red fish, blue fish

He was beyond grateful for her accepting silence; he was uncertain and rather nervous over the fact that he had fallen into... that odd, weird memory flashback. To return to the present, and to see no judgement for his spacing out was extremely appreciative. "I remember. I -" he paused here, growing quietly for a brief second. "I mostly tried to help them lose the pregnancy. Or prevent it in the first place. The very few that did not desire either were healthy, as healthy as... they could be in their situation. Truly, my specialty is in battlefield injuries and wound treatment." The more he talked, the more he stabalized - to the point that when Lucretia made her sly comment, Aiden chuckled. "Well then, I hope she is blessed with five large pups," he snorted. "And that you get the pleasure of seeing her frazzled and ungroomed from them running around and being hellions."

The smile faded as she questioned him, and he tilted his head to the side in contemplation. "They'll be born soon, I'm guessing... so no risk of too cold. The biggest Iv'e seen then are fading puppies. These puppies just ... fade. They start dying. There's no logic behind it. Keeping one alive is very hard - you have to typically force-feed them because they won't feed themselves. But at the same time, a puppy can aspirate and die with that, because they breathe air and milk at the same time... Herbs can't really be used on puppies that young, either, which makes it even harder. I always tried to feed with milk soaked moss. Trying to shock the puppy's system sometimes work, such as dipping the puppy in warm water and vigorously rubbing.I said those out of order, though - I normally try to shock the puppy and then go to force-feeding. I will alternate however, if that makes sense. keep trying to shock the puppy, because we need the puppy to feed itself, but with force feeding in between attempts so it can try to stay alive. I've seen it happen on 3 week old puppies, but haven't seen it on puppies really any older than that. They... usually don't survive," the last part was said quietly and with a pause, sorrow gleaming in the healer's eyes as he counted the few times such a thing had happened. One mother, she lost nearly her entire litter. All but one died. He couldn't save any of them. The other mother it happened with, he managed to save the puppy.

Sighing, he started talking again after only a brief pause, "Other than that, care is pretty easy. Mostly just keeping mom and puppies happy and sated. Removing any bully puppies if need be, so small pups can nurse without disturbance. I found that my patients were usually completely exhausted by the time it was over, so I just took over with severing the umbilical cord and doing newborn stimulation. There was one time that a mother bit too close, and accidentally killed her puppy. She was acting on instinct - tired, in pain, but her brain telling her she had to bite the cord, and she just... bit too close. It wasn't pretty, and it was awful." He fell silent at that point, humming quietly to himself in thought. Was there anything else he could think of? After another few seconds, he shook his head. "That's about it that I can recall." After that, he dropped his gaze back to the water, scanning it for any disturbance. There was one near his paw, and after a second of studying it, he lunged for it in the water.

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"Speech" "You"