June 28, 2012

These puppies are all time consuming and yet they don't do much from day to day that a mom like myself could brag about. I could share that they are doing bigger and badder potty works but that might require censorship.... by the time I get the camera to capture a puppy playing with each other... they have collapsed and fallen asleep.... really hard to photo that.... They are walking on all four feet and wandering away from their nesting area to potty. I always like that because they learn to be clean puppies that way. They have also started to cry to get attention. Yikes, already they are conditioning me.... I don't pick them up until they are quiet and they enjoy a good cuddle.

I will make a clarification about the amount of food these little monsters consume. The morning feedings are the biggest because we sleep.... Then they get topped up throughout the day and again just before bed. Over the course of the day they will consume an additional litre of formula.

Puppies turn 3 weeks on Saturday and I hope to get them out on the grass this weekend. We'll try to video that so we can share some of the commotion that comes from a new experience....

Happy Canada Day for those of us north of the 49th and Happy Independence Day to all of you south of the border. Play safe and have fun.

chat soon,

June 26, 2012

Good Morning! and I mean Good Morning!

Puppies went to bed with full bellies at 2300 and we got up at 0800. SWEETNESS!!! I've decided sleep looks good on me ;-D

Well, 10 puppies and 38 oz of formula later. All is quiet again. I'm from the hybrid oz-lbs and Celsius generation up here in Canada. I work in kilograms, litres and celsius and yet I buy my meat and produce in pounds. And puppies are always measured in grams and kilograms with big dogs being measured in pounds.  Go figure???

So, that means 38 oz should be close to 4.75 cups which in turn is almost 1.25 quarts. I will suggest that they were in fact hungry or just a little greedy....


Weights before I fed them were:
Green boy -       1.58 kg = 3.48 lbs
Teal boy -          1.35 kg
Dark Blue boy - 1.68 kg
Light Blue boy - 1. 70 kg
Peach girl -         1.30 kg
Red girl -            1.40 kg
Mauve girl -       1.50 kg
Yellow girl -      1.60 kg
Dark Pink girl - 1.60 kg
Pink Frill girl -  1.48 kg

When dealing in kilogram to pounds the kg is multiplied by 2.2

They are all gaining weight and developing great bone structures. I'm afraid if any of you were hoping for small adult dogs, you should not hold your breath.

I'm off to work,
TTYL

June 25, 2012 Monday's the beginning of another long week....

Good evening folks,

A quick note to say that I watched the first deliberate attempt to play today between 2 puppies and that the kids are following their noses as mommy Bobi stands above them and they are reaching for a meal. Smart little puppies.....

Bobi will finish her antibiotics tomorrow and she looks great. She is still keen to stay with the pups and moves herself from whelping area to whelping area as the kids need her too. Her milk production seems to be meeting most of their needs. We have slowed down our feedings to about 5 times a day (0700 - 1200 - 1600 - 2000 and the last at 2300), which is our usual end of day. They slept again last night so Tony and I did too.  Ahhh sleep, it is not over rated..... yawn...

Today has been a long day of work and then home to do yard chores. Now it's time to pour a glass of wine and rest my bones.

Chat tomorrow.

June 23, 2012 Passing the two week hurdle!!

Hi all,

Sorry, it's been a while but puppies and life obligations get in the way.

Last night was amazing..... fed the kids, tucked them in at 2300 hrs and off to sleep they went until 0830 am. Yahoo!!! a nights sleep. How the little things start to really matter.

But on to the stories of the last few days.....

Group 1 all happy after a meal ;-D

Group 2 after the same meal ;-D and then there was silence and sleep for all.

Single shots of each of the kids. I haven't had them on the scale but Tony has been dutifully filling their mosquito like bellies many times a day while I was away. I think I should be able to hire him out as a puppy nanny. Perhaps his next calling?

Puppy pile on Devon. He has been asking to see his puppy all week

A big lazy yawn from a puppy.

Devon helping me feed the puppies

Family photo? or close to it. Devon is showing his new brother Ryder a potential future family member.

A kiss good-bye for this week.

Bobi has been challenged both by her spay following her c-section delivery and the number of puppies she has to feed. We have been supplementing her diet with several calcium rich foods (yogurt, raw ground chicken and bone, and puppy dog chow). She has also been receiving Fenugreek to help increase her milk production. This product is available in health food stores and makes the urine smell like maple syrup. Odd, I know, but true.


Bottle feeding is not an easy thing to do successfully. It often becomes trial and error to find the right nipple, bottle, temperature of the milk and holding technique and it takes a great deal of patience.

