April 1,2002. Our Shih Tzu, Sable, has her first litter. We are so nervous and so excited. The daddy, Gizmo, also a shih tzu, watches every move we make. 5 healthy pups. All the same size. No runt. All moving towards their mommy to nurse. All wiggling and nuzzling. All is well. We are so happy. April 2,2002. They sure are a fiesty bunch. 1 Girl, 4 boys. One of the boys looks like he is a little skinner than the rest. Maybe we have a runt after all. He is defiently not gaining wieght. The others have almost doubled their size. The little piggies. They must be pushing him out of the way. We move the other pups so our little guy can have mommy all to himself. He doesnt seem to be able to find a nipple. We put him on one. He falls off. He nuzzles and wiggles. He must be tired. April 3, 2002. He can barely move. We pick him up and he very weak. We know we must get some food into him. We make up some puppy formula and feed him with a dropper. He just lays in my hand with his mouth open. I have to rub his neck to get him to swallow while my husband holds the dropper to his mouth. He starts swallowing. The roof of his mouth doesn't look right. We check the other puppies. Something is definatley diffrent about this little guy. We keep trying to feed him and rub him. He is moving better. We warm him up with the heating pad and nuzzle him to our neck. He can hold his head up better and is moving around alot. He is pottying now when we wipe him. He is responding well. He is a Little Fighter. He will make it. We just need to give him extra care. April 4,2002. He is doing good crying, responding when we touch him, holding his head up. Except now he has blood in his stool. It is also very runny and seems to burn him. He cries until we get it off and put vaseline on it. He likes warm water run over his little tail. The blood is worrying us. We take hime to the vet. They say he has a cleft pallette and that he never got to nurse from birth resulting in low immunity. He probably has an infection. They give us an antibiotic and teach us how to tube feed him. They say they would be surprised if he makes it. We are determined to do everything we can to make sure he does. Even if he does survive they say he will need surgery to repair the cleft pallette. That's okay, whatever it takes. All this for a pup we orginally were not going to keep. We only wanted the female. Now we could not give up on this little guy. It looks like we will 4 dogs. Mom,Dad,Sis and little boy. Thats ok. We can do it. All seems well. Hopefully the antibiotics will kick in soon. April 5,2002.12:30am He is gone. What happened? We tried so hard? He was trying. He was going to make it, But he didnt. He went to sleep. And didnt wake up. He looks so peaceful. His tiny little head. Did we hold him too much? Not enough? Did we do all we could? He had a full tummy and was warm and dry. I guess that is all we could do. God knew he would have a hard time and took him. It still does not make it any easier. It just makes my head and my heart hurt worse. I look at the other puppies. So fat. So strong. Why couldn't he have been like that too? At first I do not want to even try to like the other puppies. It is not fair. He struggled so hard and they just get fatter an healther, while he faded away. I take a shower and realize it is not their fault. They are just puppies and they need my too. I do not want to bury him, but I know when daylight comes it has to be done. We will put him under the cherry tree next to our beloved Sadie who passed 2 years ago and was the best Shih Tzu in the world. She will watch after him. God will watch over all of us. All we can do now is cry for what we lost and try to hold onto and love what we still have.