Life and death of puppies

Over the past couple of months, two puppies died on me.

The first one was called Jade, Casper's sister (the only puppy I have with me now), who died a bit more than a month ago after we took her to see a vet in Wanchai Animal Clinic for minor bacteria infection on her tail. The vet put one of those dog collars on her, and she had been shivering to death (I think). She was so afraid, and probably had a heart attack, but we could never be sure as I did not ask for an autopsy. She could still be alive if I took the collar off (a bit too late now for feeling sorry for not doing it then...)

The second one was Hollie, or Holly, who died last week. We adopted her to be a friend of Casper when she was about two and a half months old (10 - 12 weeks), and only had one vaccine against some of puppies' deadly deceases. It turned out that by the second day that she was with us, she already developed severe diarrhea and was unable to eat or drink. We took her to see a vet around midnight of the second day that she came to live with us, and the vet diagnosed that she suffered from a very dangerous virus infection (for dogs) called "Pavo...something". It was likely that she already had the virus with her even when she was with the breeder (i.e. even before she was given to the pet shop, before the pet shop gave her to us). So that night we went back to the pet shop and asked the pet shop and the breeder to look after her until she got better and became 100% healthy. Before Chinese New Year, we got her back, and even took her to see our "new" vet again (about 10 days ago), and the vet said that she was fine. After a couple of days she suffered from flu and probably bacteria infection and we gave her medicines and things for a week.

Then one morning after the second day that I put her to sleep in the same cage as Casper she didn't "fully" wake up. Somehow she slept under a pillow, and Casper unknowingly slept on top of that pillow, so she might have been squashed between the mat and the pillow, and was unable to move, and...probably lost all energy, and was unable to bark or cry. I went to sleep around 3:30am in the morning and did not find anything unusual, not until the morning when our helper, Avi, came to pick the pups up to go toileting. When our helper, Avi, took Holly to the vet in the early morning after she sensed that she was in a very weak state, it was already too late.

I guess I had to blame myself for not being careful enough especially with small and sick puppies, and I guess I also had to blame the pet shop as well as the breeder for not taking care of the pups properly, even before giving Holly back to us before the Chinese New Year (why the rush). I have a very bad experience with raising young pups, as well as with pet shops and dog breeders here. No point putting all the blame to everybody else, as I also should have known better.