on milk until she was 3 weeks old to give her a chance but it was becoming a
real struggle. I took her back to the vets when she was just over 2 weeks old as we needed to increase her antibiotics due to her weight gain and she
was still not clear of pneumonia, I got some more antibiotics and that is all the vet could really do. Everyone at the
surgery loved little Bubble, everyone was rallying for her to make it.
The next few days Bubble became really
ill and I really thought that this was it, that all the struggle was going to end for us both and Ian and I were very upset.
Ian came home from work that evening and fully expected Bubble not to be there, I was asleep on the sofa and he looked into
her box but could not see her as she was curled up with her big black shaggy dog so he thought we had lost her, he didn’t
know until I woke up that she was still with us just fast asleep with her sibling substitute the shaggy black dog. But the little fighter was not going to let pneumonia
get the better of her, for what felt like the millionth time she fought for her life, a few days later she was much
better and I knew then that I had to get her off milk if she was going to have a chance at making it without continually getting
inhalation pneumonia due to the milk.
Bubble and the Big Wide
WorldBecause Bubble was
being bottled fed if we needed to go anywhere, we had to take Bubble with us along with feeding bottles, baby wipes,
the lot, (just like a normal baby) Bubble caused quite a stir wherever we went.
 Bubble was almost 3 weeks old when I started her on water and kibble. Puppies like her have to bypass the mushy,
gruel stage as anything entering the mouth has the potential of ending up in the nasal passages and sinuses. Dry
food does not go through the cleft
and plain water poses no threat either. The kibble had to be small enough so she could swallow it whole and not that large
that it got caught in the cleft, so kitten food is ideal because it is very small morsels, so I started her on Purina One
Kitten Kibble. It took a few days to get used to her new diet but she soon got the hang of it. I was still feeding
her with a bottle but it was now water not milk, after about a week we needed to try and rig up some way she could get water
on her own when she wanted it as the kibble made her thirsty, she was unable to lap from a bowl at this stage as when she
lapped it just ran out of her nose so Ian had a great idea, use a bunny drinking bottle !! Bubble was now getting
bigger so I moved her to a 3ft plastic dog cage where she had a separate bed and an area for her food bowl and we hung the
water bottle on the side of the pen for her. This enabled me to be able to go to bed at night, much needed. Ian or I got up
in the middle of the night to let her out for a wee because at 3 weeks of age she a fully housetrained and rattled on her
bottle when she wanted a wee, bless her. The next few weeks ticked by and she was getting much stronger and bigger, which was a huge relief. All went well until
she got to 8 weeks of age. Now it wasn’t the milk that was causing problems it was dirt, debris, grass, leaves
and everything else that a young baby puts in its mouth. She needed another course of antibiotics to clear an infection,
she was that poorly that she could not have her puppy vaccinations as planned. Once she got over the infection we started
her puppy vaccinations, bought her a little puppy coat to keep her snug when she went outside and it was time for her to go
out in the big world and meet her doggie family.
Little Bubble had not really had much in the way of dog interaction
in her short life because she had been too small and fragile and too ill most of the time, so it was a very scary thing for
her. But after a few days she was fine and quite happy interacting and mixing with all the other adults. As Bubble started to grow so did the cleft in her mouth and the
kibble started to get stuck in her palate along with debris and allsorts so we needed to be able to clean all this out or
she would just continue to keep  getting infections. We purchased a mini spray paint kit and filled the spray with water, we wrapped Bubble up in a towel turned
her in her back and literally power washed her cleft out. As you can imagine Bubble was not impressed but it had to be done . We made this a weekly task,
it got to the point that as soon as Bubble saw the towel she made a run for it, poor girl. Because Bubble could not eat anything other than her small kibble and water, I could
not risk her getting hold of any of the others dogs food more so meat or bones so Bubble had to be kept separate from the
other dogs most of the time (when not outside playing etc) so she stayed with us.
Bubble was now doing really well,
she was growing well and finally getting socialised to her new wide world. Over the next several months she got a few
respiratory infections so it was back on the antibiotics. I just watched her carefully and tried to catch it early.
