I dug three tiny graves this weekend

Attila - Big Dog litter

This morning, the forest is quiet again.

The crickets sing softly beneath the Ponderosa pines while the remaining puppies sleep in a tangled pile beside one another, their enormous paws twitching as they dream.

Every so often, one lets out a sleepy little yip before pressing deeper into the warmth of a littermate.

The cool mountain air drifts through the trees outside the den while dawn filters gold through the branches.

Looking at them now, you would never know how close we came to losing everything.

Only a few short days ago, I truly believed this entire litter might die.

It began with what should have been one of the happiest memories of their young lives.

Last week, as I wrote in an earlier email, the Big Dog Litter experienced their first great adventure through the forests of eastern Washington surrounding Dire Wolf Project™ headquarters.

I had specifically waited until one week after their second puppy shot to expand their world into the great forest unknown.

For the first time in their young lives, the gate to their enclosure stood open, revealing the larger world waiting beyond the boundary they had respected since birth.

At first, not one puppy was brave enough to cross it.

Even with the gate standing wide open, they remained clustered together, quietly studying the invisible line they had been taught never to pass.

It was one of those moments that captures the true nature of the American Dirus™ dog so perfectly.

They do not recklessly throw themselves into the unknown.

Instead, they observe first with thoughtful inquisition.

Their bright eyes watch carefully before deciding whether the world beyond the boundary feels safe enough to enter.

Then slowly, curiosity overcomes caution.

As I mentioned in one of last week’s emails, Marmaduke was among the first to step forward.

Elektra followed close behind him.

Soon pine needles crackled beneath oversized puppy paws as the litter wandered beneath towering Ponderosas with noses lifted into the cool mountain breeze.

Their tails swayed gently while they investigated deer trails, fallen bark, damp earth, and the endless tapestry of scents carried through the forest.

The surviving puppies followed me through the woods like a tiny dire wolf pack discovering the wilderness for the very first time.

I remember smiling as I watched them weave through shafts of sunlight beneath the trees.

How perfect the moment felt.

I had no idea what was coming.

If you recall, Marmaduke was feeling under the weather, but the next day he was back to his ol’ michevious self.

What I didn’t mentioned, though, was that not long afterward the next day, one of the puppies suddenly developed severe dark red watery diarrhea with an odor so overwhelming that my stomach immediately tightened with dread.

Then another puppy became ill.

Then a third.

Within hours, the atmosphere inside the puppy pen had completely changed.

Playful sounds disappeared.

And the wrestling stopped.

The room that normally overflowed with puppy chatter became unnaturally quiet except for the sound of soft crying and restless shifting across the straw.

At first, I figured the newly ill puppies would get better on their own, just like Marmaduke did.

It only appeared to be a tummy ache, so what could possibly go wrong.

But only a few hours later, I found myself kneeling beside puppies whose little bodies were becoming cold to the touch.

• Hypothermia.
• Weakness.
• Lethargy.
• Dark hemorrhagic discharge.

I remember rubbing one puppy gently beneath the dim kitchen light while staring at the thermometer in disbelief, silently begging God not to let the number continue falling.

People who have never raised a litter do not fully understand how quickly young puppies can slip away once shock begins.

Their tiny bodies have so little reserve.

One moment they are wagging their tails beneath the trees.

And literally, hours later you are fighting desperately to keep them warm and hydrated while fear settles over the entire house like a storm cloud.

That’s when the nightmare became real.

All three puppies died.

Two beautiful young souls, Elektra and Spartacus, that were meant to help carry this breeding program forward through our trial mating project and a third puppy up for sale, Attila.

Puppies I had watched from the moment they first opened their eyes.

Puppies whose futures I had already begun imagining in my mind.

I knew their little personalities already.

Their expressions.

The way they greeted me each morning.

The way they followed my feet around the enclosure.

Now they were gone.

And then came the part no breeder ever truly prepares for.

I had to bury them.

I wasn’t going to be able to hand them to someone else.

Nor could I walk away from the pain.

I had to carry their little bodies myself beneath the towering Ponderosa pines while the cold evening air settled over the property and the surviving puppies whined softly behind me from the den.

And just so you know, the earth in eastern Washington is not gentle ground.

Beneath the surface are roots and stones and compacted soil left behind by ancient floods that once carved this landscape during the Ice Age.

Every strike of the shovel felt heavy.

Every scrape through the dirt felt unreal, like my mind could not fully accept what my hands were doing.

Just hours earlier, these puppies had been alive.

Bright eyes.

Wagging tails.

Oversized paws stumbling through pine needles.

Now I was digging graves for three perfect little souls.

I remember stopping several times because I simply could not breathe normally anymore.

The kind of grief that settles directly into your chest and makes the entire forest feel silent around you.

When the graves were finally ready, I wrapped each puppy carefully and laid them to rest beneath the trees they had only just begun to explore.

The same forest that had filled them with wonder days earlier now stood quietly around us while evening shadows stretched long through the pines.

