Daniel's Story

This story is about a little sheltie with a BIG personality. His name is Daniel Radcleft, ironically named by my then Fiancé who has a great sense of humor. Daniel was born on March 27th, 2021 out of my heart dog "Sansa". As soon as he came out I knew something wasn't quite right. Daniel was born with a unilateral cleft lip. He was so tiny at birth, around 3.5 oz and was unable to nurse from his mother due to not being able to create suction on the nipple.  The next several weeks were a physically and emotionally exhausting time of round the clock tube feedings every 2-3 hours. Newborn puppies are extremely fragile and the emotional exhaustion is always extreme when you are tube feeding puppies, but especially because of Daniel's cleft lip. I spent many hours researching and wondering what I did wrong and why Daniel was born this way. Was his mother exposed to something during pregnancy? Was is something she was fed? How could I have prevented this? There was no clear reason why this happened, and my current thoughts are that there is likely a genetic component to clefts in shelties, and I am currently working with Dr. Clarke, a Professor at the University of Georgia, on researching the genetics of cleft palates in Shetland Sheepdogs. Many times puppies born with cleft palates are euthanized shortly after birth or if the cleft goes unnoticed at first, the puppies fade away from not being able to get enough milk from their mother. Occasionally breeders who are unable to provide the round the clock support needed to keep a cleft puppy alive will find a rescue group that specializes in taking care of cleft puppies. 

While all of these options ran through my head because this was the first time I had ever faced this type of situation, and I had people say I should just euthanize him for his quality of life. Daniel was born from my third ever litter of shelties and his zest for life was abundantly clear from birth. He was the most active puppy I have ever had. He was "running" around right after he was born. 

 

Eventually Daniel was able to drink from a bottle with a fat nipple that was large enough for him to create suction.