Skip to main content

Heidi and Hudson’s Litter – Week Four


Miss Coral having a nap!

“The Free-for-All”

It all starts innocently enough. One puppy will lick or nibble on another puppy’s ear or any exposed body part, and that one in turn does likewise to an unsuspecting sibling and so on and so on. Before long the entire mini-pack is engaged in a friendly brouhaha. The playing field is pretty level between the boys and girls as Miss Amber was witnessed trying to ingest her brother’s leg. Along with the nibbling, the activities include jousting and wrestling punctuated by miniature growls, squeaks and barks. Mind you, it’s all good fun and after a period of frenzied activity, it culminates in a big snore-fest where the puppies use each other as pillows.

Now that the whelping box has an extension, the puppies have room to run laps. They use the original portion as their lounge where they sleep, play, dine and cuddle with each other. The addition which is lined with unprinted newspaper and shredded paper is used as a gym when it’s clean and afterward for “relief”.

There’s no question that meal-time is a highlight for the puppies. Every time the jumbo bowl in the shape of a ring makes its appearance, most leap to attention and make a bee-line for it. Sometimes various spots get so crowded that we have to air-lift one or two of the little minions to the other side of the bowl just to be sure everyone fits. Once all the bellies are filled and the little ones have licked the excess off their neighbour, this activity is also capped off with a nap.

It seems like the happiest one of all as of late, is Heidi. With each of the puppies’ twenty-eight pointy little teeth coming in, we’re sure that the whelping box containing the three hundred and thirty-six razor sharp teeth was beginning to represent a little torture chamber to her. Now that the gang is enjoying three daily meals of mush, Heidi gets a well-deserved reprieve from her responsibility as the milk-truck operator. But mom is still a good sport by providing her little family with the occasional supplement and is herself occasionally rewarded with any mush the puppies might have left over for her – a hit and miss proposition at the best of times!

In the meantime, the gang is spending their time just being puppies, wishing upon a star that all their little puppy dreams will come true.

That’s it for now, but be sure to join us next week for another heart-warming installment of “Puppy Tales”.


Click to play this Smilebox slideshow
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Ruly and Tulip Litter - Week 1

Ruly and Tulip Litter - 1 Week Old What a week it's been! The Tulip puppies continue to thrive, gaining weight steadily and remaining fairly quiet. Tulip dotes on her family, rarely straying far from the whelping box. As you can see on the 24/7 camera, she is starting to spend a bit more time outside the box, but she consistently checks on her babies. Tulip currently eats around 4 pounds of food per day, along with calcium and pre-probiotics supplements. As her pups grow, her daily food intake will be gradually increased, reaching 5 - 6 pounds per day by the time the pups are about 7 weeks old. This increased caloric intake is necessary to meet the energy demands of milk production and to maintain Tulip's own body condition. Tulip still believes an outdoor den would be best for her pups, so we are monitoring her closely when she ventures out. The whelping box is lined with padded bedding and clean, white bleached towels on the bottom. The white towels allow us to quickly spot a...
2 comments
Read more

Ruly & Tulip Litter - Week 2

Many viewers of the 24/7 puppy camera have raised questions, such as what are the pipes running alongside the whelping box. These are called "pig rails" and they are designed to protect the puppies from their mother accidentally lying on them, ensuring the puppies' safety.  Since the puppies are unable to regulate their own body temperature, we use a heat lamp over the whelping box to keep them warm when Tulip is outside the box. However, we turn the heat lamp off when she is nursing the puppies. By 3 to 4 weeks of age, the puppies can regulate their temperature, which should then be in the normal range of 100.5°F to 102.5°F (38°C to 39.3°C). The most significant event this week is that the puppies' eyes have opened. Mr. Devil's eyes (the one with the red collar) were the first to open. Each puppy followed and within 48 hours they had all opened.  The puppies are now weighing almost 3 lbs, and Tulip provides them nourishment at least every 2 hours, often throughou...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ruly and Tulip Litter - 7 Weeks Old

Tulip’s Puppies Celebrate Their 7-Week Milestone! Another week has flown by, and it's hard to believe these puppies are already 7 weeks old. For the most part, they've been a very quiet litter. Don't get me wrong, they have their moments of boundless energy, running around in circles like little tornadoes. But compared to some of my more "vocal" litters at this age, these pups have been relatively calm. They love attention and cuddles, which is a delight for us humans. The big adventure this week was the trip to the vet for their health checkups. I'm happy to report they received a clean bill of health and were a big hit at the clinic. However, I'm always on guard at the veterinary hospital, as that's where sick dogs go. So we quickly wheeled the crates into the exam room on a trolley, making sure to keep all other dogs and people clear of my pups. This time of year, the threats of kennel cough and parvo are ever-present. The puppies weren't sure a...
Post a Comment
Read more