No breeder forgets moments like that.

People see the puppy photos online and marvel at the beautiful coats, giant paws, and wolf-like silhouettes standing proudly beneath the trees.

What they rarely see are the lonely moments where someone stands in the fading light with dirt-covered hands and tears running down her face saying goodbye to puppies she already loved.

That was me.

I barely slept afterward, too, because every time I closed my eyes, I startled awake listening for movement from the puppy pen just outside my bedroom window.

I cannot remember how many times I crossed the cold floor in darkness checking temperatures beneath the dim kitchen light while the rest of the house slept.

Every sound pulled me awake.

A quiet moment terrified me.

And whenever I walked into the puppy pen, I feared finding another little body lying still.

Then came the terrible question every breeder dreads asking:

What is the heck this?

Because parvovirus did not fit the pattern of symptoms.

The progression of how this disease suddenly took a healthy puppy and brought them down was fierce and unforgiving.

The adults remained perfectly healthy despite living just next door.

So I began researching relentlessly.

• Veterinary journals.
• Case studies.
• Breeder reports.
• Environmental bacterial infections.
• Obscure viruses

Hour after hour I searched for answers while exhausted beyond words.

And then I started finding disturbing similarities involving pathogenic E. coli and severe bacterial enteritis in puppies following environmental exposure to contaminated wildlife feces, standing water, or forest soil.

The symptoms matched with chilling precision.

• Sudden hemorrhagic diarrhea.
• Foul odor.
• Sudden extremely high fever
• Hypothermia.
• Septic shock.

Then, out of the blue, an American Dirus™ owner sent me a video of a breeder who had recently experienced something hauntingly similar.

This breeder’s entire litter was wiped out by a mysterious illness that moved through the puppies with devastating speed.

An entire litter.

Gone in less than 24 hours.

I will share her video below because I think it is important for people to understand just how fragile young life truly is and how quickly situations like this can spiral beyond control.

By this time, I knew I had to act immediately to save the remaining puppies that began showing signs of being sick.

On a hunch, I went with the theory that this rapid sickness onset could be bacterial.

So I administered the antibiotic medicine to every puppy while praying I was making the correct decision.

And then something extraordinary happened.

The first tiny flicker of hope came when one puppy lifted his head and gave a weak little tail wag as I entered the pen.

A few hours later another puppy wandered over to the water bowl and took a good, long drink.

By the following morning, soft puppy chatter had returned to the den like birdsong returning after a storm.

The remaining puppies stabilized.

Their temperatures normalized.

The lethargy began lifting.

The bloody discharge stopped.

And tiny tails started wagging again.

One by one, the little fuzzy butts returned from the edge of the abyss.

For five straight days I continued treatment morning and night while monitoring them obsessively.

• Temperature checks.
• Stool checks.
• Hydration checks.
• Hardly daring to breathe between each small sign of improvement.

Every morning I prepared myself emotionally for another tragedy waiting inside the puppy room.

But, thank God, it never came.

Today, every remaining puppy is perfectly healthy.

You cannot imagine the relief that flooded through me the first morning I walked outside and saw them all racing toward me beneath the morning sun filtering through the Ponderosas.

Bright eyes and wagging tails.

Giant paws bounding through the grass as though death had never brushed against their den at all.

I stood there for a long moment simply thanking God while these enormous little furry babies bounced around my legs completely unaware of how close we had come to losing them.

Breeding is beautiful.

And breeding can also be devastating.

What’s for certain, though, is that breeding humbles you in ways words cannot fully capture.

Nature does not care about our plans, our pedigrees, our hopes, or our dreams.

Every litter carries risk, because life is fragile.

Every puppy represents both joy and vulnerability intertwined together beneath these ancient trees.

I have decided to document everything I learned from this experience inside the Dire Wolf Project™ Learnistic app so you can explore the science, symptoms, pathology, and possible causes in far greater depth.

You can find it by going to:

Paleo University —> Canine Health —> Hyperacute Fatal Syndrome

If sharing this knowledge helps another person save even one puppy someday, perhaps some small light can emerge from this painful experience.

And this morning, as the birds sing beneath the Ponderosas and the surviving puppies sleep peacefully together once more, I cannot help thinking about the three little souls resting quietly beneath the trees nearby.

They should still be here.

But the rest of the pack survived.

And this morning, the den is peaceful again.

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P.S. Here is the video from another breeder in Tennessee who experienced a hauntingly similar tragedy:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18q1edxxCZ/?mibextid=wwXIfr

P.P.S It’s going to take me some time to figure out how to move forward in the hypothyroidism trial mating. I’ll let you know what the plans will be when I can reconfigure the genetics behind the trial.

Jennifer Stoeckl is the co-founder of the Dire Wolf Project, founder of the DireWolf Guardians American Dirus Dog Training Program, and owner/operator of DireWolf Dogs of Vallecito. She lives in the beautiful inland northwest among the Ponderosa pine forests with her pack of American Dirus dogs.