puppy wont grow

[carfre20]

My small dog had a litter of puppies 13 days ago. After 2 days, one of the pups stopped eating. I started formula feeding her and she started to perk up. She eats .5 to 1 tsp of formula every 3 hours. I would love for fer to eat more, but she looks like she swallowed a golf ball if she eats an entire tsp. Sometimes it takes a while if she's not into it and other time she eats really good. She is also attempting to nurse form her mother when she can get past the others. The problem is that she will not grow. She has energy and is trying to stand and walk (not successful at that yet). She seems to be developing at the same rate as her siblings except in size. She weighs 3.5 oz and the others are almost 1 lb. She is having normal bowel movements at least once a day and urinates every time she eats. Do I need to be doing more? Is there dwarfism in dogs, or does it sound like there is something serious going on?

[Aleda M Cheng, D.V.M., C.V.A]

I am very sorry about the loss of your pup!

It was very kind of you to try to help that pup.  In the wild that pup would not have had your help and would probably have died in 3 days.  The fact that she was not growing leads me to believe that her body was unable to sustain growth, as in a congential problem of almost any organ system.

[ireneo]

I'm so sorry about the loss of your puppy. Sometimes, for whatever reason, a baby just doesn't thrive. Then they're susceptible to infections. Although I work with wildlife, I've seen it happen occasionally. I'll get a group of orphaned nestlings (birds) or some very young mammals. Most will adapt to the new diet and grow. But I've had some that no matter what I try, they just won't thrive. It's hard to see. Again, I'm sorry this happened.

[carfre20]

Update. Unfortunately the puppy answered my questions for me. She rapidly started to decline when her digestive system began failing. We made an emergency midnight trip to the vet when she started having a lot of pain, but because of her size and age we were unable to do anything to help. We were all doing everything that we could to help her fight to live, but for her sake we had to let her go. We will miss you Hope. For anyone who is going through the same problems with one of their pups, the vet said that at about 2 weeks is the time when infections or other complications become apparent for an underdeveloped pup.