If your puppy is sick, he may not be drinking enough . . . or at all! Here are some hints to help keep your puppy hydrated and on the road to recovery.
Things You'll Need
- Gatorade
- Dropper
- Purified water
- Laundry basket
- Old sweatshirt
Instructions
Take your puppy to the vet. Before taking matters into your own hands, make sure you have your puppy checked by your vet first. Your puppy may be too ill or dehydrated for you to nurse her back to health. If your puppy is very ill, the vet may have her stay for observation, or send you to an emergency clinic.
Start hydrating your puppy on a strict schedule if your puppy isn't ill enough to be kept at the vet. Typically this means hydrating anywhere from every half hour to every hour. This may seem often, but if your puppy is refusing to drink it is important to get as much liquid into him as possible. This means even carrying on through the night until your puppy is drinking on his own.
Make a mixture of fluid for your puppy. You can either choose to use straight, purified water or a mix of Gatorade and water. This mixture should be at a 50/50 ratio. Gatorade contains sugars and electrolytes that help your body hydrate better, as these additives help you retain the water. Straight Gatorade would be too much for your puppy, however, but this 50/50 mixture has the perfect amount of sugar and electrolytes as well as water to hydrate your puppy.
Use a plastic dropper to administer the fluids--not glass, as your puppy may bite down on it. Dogs will most likely not suck on a dropper themselves, so the best method to do this is to place the dropper in the corner of her mouth and push it in about 1/2 an inch. Then you can squeeze the dropper and release the fluid basically in the back of the throat, preventing her from being able to let it drain out. Hold your puppy's head up for a second or two after each squirt to make sure she gets all of the fluid.
Stick to a very simple diet of rice that has been really saturated with chicken or beef broth. Giving your puppy regular food could cause him to develop diarrhea and become even more dehydrated.
Take your puppy back to the vet to be checked. Make sure that if your puppy does not seem to improve, or gets worse, that you take her back to the vet immediately. If your puppy does improve, make sure you revisit the vet as a precaution.