So after our first trip to the vet on Tuesday our suspicions were confirmed that Otto was way to young to leave his momma...he's only 3-4 weeks old! Fortunately, despite his young age he seems to be pretty healthy but he's only 1.5 lbs so the vet said we have to treat him like we would treat a premature baby. He mostly just eats and sleeps, but we have to feed him every 4 hours (now with some extra vitamins and fattening stuff mixed in) which means midnight bottle feedings and coming home every day at lunch for a bottle too. Usually he wakes up between midnight at 1am and cries/barks a little to tell me he's hungry. He sleeps in our room in a laundry basket so I always wake up right away and take him in the other room to feed him. Of course, Joe doesn't wake up at all and sleeps like a baby through the whole thing. He loves to feed him his after-work bottle, but no way is he getting up in the middle of the night...seems like some pretty good foreshadowing for parenting an actual child!
Usually I sleep pretty soundly through the night but ever since Otto came around I wake up pretty much every hour and shine a little flashlight on him to make sure he's OK. Usually he's just sleeping like he should be but if I can't see his chest moving I have to reach out and touch him to make sure he's still alive. At work, I worry about him all day. He's home and crated (he's so small that the crate gives him plenty of recreation room but protects him from Coby or doing something like eating wires) but he's just so small and young I feel like something bad could happen at any time. He's only ever home for 4 hours at a time in the crate but it feels so long and it makes me feel so guilty!! I just keep thinking that mothers of human children must feel this amplified by 10. The worry, the guilt, just hoping everything turns out well for your little one, it feels overwhelming with a puppy let alone a baby!
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| Otto tried to suckle Coby at first... |
And then there's our first born, Coby. I was always worried that if we got a second dog we would never love him/her as much as Coby because he will always be our first pup. But we've only had Coby since he was 5, we didn't go through puppyhood with him so even though he's our first, we never went through this formative bonding time with him. I think it's good dog #2 was a puppy because we get to catch up on the 2 years of bonding we've already had with Coby in a shorter period of time and it will even out. We've tried very hard to keep Coby on his same routine and show him plenty of attention too so he doesn't feel too displaced by and jealous of Otto (again, moms of humans this must be a real struggle for you). Slowly but surely Coby is showing more interest in his little brother. The vet knows Coby pretty well and when we took Otto in for his initial check-up she predicted they will become great friends so that was reassuring!
Much like human parenting, puppy parenting can be tough but it's so worth it! There is nothing better than a relaxing night at home with all my boys and they all make me want to rush home every day to see their happy faces :)
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