The Canine Holocaust

Gracie at five weeks

The Canine Holocaust is a chapter in Dogs Are Better Than People


There’s only one left. She has to be called Grace. As I hold her in my hands, I can smell the lavender lotion I used to massage her tiny body after I fed her through a tube. I watch her suck on my pinky finger as she drifts off to sleep – her belly full with formula and her mind clear of any worries. She’s the size of my fist.

I watch for a long time as her body rises up and down – quick short breaths that could indicate her impending death. Her heated bed insures her comfort. She’s cuddled next to a stuffed toy – but thinks it’s one of her siblings. Before she was the only one left, the others would all cuddle together for warmth and love.

Warmth and love are not easily found these days with death looming over her fragile life. My previous experiences with life and death were limited. But lately I have dealt with death on levels I was not prepared to witness.

Her name is Grace. Through the Grace of God – this tiny creature has survived her first month of life. At five weeks, she opens her creepy brown eyes – and looks with a startled amazement at the world around her. She’s eager to learn about her surroundings and walks with stiff legs across the tile floor to a mat that lies in the corner of the room. Her breath is strong and admittedly, it’s not cute. It’s overwhelming and it turns my stomach when I smell it. The smells of the puppies resonates the most in my mind. Even in death, they all smelled the same. And it is that smell that reminds me that Grace is the sole survivor of a pack of puppies birthed to a malnourished mother of 10.

I accepted rescuing a pregnant dog as part of a plan I was intended to be included in. And so when we picked her up at the shelter, it did not bother me that she was dirty, tired, and less than friendly. How could she be otherwise? At home, she settled in to her room with welcomed enthusiasm. Because she was too wide to walk comfortably, the Wawa, sat upright for one week with no sign of delivering any puppies. At the one week mark, I drove her to the vet where I was told she would require a caesarian section. Initially, my excited anticipation made me feel like an expectant father.

Ten puppies: five boys, five girls. They had to stay the night in the hospital, but come morning, they would come home with me where I would help to raise them by hand. One boy died that night. So in the morning, I drove home with nine puppies and the Wawa. I set up a large cardboard box in her room and put lots of warm blankets in the bottom. The puppies instinctively gravitated toward her nipples, but her lack of nutrition prevented her from offering her babies any milk. The vet had feared this and sent us home with an arsenal of tubes, syringes, and baby bottles. I was to feed the infant pups every two hours. By the time I finished feeding the last one, I had to start all over again on the first one. I didn’t sleep. Instead, I stayed up all night trying to keep track of who ate, who urinated, who pooped. These tiny creatures could do nothing on their own and even their elimination had to be stimulated. I had to use cotton balls to make them peep and poop. I did everything I could to sustain their lives, but by the end of five weeks, Gracie was the only one left; the only one to survive The Canine Holocaust.

To read the entire chapter on Gracie and her family of fussy puppies, check out Dogs Are Better Than People - a forthcoming book by M. Samantha Kinsley

The writing, photos, and thoughts on this blog are the intellectual property of M. Samantha Kinsley
All Rights Reserved, 2006.