We did realise that she did not cope well with cold and wet weather and this brought on nasal infections, so I bought her
quite a comprehensive wardrobe, a coat for every occasion, but his definitely helped in keeping her warm and dry while been
outside. I knew that I could not keep giving her antibiotics on and off for
the rest of her life so I started to look into surgery to fix her cleft palate.
Plastic Surgery for little
BubbleOn 13th November 2007 my friend Jess and I took Bubble to the Veterinary Specialist Group - Unitec in Mt. Albert,
Auckland. It is a purpose built hospital which is one of the leading specialist veterinary facilities in the Southern
Hemisphere, it is the  collaboration between Unitec and a group of New Zealand's most qualified and experienced vet specialists. Our
appointment was with Dr Alex Walker BVSc (Dist) MACVSe who is a registered speciaist small animal surgeon. For him to be
able to see the full extent of Bubble's cleft palate he had to sedate her so he could examine her properly.
I left Bubble in his care for the afternoon and on my return I was greeted by a shocked surgeon. Once he sedated
her and opened her mouth fully he could clearly see a lot more than he thought he would be able to, Bubbles has
no nasal workings at all just a huge cavity , this was very surprising as she had a perfectly correct nose from the front.
He advised us that he was pretty confident that he could repair the cleft but he could not do anything about her
nasal problem, that we would have to cope with.
So on the 5th February 2008 Jess and I took Bubble
for her major operation to repair her cleft palate and left her with Alex and his capable team. Before Alex
could start work on her palate they had to insert the gastric tube into her stomach which would be how we would feed Bubble
for the next 4 weeks while her mouth healed from the operation. I had arranged to stay with some friends of mine
Roseanne and Adele in Weymouth. I knew that the day was going to be a very difficult one so I thought I needed something
to keep me occupied and busy, so we all decided to go to Auckland Zoo for the day. We had a great time and it was just what
I needed to try and stop me worrying myself sick about my baby girl. I rang the surgery at 4pm to see how everything
had gone but Bubble had only just come out of  surgery and was in intensive care. Alex said that everything had gone really well, he had managed to repair the
entire cleft and Bubble had come out of it all fine and that I could come and see her in the morning.
When we
arrived at 9am in the morning Bubble started to bounce in her pen the minute she saw me, my little babe. Bubble's
vet nurse had just fed her via her feeding tube and she said that she had be a darling and no problem at all (that’s what comes from being a hand reared little
girl, she does anything you ask and is so good to handle). It was very very hard to leave my little girl there, I could
hear her crying from the corridor she just wanted her mum. Alex said that I could take her home the next day and to
come back in the morning and he would go through her feeding regime and how to cope with the gastric tube and her after care
needs.
The next day could not come soon enough, Jess
and I arrived at the surgery 1st thing, Alex showed me how to feed Bubble and gave me a special calculated diet sheet,
some Science Diet Liquid Feed as well as some antibiotics and pain relief for her, then we were good to go. As long
as there were no problems Alex would not need to see Bubble again until her stomach tube could be taken out in 4 weeks
time. The advice from Alex was to try and keep Bubble quiet with no exertion!! yeah right easier said than
done. Because of the delicate stitches in her mouth she was not allowed to have anything in her mouth at all and the
only toys she could have would be soft ones (I had to clear the house and garden of every tennis ball there was). Bubble loves her toys and
is ball  obsessed so I had bought her some soft educational toys to play with. I had to keep her separate from the other
dogs because I did not want them to get rough with her and damage her feeding tube so poor Bubble had to stay more or less
on her own apart from with Pebble our elderly Beardie as she could be trusted not to knock her about. To cover
up the feeding tube and prevent Bubble from getting the urge to chew it I bought her some doggie T-shirts that covered up
tube and she looked pretty cute in then too. Bubble could not have any food or water by mouth whatsoever so everything
had to be put away.
