My Orphaned Boston Terrier Puppy Died Suddenly

by jody
(san antonio,tx)

I found a 1 week old orphaned Boston Terrier puppy, and have been bottle feeding it for 3 weeks. We were told that at 4 weeks we could give it a mush mixture. She was very tiny. She lapped it right up, though. We thought she might need this since she was not growing very much. I read that they might need water if they start consuming solid food mush. She lapped that up as well out of a little glass. It was distilled water. She had little lumps on the sides of her ears like where the human lymph nodes would be. It almost seemed they would get bigger when she sucked real hard on the bottle to get the milk out.

Well, my husband started giving her water out of the bottle when she first woke up. She seemed to be getting stronger. She was walking around a little. Holding herself up and this morning she was crying as usual for her feeding. He picked her up and started to give her water from the bottle and she instantly died!!! Do you think that she could have aspirated without a sound? Is it bad to give water out of the bottle? Or do you think that maybe those swollen glands had something to do with it, or is that normal? I know there is only so much you could answer this way but we are soooo sad and don't understand what happened!! Thought she was going to make it!