When people speak about the power of a mother’s love, we assume they’re speaking about humans. But the truth of the matter is, the instinctual desire to protect and care for our offspring is not species-specific. It’s the reason we use the phrase mother bear.
We saw that instinct in action when the mother deer led humans to her trapped fawn. And recently, there was another example when a mother dog surprised the humans around her by advocating for her sick newborn puppy.
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The dog waited for someone to come to the door.
A female dog in Istanbul, Turkey, carried her unconscious and cold newborn pup to a veterinarian’s office looking for help. Security footage captured a dog carrying her unmoving puppy to the door of the Beylikduzu Alfa Veterinary Clinic, the Associated Press reports. She got to the door and waited for someone to open it.
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The puppy was cold as ice.
Baturalp Dogan, a veterinarian at the clinic, said his friend and colleague Emir, immediately opened the door. “At first he can’t understand the situation because it’s very strange,” he said. “A dog comes with a puppy in its mouth and drops the puppy on the ground.”
Despite the confusion, Emir brought the puppy inside the office. “It is not possible to understand at first whether the puppy is alive or not,” Dogan explained. “The animals is already cold as ice.”
The puppy’s heartbeat was so slow it couldn’t be heard.
Emir thought the puppy could be dead. Dogan came in to look. “I said, ‘Wait, let’s look at his heart.” Dogan explained that the puppy’s heart was beating so slowly, they couldn’t hear it on a stethoscope. “When I checked with a needle, we noticed a very slow heartbeat.” Once they realized there was a chance, they started fighting to save the dog’s life.
The vet is optimistic.
Thankfully, the effort proved successful. The pup, his sickly brother, the mother dog, and her four other pups from the litter are all doing well. Dogan says it’s impossible to say whether they will live a long life. He said it’s a process. The vet will continue to monitor them. But he does believe they will get better.
