The Colorada resident, who has chosen to remain anonymous, has explained her decision to breastfeed the orphaned puppy to news station KRDO-TV.
"I didn’t know what else to do, I was desperate and I just couldn’t bear sitting there watching it die"
She said that, after the little dog refused to feed from a bottle, she felt that it had just hours to live - and made a "desperate" decision:
"It was taboo to me as well… [but] he wasn’t moving and I just did it.
"I didn’t know what else to do, I was desperate and I just couldn’t bear sitting there watching it die.
"And, literally, what just clicked in my head was 'just put him on you and just pray to God that maybe he'll take something and not die'."
The puppy has, since, flourished and is no longer the runt of the litter - which has reassured the "embarrassed" woman that she made the right choice.
The dog continued to, alongside the woman's 10 month old baby, breastfeed but now, much like the human baby, has been weaned from the breast and onto formula from a bottle.
However a vet has expressed concerns over the incident, explaining that some diseases could have been passed between the puppy and a newborn nursing baby.
"There are things that can be passed from puppies to babies.
"In an emergency situation, I don't think it's a big deal. But in order for them to grow appropriately I would hope they'd be put onto a canine formula."
Some people praised the woman for the lengths she was willing to go to save the puppy’s life – but others were not so sympathetic.
YouTube user Irv Gentry wrote: "That’s nasty – why would she breastfeed a puppy?"
Do you think you could breastfeed a dying puppy? Let us know via the Comments Box below now.