The formula recipe I use is:
3 parts goat milk
1 part whip cream
.5 part Pacific canned milk
tsp of high fat, high calcium yogurt after day 14 (to kick start the puppy gut enzymes in preparation for pablum and puppy food)

For example: a 9 oz bottle would be 6 oz goat's milk, 2 oz whip cream and 1 oz canned milk.

Microwave heat in desired amount of formula in a glass cup to the right temperature and then pour back into the plastic bottle. Never heat in the plastic bottle or with the nipple attached.

Nipples tend to be more of a challenge. They come in many shapes, sizes and textures. Through trial, error and expense I have found that silicone nipples seem to work the best. Not sure if there is a taste component to the latex that they do not prefer.

Nipples also come in a variety of suggested age usages. (who knew???) 0-3 months has 1 small hole and allows the milk to trickle a little slower until they develop their suck-swallow reflexes. Once they have been on the  bottle for 10-14 days I graduate them to the 3-6 month nipple. This has more than 1 hole and milk is pulled out much quicker. Caution a puppy that is not ready for this size nipple may aspirate (breathe milk into their lungs) and may develop aspiration pneumonia. This can be vet costly and possibly lead to puppy death.

Both these bottles and nipples work. The puppies prefer the nipple on the right.

This nipple I found worked better for the smaller  Miniature Pincher puppies because it had a shorter nipple and a natural stop point

Bottle feeding has been an important part of this litters survival.  

I have used these normal baby sized nipples with great success even on Miniature Pincher puppies. I am careful to place my fingers in the way to prevent the entire nipple entering their mouths until they have developed a suck-swallow response and grown a little.

Another important thing to remember is that puppies feed on their feet. When holding a puppy it's important to support their bodies (held in position with my left hand) and their heads are cradled in my right hand holding the bottle. My palm (on the opposite side and you can't see it in this picture) is pressing against the puppy's cheek and my fingers are pressing the opposite corner of the puppy's cheek. Then, pull the bottle slightly away (it's really not much) from the puppy. This action simulates puppy feeding competition and encourages the puppy to latch and suck for all it's might.

You will know the puppy has latched by the suck-swallow rhythmic gulp and the rigid body stance. Puppy's tail will be sticking straight out behind and wagging. Puppies will also kneed with the front paws. Much like a cat when it's happy.

I hope this was clearly explained for those that will be rearing their own puppies in the near future.


On another note, we took out Bobi's sutures yesterday. Her incision is looking good and there are no signs of infection. Yeah for Bobi, she's on the mend.


I can't believe how quickly it's going and puppies will be heading home soon. Crate training is as important as house training once a puppy goes home. Please visit our blog series starting July 17, 2010 as a resource on what to expect when puppy is crated for the first time.

So many things to consider, so many things to learn.

I hope this makes up for not being able to get to the blog in the past few days.  Have a great evening.

Planning for puppy to come home ...

For those of you that have another dog(s) in the house it might be a good time to sit down and start planning on how, when, where and for how long your puppy will be allowed to interact with your other dog(s). It has been my experience that puppies will bond much quicker to another dog than to a person. Who are we kidding, a dog can play so much better than a person. They sniff butts, lick ... things... chase and dig and .... you get the picture. No way we can compete.

Puppies exposed to adult or larger dogs are often disciplined by the dog(s) in ways that we as humans don't even see it happen. Accidents happen and a bigger dog can harm a smaller one. If you leave the dogs alone together this effect magnifies itself. A once confident puppy is now leery to take on the world unless the other dog(s) say it's ok. This is often misinterpreted as weakness in our eyes when in fact this is environmental influence [learned behaviour] vs nurture [the natural personality of the puppy and what it left home with]. Puppies that have never submit peed before may start to submit pee to you without apparent reason and may be because the other dog(s) submits to you as the boss. Remember, we don't speak their language and it is all too often that good puppies have these experiences and too late to undo the damage by the time we recognize the reason for their behavioral change. Caution too, kenneling a puppy beside an adult dog(s) will have the same affect. It will be vital for you to make a plan for your puppy's continued education once it has left our home. 

We crate train and suggest you do the same. We have the puppy sleep beside the bed at night with us (in the crate, silly) to make sure we hear when they need to potty and most importantly so we can reassure them when they wake in the middle of the night in a new environment. A finger through the door is often all that is needed. It says, there is some one there that loves them.... 

At our end we will work on puppy development things like noise desensitization; walking on different surfaces, through water, up hills, over objects; through tunnels and playing with a variety of toys. All of this will be done as a pack of puppies. The adult dogs will not be there in case they step on them by accident or they discipline them.

Now is also a good time for you to consider your 'commands' that you will use for your puppy's behaviours.  Something as simple as 'sit' can conger up many different varieties of the action. What does your 'sit' expectation look like? How will you reinforce the behaviour you like? Will you train in English or?????

