I recently purchased two 10 week old female French Bulldog puppies, one blue brindle and one blue fawn, from Laura Tassi in California (I am located in New Jersey). She shipped them to me via the airlines and I picked them up from PHL at 1pm on Thursday, December 27. The puppies had defecated in their crate before I received them. We got home about an hour later which I then took them out of the crate, proceeded to bathe them, clean their dirty ears, clip their long nails and wash the green discharge from their eyes.
The brindle female was very thin, but much happier than the fawn female. The fawn female was scared to death and didn't move very much. The puppies were very stressed out, scared, quiet and standoffish and their feces were very watery diarrhea in their crate; which was to be expected with them being so young and from their long journey from California to Philadelphia and their new surroundings. I threw the crate away because their diarrhea was all over the entire inside of the crate and the crate was broken and missing latches.
Being a breeder myself, I know that shipping and bringing a new puppy into a new environment does cause a LOT of stress which does cause diarrhea. So, I let the puppies rest and settle down for the remainder of the day and night in their crate in my home with dry puppy food and water, which they ate and drank very little. I had only taken them out to give them some lovin and let them go outside to potty a few times until the next morning. They still had explosive water diarrhea.
Friday, the next day, I let them play with my other dogs and the little brindle female was very happy, outgoing and began to play a little with my other dogs. The fawn female would just lay on the doggie bed looking sad and depressed. They were still eating and drinking very sparingly that day. I was very worried but thought they still may be totally thrown off from the flight and new home. I emailed and asked a veterinarian friend of mine about their diarrhea and activity levels that night.
The next morning the puppies seemed a lot happier; more bright eyed, playing with my other dogs, eating dry puppy food and drinking water on their own. My vet friend emailed me back on Saturday morning and suggested a bland diet of chicken, rice, yogurt and to try to get them to drink Pedialyte. She also asked if they could possibly have Giardia, Parvo or Coccidia. I then boiled up some rice and poured chicken broth over it and fed that to them all day Saturday. (That was all I had in my house and had no vehicle to go to the grocery store because my husband had our only car and was at his parents house due to a family emergency until 2pm.)
I emailed the breeder to inform her of the puppies status, that they seemed to me to not be dehydrated as of yet and to let her know I had them on the bland diet and if they did no improve by Monday morning, I was taking them to the vet. She replied with Chicken and yogurt will make them very ill if they already have diarrhea. You have to take them to the vet! I checked their gum color and lifted the skin on their necks every few hours and the color in their gums came back right away and their skin snapped right back as soon as I let it go, which to me showed no signs of dehydration.
The puppies did eat and drink more this day than the days before and did still have explosive watery diarrhea; but the fawn female began to have blood in her stool.
Around 9pm I let them go outside and when they came back in, the puppies health seemed to some what deteriorate since the last time I had them out of their crates and they were quite sluggish by that time. Their gums had began to get pale and the fawn females skin took 2-3 seconds to completely go back into place. I took them to the emergency vet at 10 pm on Saturday night. There they gave them IV fluids and ran a stool sample. They were both positive for Coccidia. The vet kept the puppies over night for observation and to give them IV fluids. They sent them home the next morning with Albon and eye drops for their conjunctivitis.
I'm proud to say that are doing 100 times better now! I have emailed Laura several times in regards to this matter and her only reply was for me to ship them back to her and recieve a refund of what I paid for these two pups. How am I supposed to get a health certificate for two very sick puppies who KNOWINGLY have Coccidia which is EXTREMELY contagious? She'd rather me stress them out more than they already have been over the past few days and ship them back to her for a refund (which I'd be out MORE money if I chose to do that) than send me a simple refund for the rather large vet bill I have acquired from all of this. Stay away from Laura Tassi!!
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