Development of the Puppies

Raising Puppies Timeline


90% of time spent sleeping
10% eating
Susceptible to heat/cold
Instinctive reflexes:  crawl, seek warmth, nurse
They can right themselves if placed upside down
Needs stimulation of urination/defecation
Rapid development of central nervous system
Need constant care from momma
Pups may lose 10% of weight after birth, but should start gaining again
Weight should double by end of the week

Puppies are still eating colostrum for about three days before Grace's milk comes in.  They are constantly eating and will fall asleep where they are.  We have them in a padded and toweled kiddie pool 4'x4' which gives them and momma Grace lots of room.  Much less squishing puppies when momma Grace lays down or needs to stretch.  Puppies will take a hike across the pool with no problem to get to momma, or get to the heating pad or go towards commotion when we sit and watch them.  


Grace is doing well, she's really thin comparatively and thirsty.  Still sleeping as much as the puppies, we are feeding her a high caloric diet about 3-4 times per day and of course her NuVet vitamins every day, adding milk product in her diet to encourage her milk to come in.  The puppies are just as sweet as ever, they crawl and scoot and make noise and slurp.  Still letting momma potty them.  When we tagged them with their colors and weighed them she watched every move we made, eventually getting up and checking on her babies.


The creams are easy to tell apart.
The boys are little more difficult, two have white pads and one doesn't.  The black boy we call Lil' Ev, but his nickname is Colby.  We sat down to watch them and he high tailed it over to say hi, he will be as friendly and gregarious as his dad.
The four black girls are tough to decifer.  One has a bunch of white on her pads, but only the back feet.  One is what we call black, the pads are shiny, the other two have relatively the same amount of white hairs on their pads.
Already, today just the 2nd day, the hairs on the pads and their toe nails are rapidly changing color, we are keeping good notes to see how these few hairs influence their colors by the time they are 8 weeks old.  The two thin babies out of the litter are gaining weight.  We spend most of our day making the temp of their environment about 85 degrees, it fluctuates at night and with the weather.


When they are about one week old we will start taking individual pictures of the puppies.  Right now they look like hairy fetuses, the hair is starting to ripple and they constantly make little jumping movements, eating or sleeping and they do make noise for a couple of seconds at a time.  Yesterday, I saw three tails wagging as they were piled up and eating.


GOD BLESS AMERICA
on this day and always,