The first night we brought her home we were awoken
by a bang, so Ian got up to see what it was, Bubble had got off our bed and was in the kitchen, he flicked the light on to
see Bubble with a pork chop bone in mouth making a run for it into the office. The little tinker !!! We had never had
to worry about leaving food on the worktop in the past because Bubble's sense of smell was so bad she didn’t really
smell it, but obviously she had a
great sense of smell now her cleft was fixed and the smell of the pork shop bone got the better of her so she had jumped onto
the worktop and stole it. It’s a good job that we heard her or else no end of damage could have been done to her
very expensive mouth. From that night on we never left anything on the worktops. I had to  feed Bubble 3 1/2 x 156g cans of special Science Diet Specially Formulated Food mixed with 2 cans of water every day,
this was divided into 4 x 162ml feeds. The tinned food had to be mixed with warm water and liquidised to
a smooth consistency so it could be fed via syringe. I had to flush the tube with 5ml of body temperature water
then attach the food syringe and feed the slurry slowly over 10 mins, any faster and it could make Bubble vomit. Once
the food had been finished the tube again had to be flushed out to keep it clean and prevent blockages. Her antibiotic
and pain relief tablets had to be crushed and put into the syringe also had she cannot have anything by mouth at all.
All went really well for the four weeks, no toubles at all with feeding. The difference in her was quite amazing though, she had a sense
of smell literally overnight, she could sniff out her toys whereas before she would have to rely on seeing where the
toy had fallen, it was like a whole new world to her, she sniffed everywhere she went, is was all very weird.
On 7th February 2008 Jess and I took Bubble back to Dr Alex for
a check up and if all was well to get the feeding tube removed. He was very pleased with her progress and the tube was
removed. He said that hopefully her mouth will be fine but there was a slim chance that skin at the back of the
cleft which was the widest point could split in the future because the skin was very thin in this area, as it had to
be stretched very thinly to cover the large gap, but if that was to happen then she would need another small repair in the
future. So Jess, Bubble and I headed back home to Whangarei.
The Future is Looking
Bright For BubbleA few years have passed now since Bubble had her operation and all is still good, she is a normal
happy little girl. I am still limited to what I can feed her, I still won’t give her moist food of any kind as
it still causes problems for her, so she has chicken  necks, wings, cooked meat in chunks and kibble. She still does get respiratory infections every now and
then but she will get them throughout her life , so we just have to manage it the best we can.
I cannot thank Dr Alex and his nursing staff at The Veterinary Specialist Group
enough for all their great care of Bubble, they are truly dedicated amazing people. All in all the total cost for Bubble's
consultation, operation, after care, medication and special 4 week diet amounted to approx. NZ$4200 which I think was
a small price to pay for what difference this has made to  Bubble's
life.
Despite
everything I have gone through to get this little dog to this point I would do it again without hesitation if I had to.
Bubble is the most adorable, charismatic, brave, amusing, totally devoted little girl I have ever known and I would not part
with her for anything in the world. I had no idea when I decided to try and save her that this journey was
ahead of me, but it is a journey that I have enjoyed so much, it has been full of tears, heartache, stress, and worry,
as well as lots of love but it is a journey that we travelled together and fortunately she was a fighter, and we made it.
Cleft Palate Information
Cleft palates
have long been considered to be just a genetic disorder but now it is clearly known that environmental agents are also
linked with the defect.
The term teratology is any substance, agent or process that interferes with
normal prenatal development. This broad terms includes hereditary disorders and chromosomal anomalaties. Embryonic
tissue is particularly vunerable to teratogenic agents
Nutrients
Riboflavin
Deficiency * Vitamin A Deficiency * Vitamin D Excess * Vitamin E Excess
* Zinc Deficiency
Antibiotics
Chloramphenicol (Chloromycetin) * Tetracycline
Other drugs
Aspirin
& Other Salicylates * Corticosteroids * Dilantin
Anthelmintics (Worming Preparations)
Vermiplex
Pesticides
Cyclodiene (Aaldrin, Dieldrin)
Miscellaneous
Dehydration
Vaccines
All modified-live-viral vaccines potentially teratogenic.
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