Yesterday we had a wonderful visit from the wonderful McLeod family, who will be bringing home one of these babies in another 8 weeks or so. Thank you Ella for all your “hard work” helping me get some mugshots now that their eyes are open and they are starting to look like real little dogs instead of hamsters. The new photos have been added to the litter’s photo gallery.
I also finally managed to shoot some decent video of the puppies playing for an extended period of time without passing out from exhaustion. Of course, now that I finally succeeded, I am unhappy with the video quality – I shot this late Friday night and my camera shoots much better video in natural light – but hopefully it isn’t too dark to see the action. They sure are fun to watch!
Happy 2 week birthday to the baked beans! I posted a few new photos in the litter’s photo gallery. Again, I didn’t try to get shots of everyone, just tried to capture a few cute moments with random puppies.
The beans went for another car ride today, accompanying me on the quick trip down to the post office to pick up the mail. They are quiet as little mice in the car and I hope this bodes well for the future.
We have eyes opening to varying degrees. Boy #6 has both eyes completely open. They sure do look more like real puppies once their eyes are open! I’ll give them a few more days and once all the eyes are open wide, I’ll post some mugshots so you can see their faces.
I’m seeing more and more primitive play behavior, where the puppies will bite each other and violently shake their heads, usually knocking themselves over in the process. I’ve been trying, fruitlessly, for days to capture this on video but every time I turn on the camera they all suddenly fall asleep or toddle off to the milkbar, or whatever. This clip is about the best I’ve been able to get. I don’t start talking till about midway through because I got tired of all those clips (not for public consumption!) where I spent the whole time babbling about how puppies weren’t playing. I figured I’d just shut up and see what happened, and if I saw some play then I could start to talk.
I posted some new photos of the puppies taken yesterday at 9 days old to the litter’s photo gallery. The puppies are unspeakably cute and it is too easy to leave the camera in easy reach and snap away.
The puppies are growing by leaps and bounds. Today they went for their first short car ride. I like to get my litters out for their first ride before their eyes are open. I figure it can’t hurt for them to get used to the sensation of riding in the car before they’re also bombarded with the accompanying, understandably dizzying, sights and sounds too. Well that could be just a bunch of baloney but that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.
Lark is starting to come out of her postpartum hormonal fog and the last few days is showing more and more glimpses of her usual cheerful self. She is willing to leave the puppies for increasingly longer periods of time, and no longer displays such strongly conflicted feelings about not wanting to miss out on anything but also not wanting to be parted from her babies. She is now excited to go out in the yard for daily playtime, and the last few days has been voluntarily bringing me her beloved “purple” to throw for her. Of course, she remains an attentive, devoted and loving mom, which I think is abundantly obvious in the newest photos.
This next week’s big milestones will be eyes opening and rudimentary play behavior. I suspect more photos and videos will be forthcoming.
The puppies are one week old today. All are doing very well and growing by leaps and bounds, and doing all the normal things that one week old puppies do.
We had a bit of a scare with Lark on Sunday. She had been recovering normally from the whelping but on Sunday afternoon her normal post-partum discharge changed to an increasingly tomato soupy looking goop and although her appetite was good (OK, good is an understatement!), she still had milk and was still mothering her puppies, when she spiked a low grade temp in the early evening, I feared she was developing metritis, a uterine infection, so off we went to the emergency vet. Three hours and $400 later, the vet agreed with my diagnosis. She said I caught it very early and she felt with antibiotic treatment Lark should have a great prognosis. We went home with antibiotics, and I’m happy to say that by the next morning, her temp had returned to normal. Her discharge gradually diminished and cleared up over the next few days, and I feel it is safe to say she is out of the woods. Phew!
I took some photos of the puppies today to mark their one week birthday. I didn’t try to get photos of every puppy, just some cute and representative photos of them doing what one week old puppies do best. Check out the litter’s photo gallery for the new photos.
I also shot just a quick snippet of video of the puppies nursing, which comprises one of the four activities in which one week old puppies engage. If you’re not sure what the other three activities are, the answer is found in the video and beyond that you’ll just have to use your imagination on those… There will be a quiz later so pay careful attention.
Are we sensing a theme yet? Yes, in case you hadn’t already figured this out from looking at the copious photo galleries on this website, I love to take photos. If you’re thoroughly sick of them, just ignore me. Otherwise, I’ve posted a new gallery of photos taken of the puppies yesterday at 2 days old.
Everyone is doing well. I was a little worried about girl #7, who was the only puppy who didn’t gain weight in the first 24 hours. She was grey, gasping and gurgly at birth, and I had to work hard to get her going, and I think she needed some extra recovery time. But she is a tough and feisty little thing and picked right later in the afternoon on Friday and now she is nearly always found the milk bar making up for lost time. She has gained steadily and I think she is out of the woods.
I updated the litter page and added a new photo gallery for puppy photos, including new individual photos of the puppies taken in the first 24 hours since their birth.
No nine week photos of Lark this week. Instead we have puppies!
The final count is nine, with four boys and five girls. All are red or fawn, four solid and five irish marked. Lark was wonderfully accommodating and went into labor this morning after a good night’s sleep. The first puppy was born a little before noon and the last at around 7:30 p.m. How civilized! Puppies ranged from 8-11 ounces at birth. Lark is an excellent mother, and mother and babies are all resting comfortably tonight.
Puppy #1 – solid fawn girl
Puppy #2 – solid fawn boy
Puppy #3 – irish marked red boy
Puppy #4 – solid red girl
Puppy #5 – solid red girl
Puppy #6 – irish marked red boy
Puppy #7 – irish marked red girl
Puppy #8 – irish marked fawn girl
Puppy #9 – irish marked fawn boy
Here are a few photos of the new mother and babies. I took many more and will go through them and post more tomorrow!
This week’s photo shoot was a difficult one. It would seem Lark’s usual biddability and cheerful willingness are inversely proportionate to her expanding girth. The first photo isn’t too bad so I offer the second as more representative proof of her general attitude during the photo shoot. Poor Lark.
Although I didn’t think last week’s photos really did justice to Lark’s expanding girth, this week’s photo certainly does. She grew quite a bit over the last week and is now starting to get a little uncomfortable. She is still happy and active, eating very well (but not nearly enough, in her humble opinion!), but is starting to moan and groan more and more as she tries to find comfortable sleeping positions. Last night I felt puppy movement for the first time.
This photo was taken on Saturday at the 7 week mark. She was not overly impressed with my requests that she pose pretty for the camera, as is abundantly evident by her expression in the photo!
Of course, now that I finally succeeded, I am unhappy with the video quality – I shot this late Friday night and my camera shoots much better video in natural light – but hopefully it isn’t too dark to see the action. They sure are fun to watch!
