[willowweed]

I had a cavalier king charles spaniel puppy just die recently. He was properly vaccinated, parents had all of the correct health requirements, and he had a vet check just a few days before with my vet and was perfectly fine. On Thursday morning, I let him out to go potty and he was energetic. Woke up a few hours later to let him out again and feed him, he was very lethargic and not eating. He was drinking normally and his stool was solid No fever but his gums were pale, so I took him to the vet. Blood work came back with him having almost no glucose, no protein, and a high white blood cell count. It almost seemed like his liver and kidneys just weren't wanting to function. He was also anemic, keep in mind, 4 days prior, everything was great with the blood work on that vet visit... They kept him over night, ran fecals, more blood work, ran urine, and did an x-ray. Nothing was out of the ordinary. They did many tests but nothing was coming up. I told them to run everything they could think of and he came back negative on everything. After a while at the vet, they told me to take him home and they would run some more stuff Monday. He had one more check up on Saturday, they said he was fine. Saturday night, he was started to not show so much interest in eat but all of his other vitals were fine, stool was solid (like normal) and he was playful and energetic. Vet told me to just force feed him since he was still energetic and drinking water and I shouldn't worry.
I was awoken by him whining and then he started to have a seizure in his crate. When he was done, he had his head bent back and it wasn't much later before he was gone. They got the results back from the necropsy and the vet just told me it was fading puppy syndrome.
Keep in mind, the breeder has been very forthright and courteous through all of this. I'm just very confused by just saying it was fading puppy syndrome and leaving it like that. Have any of you had similar experiences? He really was such a great little puppy even though we only had a few days together.

 

[Aspen726]

I'm so sorry for your loss

 

[Rain]

I'm so sorry for your loss!

From what I've been told my dog had it, and I can ask my friend who raised him (I got him when he was a year old), what they symptoms were.

I do know that the vet had her feeding him a special formula every 4 hours to combat it.

 

[Laco]

So sorry to hear of your loss. Doesn't take long to get really attached to them. I'm guessing 'fading puppy syndrome' is kind of a catchall phrase like 'failure to thrive', where multiple internal systems fail, for probably a variety of vague reasons. So sorry for your loss.

 

[TrackInDirt]

That is horrible I am so sorry for your loss.

If I had to take a blind guess at what could have caused the death though, I'd say possibly liver shunt or some other abnormality of the liver. It might not show up on a blood test if the liver was functioning normally at the time, but it would cause seizures and might be triggered by high protein puppy food.

Fading puppy syndrome does not occur in nine week old puppies. It's a catch-all name applied to some congenital defect which causes puppies seemingly healthy at birth to stop nursing and die - either that, or the dam smells sickness and refuses to nurse them. I don't, however, think the breeder can be faulted when these conditions cannot even be detected by blood tests, and the pup gave every sign of being otherwise healthy.

 

[Jmara]

I had a cavalier king charles spaniel puppy just die recently. He was properly vaccinated, parents had all of the correct health requirements, and he had a vet check just a few days before with my vet and was perfectly fine. On Thursday morning, I let him out to go potty and he was energetic. Woke up a few hours later to let him out again and feed him, he was very lethargic and not eating. He was drinking normally and his stool was solid No fever but his gums were pale, so I took him to the vet. Blood work came back with him having almost no glucose, no protein, and a high white blood cell count. It almost seemed like his liver and kidneys just weren't wanting to function. He was also anemic, keep in mind, 4 days prior, everything was great with the blood work on that vet visit... They kept him over night, ran fecals, more blood work, ran urine, and did an x-ray. Nothing was out of the ordinary. They did many tests but nothing was coming up. I told them to run everything they could think of and he came back negative on everything. After a while at the vet, they told me to take him home and they would run some more stuff Monday. He had one more check up on Saturday, they said he was fine. Saturday night, he was started to not show so much interest in eat but all of his other vitals were fine, stool was solid (like normal) and he was playful and energetic. Vet told me to just force feed him since he was still energetic and drinking water and I shouldn't worry.
I was awoken by him whining and then he started to have a seizure in his crate. When he was done, he had his head bent back and it wasn't much later before he was gone. They got the results back from the necropsy and the vet just told me it was fading puppy syndrome.
Keep in mind, the breeder has been very forthright and courteous through all of this. I'm just very confused by just saying it was fading puppy syndrome and leaving it like that. Have any of you had similar experiences? He really was such a great little puppy even though we only had a few days together.

This just happened to me and my wife. We brought our 8 week old boxer puppy home. She was perfect. Playing, no signs of distress. She was just tired and we thought it was because we had driven 3 hours with her the day before and it took a little for her to fall asleep that first night. Saturday from 6-3 she was perfect and then she busy suddenly started having what we thought were puppy dreams but she just went pale and limp. We did everything we could but by the time we got her to the vet, it was the same thing with the levels. I didn’t see any sign of “fading” all day and don’t know how she went from perfect to brain dead in a matter of a minute. I empathize with your loss. No one should lose a puppy.