Hello everyone,
I reside in an apartment in the city. It's very common to find stray and harmless dogs in our area. Around 8-9 months back, a stray dog (which was previously a pet) delivered 4 puppies (3 male and 1 female) behind our apartment block. A couple of months after the puppies arrived, the previous owner of the dog visited this place and the mother dog went back to them. The 4 puppies were left behind. 2 of them were then taken away for adoption. The remaining 2 (a male and the sole female) have been around here since then. I and one other family in this apartment block have been regularly feeding them.
The window of my living room in my apartment faces a hilly and grassy area. These 2 puppies spend most of their day in that area and I get to see them from my chair. I feed them from my window by throwing out food like boiled eggs and dog food. Both of them have a good sense of time since they make sure they are present right in front of my window when it's time for food. The two have been together every moment ever since the mother and the other puppies left.
The female puppy is the more naughtier of the two and also more "active" - keeps running and bouncing around and is very playful. The male puppy is a bit more quieter of the two and seems to be more mature and also protective of his sister. When it's food time though the male one dominates the female one. Although it does allow its sister to get some food, the male one gobbles up anything and everything that is served and that too very quickly. He then scoots over to where the sister is having its food and starts eating it. The female one surrenders many a times. But over time, the male one has learnt to not do that too often and instead let the sister have its share. I'm no dog expert, but I've observed that the male one "understands" me more than the female one. For example, after a few times where the male one pushed around the sister and started eating her food, I started to throw the food equally in 2 different areas in opposite directions. The male one would still finish up its part first and would start moving towards his sister to have her share, but I would then just raise my index finger towards it kind of signalling it to "stay". It would quietly sit down without advancing further to his sister.
Having said that, both of them are scared of humans. Although both of them are very friendly and seem to recognize me from my window, they do run away scared and barking from me and anyone else when anyone approaches them outside. I do understand why they do that and as such have decided not to get close to them since that makes them uncomfortable.
Overall, it has been a enjoyable as well as a learning experience seeing them grow since the past 8 months.
Now onto some recent events. Last weekend, the male, all of a sudden one day stopped eating anything. This was really surprising, especially since he was the one who would gobble up anything that's fed to him while his sister usually was very choosy. That day, he didn't eat anything that I fed him from my window. I felt it was odd but didn't know what to make of it. There was another family, in a different apartment block, which feeds them daily just like me and I thought that maybe he had eaten a larger share there that day. The next day I rarely caught a glimpse of him which again was strange since I would almost always see both of them for major part of the day. A couple of times the next day when I did see him, he avoided any eye contact with me and just jogged away even if I served it its daily dog food. The female dog though was continuing to eat what was fed to her, although her visits too had shortened for the couple of days. At this point though, I had started to get concerned about what's going on. But since both of them would start running scared and barking whenever I approached them, I wasn't sure what to do.
By the third morning, I had become a lot more concerned and in the morning decided to take a look in the other part of the apartment block to see how they were doing. While talking to one other person who too had noticed the male dog not eating properly, I realized that something's seriously wrong with his health. He had lost a lot of weight and looked very weak and unlike himself. At one point he was lying around without much movement when I took some water and food towards it. It just lied there and for a dog which used to bark and run away as soon as it saw someone within around 10 feet from himself, this was a bit shocking since I placed the water bowl right beside it and it just didn't move. It was a Sunday and by that time I had started calling for help for a vet. A few hours later although we did manage to carry him to a medical facility, his health had terribly gone down. Unfortunately, he passed away in the next few hours
The doctors couldn't say what was the cause except that it might have to do with either some food he might have eaten for something (like a snake perhaps) biting him.
Having spent most of my time seeing them near my window for the past many months, it was really difficult to see him in that shape, in his final moments. Much more hard and hurting since I think we could have done a better job had we called for help immediately after seeing its behaviour the first day when he stopped eating.
Now that the male dog has gone, the female one has become extremely lonely and sad. I can see it in her eyes whenever she makes eye contact for few seconds. When her brother was around she used to be so lively but now she looks more like a zombie
She rarely eats now. Although she was always choosy when it comes to food, these days she just doesn't seem to have much appetite. Earlier, her face used to be smilingly cute but now she just looks real sad. She continues to avoid human contact even now which makes it more difficult for me to get closer to it. Although she has been eating slowly and only certain food, it really hurts to see her this way. It even is concerning given what happened to her brother the last week. These days she rarely does any eye contact with me.
I know I have written a long post but I am hoping for some kind of advice on how to deal with this situation and make sure she stays fine. Like I said, I am no dog expert. Is this grieving (which is what it looks like) normal for siblings in the dog family? During the past few days, I've tried getting a bit closer to her but that hasn't worked and she has continued barking out loudly and running away, in contrast to how she behaves when she's near the window of my house. Does this mean that she doesn't recognize me when she sees me in some other place or is she just not comfortable with anyone near her? What should I be doing in such situations? I've decided not to keep getting closer to her at least for now. Is that the right thing to do?
It's really difficult to put in words on how much she has changed since the incident and how hard it is to see her like this. Any kind of advice from those of you who have more experience with dogs than me, is very much appreciated.
