Oh Yeah, You Blend

The puppies are one week old already!

Happy one week birthday!

Nina and the fab five – one week old!

Thank goodness for other breeders, like Diane Richardson of Frontier, who has been such a mentor to me over the last few years. She is a shining example of what ethical dog breeding is, and she has shared her contracts, her vast experience, and her breeding ideas with me so generously. I talked to Diane yesterday because I wanted to supplement little Connelly with some formula to give him a bit of a boost (he was fine, but up until yesterday he was the smallest, even behind Beals, who is little and female, and he was gaining slower than I like). Diane said she routinely feeds her puppies at least a small meal every day with formula, because it helps with bonding with people (they learn to associate humans with food, and food, especially at this young age, is the single most important thing in the world to them). I thought that made a lot of sense. I’d been trying to supplement Connelly, but wasn’t having much luck, I have good goats milk formula, but he just didn’t think it was food. Diane kindly shared her tips and tricks for bottle feeding puppies (I wasn’t going to tube feed, he is nursing just fine, and he is growing, I just thought he needed a bit extra). Here’s what I did thanks to Diane: heat the formula warmer (90-100 degrees, checked with a thermometer), add some evaporated milk and add a drop of Karo syrup. IT WORKED. I topped little Connelly off yesterday, and gave the others each a little taste, and Connelly gained significantly overnight (and his nursing seemed more vigorous when Nina was feeding him). I am only feeding him after Nina feeds him (since Nina milk is what is best for him), but getting even a few extra calories in seems to be helping!

The puppies also traveled in their warming box out into the family room and took turns being cuddled last night. They are really moving very well, they are going to need to go in a pen instead of the warming box in a day or two, since they are already trying to scale the sides!

Here are their weights today at one week of age as compared to their birth weights:

• Aniston: 573 grams (20.21 ounces or 1.26 pounds) today, at birth 340 grams (11.99 ounces), a gain of 68.53%
• Beals: 427 grams (15.06 ounces) today, at birth 280 grams (9.88 ounces), a gain of 52.5%
• Connelly: 429 grams (15.13 ounces) today, at birth 290 grams (10.23 ounces), a gain of 47.93%
• Donnelly: 503 grams (17.74 ounces) today, at birth 310 grams (10.93 ounces), a gain of 62.26%
• Esposito: 458 grams (16.16 ounces) today, at birth 280 grams (9.88 ounces), a gain of 63.57%

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2012 at 12:10 PM and is filed under 2012 litter, breeding, dogs, Nina, puppies, vallhunds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.