What will your release command be? Use of words that you would use in everyday conversation like, OK and alright might develop some confusion. Trust me, we used them for a while and were surprised when we were talking on the phone or to someone else and said 'OK or alright' the dog was gone and playing..... not what I was hoping for. If there hadn't been two of us there we might not have realized that we actually used the dog's break/release command in another context. Bad trainers ;-( I encourage you to learn from our mistakes.

Dogs think in terms of black and white. They do not easily understand the sometimes grey world of events that we find ourselves involved in. So for them, we need to maintain a learning environment that will help our furry friends flourish.

Hope you find this helpful,

June 19, 2012 Whelping pen renovation

Good evening All,

As you can see the blue box is rapidly becoming too small. These guys are complaining that either there  is not enough room or that they are too hot. Bobi's first litter lined up under a rotating fan and instead of heating the house we had to turn on the air conditioning. I wore a sweater. Can you imagine?

If you look closely, you can see Morgan's skull and cross bone blanket under these guys. Passing on a family tradition ;-)

I'm not sure if you can see it from here but these kids are PHAT!! ok, fat....
Which in my books is ok for the first few weeks of life. Once they become more active it's better to start watching their weight on bone development.

Now this is a face I can watch all night.... well, ok, maybe not all night, one must get some sleep too

Bobi was given a chance to Reno or Relocate.... Great little show .... ok, too much time on my hands.... So we asked her if we did a satisfactory reno would she love it or list it and move to the outdoor kennel.
With her whelping pen size doubled, I think she is happy to stay in the kitchen for at least the time being.

Ok, Here is the whelping box renovation reveal ;-)
Just never realize all the details that are missing until the photo is taken. Should have spent a bit more time organizing the puppy box, scale, weight log sheets, baby monitor, ribbon box, sun lamp and camera bag but....  that's probably why I'm raising puppies and not an interior designer....
Another thing I have learned along the way is to provide as much sun light or simulated sun light as possible to help strong bone development. Anyone out there able to tell me why? It does seem to work, if you look at our puppy's bones they are strong and well developed. Possibly due to increased Vitamin D production maximizing calcium uptake? Not sure myself but would love to know. 

For those of you that haven't been to the house before let me describe this lay out. The whelping box is a 5'x5' plywood box that has a 2x4 on edge around the interior of the box to prevent puppies crawling up behind the mom and getting squished. That is no fun to come home to and a hard phone call to make to the puppy person ;-(  

Usually, the second half of the whelping space is just large enough for Mommie to escape from the pups and I can open the door so she can go out to relieve herself. With this litter we have actually expanded this space to match the whelping pen and will keep the two litter groups separated as long as possible.
The cabinetry you see is actually our kitchen. We believe strongly on keeping our hands close at hand for early puppy development. 

full tummies are the best ;-D

Finally got the puppy manicures done this evening. What a difference for Bobi.

Also looked at the weather in Ontario, Iowa, Georgia and Colorado. I'll bet you are wondering why, aren't you? Puppies will be headed in all those directions. Temperatures are in the high 20s low 30s. OMG, the airlines will not be able to fly them in at that temperature. We will need to do some serious planning to get these guys home.

On the other hand, how lucky are you to have summer already at your door. We are still in the high teens low 20s. Burrrr.... where's my parka????

Cheers,

June 18, 2012

Hi all,

Hope all you dads out there had a special Sunday with family and friends. I hope your kids were as good as ours.....

Sunday morning was busy here with visitors. Even a surprise visit from Bev. We go way back with puppy rearing and dedication to the litter. It was nice to have her stop in and share the nostalgia....

Sunday was a lazy afternoon at our place. I even got a nap in, yeah!! Of course, that was between feeding, laundry and housekeeping.... for little things they sure do generate a lot of mess....

ok, finally got the sleeping shot of the little red girl

Other mommie helping out with bottle feeding....

surprise visit from Bev on her way back from the vineyard. Remember those days when we used to do this every month????

Tony, assumes the position of puppy feeder before he even gets morning coffee. That is dedication ;-D

all the fancy new ribbons.  Only problem is is they don't stay tied up. 

It's Monday evening and and I'm home from work. Tony and I were both out of the house today and the little guys didn't even miss us. They were quiet in their box and waiting to be traded out. What good puppies ;-D

Here we have light blue boy laying on top of two puppies for an easy meal....

close up

break out of the blue box is imminent 

or is it that they smell the bottle????

