In a world where hate, strife and division seem to reign, there is a little piece of Heaven here in the Four Corners.
It all started when a mother dog was bitten in the face by a rattle snake last Sunday. Sienna is a 4-year old Australian Shepherd. At the time of the incident, she had eight beautiful 3-week old puppies she was nursing. The puppies were just getting started learning to sip water and eat a mash. On a recent walk, Sienna checked out a prairie dog hole only to meet up with Mr. Rattle Snake. He snagged her with one fang in the nose and as she pulled back, scraped all the way down her nose.
Sienna did not yelp but did run over to her owner. I looked down at her and said, “Aww, you scratched your nose baby girl.” I have a kennel, Cherokeewind Kennels, in Dove Creek. We have lived her for eight years with no sign of rattlesnakes. But that evening, we got a healthy dose of what a rattle snake can do.
We rushed her into Montezuma Animal Hospital in Cortez where treatment by Dr. Hawkin’s started. IV’s, antibiotics, steroids, benadryl, pain meds and, then, anti-serum, which Sienna had a bad reaction to. The vet looked at me and said, “You have to pull the pups”. Between all the drugs and the snake venom, Sienna’s milk was contaminated.
That is when this wonderful community came to the rescue. A friend, Kim Anderson, called and said, “I have some goats milk.” I went to go get it. I didn’t know at the time that goats milk is closely related to puppy milk. I had to warm it and stick my figures in it and back to the puppy’s mouths trying to get them to drink.
Puppies need to be fed every three hours, so bottle feeding eight puppies would have been a challenge. Eventually, they did begin to lap milk. I put word out on Facebook and another gal, Carol Newton, said she was getting goats milk gathered up. Carol, contacted her vet, in Dolores; Dr Jenny, who got with folks who had goats and everything just took off.
People I do not even know came forward donating goats milk for the puppies. Everyone in the area were calling or emailing, “What can we do to help”. My vet, Dr Susan Grabbe, was in close contact with me through it all to offer her advice.
The whole community came together to save a litter of Aussie puppies. The puppies learned to eat mash and lap milk and started growing and developing normally. We made it to four weeks.
I just wanted to thank this loving community for all they did, all the prayers and all the help I got to ensure the health of eight little Aussie puppies. With all the bad you see while watching the news, it is just so heartwarming to see compassionate, caring people that surround us here.
Elaine Eschtruth
Dove Creek