Yup, smell the bottle and are going for it.....

getting closer, can almost touch it.....

a l m o s t!!!! This is the best nose action yet. What you all can't here is the whining and whimpering and using his nose!!! wow!!

was thinking about escape but.... fell asleep... looks like her helping hands fell asleep too

I almost forgot to share their weights!!! As predicted all but the Mauve girl have doubled their birth weights. Even she was only 10 gms short. I would like to let you know that these weights are best guesses as the scale actually never stops moving because the puppies never stop moving.....

Green boy:        850 gm
Teal boy:           750 gm
Dark Blue boy: 850 gm
light Blue boy:  950 gm and the biggest by at least 100 gms, piggy!!!
Peach girl:        760 gm
Red girl:           740 gm
Mauve girl:      810 gm short of doubling her birth wt by 10 gms ;-(
Yellow girl:     840 gm
Dark Pink:       840 gm
Pink Frill:         810 gm

Good night all!!

Happy Father's Day!!

It feels more like Mother's Day to me. Tony took the night shift and I got to sleep, uninterrupted for 8.5 hours! Heavenly!!!! It's been at least 11 days since that last happened..... and I don't even feel guilty ;-D

This morning I have split the group into the larger weights and smaller weights. It was interesting watching the new members to the group seeking out, what is usually their nipple and making concessions because someone else is well attached to it. Problem solving has already started with this group.

They are already using their noses to find what they are 'looking' for. If Bobi gets up and moves the nose noise is unmissable and they wiggle their way over to find her. I wonder if we attached an oder to that if they would be search ready at six weeks, humm/????

The plan for the rest of the day for these little ones is pretty simple.... eat, sleep, pee, s--t, cry, and repeat!!! And, did someone say EAT!!!

The one exercise I will add to today is to clip their front toe nails. Clipping the front ones allows them to get where they need to go without scratching Bobi to shreds and leaving the back nails provides them with extra digging/pushing power to hold their positions while feeding.

Chat later, it's now time for morning coffee.

May 16, 2012 We have made a week!!

Good evening to all,

It has been a busy week. With work and taking care of puppies I haven't had time to post anything new. 

Yesterday, Tony and I had to travel to Victoria for our son's convocation, BScN. Happy and proud day for the family.  I had a breeding friend volunteer to come and litter sit Bobi and the kids while we were away. This might sound like a simple thing but she had to get up at 3:30 am after feeding her baby at 2:30, pack up her new baby and drive almost an hour to get here. Her husband took care of her litter while she was here taking care of mine. a BIG THANK YOU!!!!

Today, being Saturday, means a little more time and I have managed to get new ribbons and pictures of each of the puppies.

Dark Pink Girl (was white) birth weight 396 gm today is 660 gm

Green Boy (was Yellow boy) Birth weight 378 gm today is 640 gm

Pink Frill Girl [puppy on the left] (was pink&blue) birth weight 380 gm today is 680 gm

Yellow Girl (was buff) birth weight 350 gm today is 640 gm

Peach Girl (was blue) birth weight 320 gm today is 580 gm

Light Blue Boy (was buff) birth weight 405 gm today is 780 gm 

Mauve Girl (was burgundy) birth weight 410 gm today is 710 gm

Teal Boy (was blue) birth weight 320 gm today is 600 gm

Dark Blue (was burgundy) birth weight 408 gm today is 780 gm

Red Girl (was yellow) birth weight 328 gm today is 600 gm.  Tr y as I might, I had to go back and get this shot because I had missed her in the original sleeping puppy photos. This way I get to share my favorite puppy toes and nose!!!

Bobi has still not had all of the puppies at one time. I am being very cautious not to overwhelm her with that many mouths to feed. To be sure she does not have that many nipples that she could accommodate all at once dining even if she wanted to. 

Feeding this many puppies remains a constant concern. I expect these guys to meet 'the double the birth weight' mark tomorrow, all things remaining the same. To achieve this, both Tony and I have been doing round the clock feedings. I still get up at least twice a night to move the box puppies in with Bobi and 'top up' [with a bottle] the Bobi group before putting them into the box to sleep while the others eat.

Tony graciously let me sleep in this morning ;-D

Half the gang hanging out, in the 'box', until it's their turn with mommy Bobi

The happy gang who are actually spending time with mommy Bobi and getting lunch ;-) YUM!!

A young friend came over to visit today and play with the puppies. Bobi is so cool, she's eating her kibble with yogurt while our visitor selects a puppy to bottle feed.

I love the balanced, even temperedness of Bobi. Eating while a young visitor bottle feeds her kids. Wow, who could ask for more?

Gotta hold the puppy and the bottle just so....

Proud that the puppy is eating so well. This is her first time feeding puppies with a bottle.

breaking out of the puppy holding pen!!!!

weighing puppies is easier if they sleep in the bowl ;-)