Oh Yeah, You Blend

First, puppies:

Day 11

They are getting so big now that they are starting to really get in each others’ way when they are nursing.  I am close to thinking of getting them to nurse in shifts, but I don’t think that’s necessary just yet.  Their eyes will start opening any day now.  And they will be due for their first deworming this Friday (2, 4, 6 and 8 weeks is the plan).

Day 11 Nursing

Second: numbers.  So yesterday, I had to go to work early, which meant I did all my usual morning puppy care (changing bedding, weighing, SuperDog, cuddles, etc.) very early (I’m talking like 5:30 AM).  Usually by the time I get this stuff done Nina has been up for a while, had her breakfast, and has fed the puppies at least once or twice.  So littlest girl only gained a small amount as of yesterday morning, and that worried me all day, even though I KNEW it was likely just an artifact of her not having eaten as much as usual by weighing-in time.  I am a worrier.  Today she is at her usual decent gaining rate and weighs 561 grams.

Third: more numbers.  Third-born Immelmann is over 700 grams today (707 to be exact).  Another of yesterday’s slow gainers, Lefty (white throat boy – called Lefty because his right front toes are white…no, I don’t really understand it either) is today’s second-biggest, gaining over 13% since yesterday and weighing in at 696 grams today.  Everybody else except Wee is well over 600 grams, with Jack and Triangle weighing exactly the same 680 grams.

Fourth: VallhundPox.  It is spreading.  And they do it on-camera.  Which makes it look like I’m running an entirely different sort of webcam.

Fifth: Kate, awesome Kate!  She sent pictures of the whelping box she is building, and it is GORGEOUS!  She is calling it the “whelping box of doom”, which is a pretty good name.  Maybe it needs an umlaut or something, or perhaps some exclamation points, but it’s good nonetheless.

Just a few pictures from today.

Tuckered Out

Feet

Grub!

Comfortable

For those who missed it, here is the link to the puppycam.

They are nine days old today.  They already needed another nail trim, I got half of them done yesterday, the rest will be done today.  There was complaining!  Upside-down boy Immelmann broke 600 grams today, weighing in at 602.  Littlest girl Wee broke 500, at 501 today, as did white throat girl, which means everybody is over 500 grams today!

Nina is needing to eat more and more, she is feeding bigger and bigger puppies each day, as you can see:

Day 9

They are nursing on each other a lot now, so the Vallhundpox is spreading.  Nina isn’t sleeping in the box with them much at night now, I don’t blame her, they are piranhas!  And they don’t even have teeth yet!

If you were watching the puppycam just now, you might have seen one of the puppies just about standing up. Standing up! On all four feet! Shaky and drunk-looking, of course, but definitely standing up!

Also, I am interviewed (quoted, anyway) along with Sarah Keth and Ivy Underdahl in March’s Dog Fancy.  They called me a “champion breeder”, which isn’t true (yet, at least…she types, looking meaningfully at the puppies), but I sure like the sounds of it!  The only breeder who chose to advertise in this issue is the “commercial breeder” we’re worried about (along with the SVCA, which was an attempt to encourage people to do their homework before buying a puppy…especially one from a “commercial breeder”).  So anyone who happens to be reading this who’s considering buying a puppy from a commercial breeder, please don’t!  Please do your homework!  Breeding decisions need to be made carefully in every breed, but especially one with as limited a  gene pool as Vallhunds have, which is not something commercial breeders tend to do, they tend to just breed the dogs they have to each other over and over again, because they’re in the business of producing puppies for a market.  Please don’t be that market.  That sort of thing is what damages breeds in the long run.

So here’s the thing about puppies this age: they have only really two jobs in life – eating and growing.  This means that whenever they’re not sleeping (and twitching to build their muscles and nervous systems), they’re looking for food.  Sometimes they find the nearest warm body and try to nurse on it.  Sometimes that warm body is Nina, other times it’s a person, still other times it’s each other.  Which is why I had a minor panic attack when I was checking them over this morning and found little red marks on some of their tummies…being me (i.e. neurotic about my dogs), I thought “AUGH!  VALLHUNDPOX?!?!?!”, and then calmed down and thought for a minute, and then called Ulla to make sure my suspicions were probably correct, which they were, since they then demonstrated what the cause of these mysterious marks are…they are nursing ON EACH OTHER.  Yes, they are giving each other tummy-hickies.  As I’ve said before, their suction power is strong, they are like tiny furry Dyson vacuums (“the only puppy that doesn’t lose suction!”), and they will try to nurse on just about anything that’s warm.  I wish they made puppy pacifiers that weren’t other puppies.

Today’s post is brought to you by the letter “s”:

Day 8

And the number “awwwww”:

Day 8

Everybody has doubled in weight, some by quite a bit. They are supposed to double between 7-10 days, so they’re all nicely on track. We took them, in their warming box, into the family room last night, so they got a change of scenery as a group, and then one by one we took them out for individual cuddles.

They are really making dog sounds now, little barking noises, whines, even tiny growls when someone is trying to muscle in on someone else’s nipple at grub time.  Like most babies, they are SERIOUS about sleep, it is something that requires a lot of concentration.

Day 7 - second dinner

Of course, puppies eat like Hobbits, so this is second or third dinner.

The puppies are one week old today!  Throat stripe boy broke 500 grams this morning at 503, making him the heaviest today, all the other boys are closing in on 500 grams.  Smallest girl Wee broke 400 grams easily, weighing in at 418 this morning.  Other two girls are at 466 and 445.

Today’s nursing picture:

Day 7

Nina has her head on the SnuggleSafe heating pad in its garish fashionable paw-print cover (the puppies almost never seem to need it, but Nina likes using it as a pillow when she’s nursing).

Today was the fifth day of early neurological stimulation (AKA BIOSENSOR!!!!! which I much prefer, since it sounds like some kind of bad cyborg movie, especially if you say it in Arnie voice, or a la Don LaFontaine).  Some of them find it boring, others complain a bit.  I have noticed that they have all stopped reacting to the tactile stimulation much – they seem to know it’s happening, but don’t pull their feet away or otherwise bother about it.  None of them seem particularly stressed by it.  They came out one by one last night to watch Fringe with us (I don’t think they understood it very well, even though it’s not exactly challenging).  They love being with Jim, since he lies on the couch and they just fall asleep on his chest (after trying to nurse on his chin).

Everybody is over 400 grams this morning, except littlest girl who is 377 (up from 330 yesterday), she is growing like a weed and is the second-fastest gainer this morning (after first-born Jack, who gained a whopping 15.25%).

Today’s pile’o’puppies picture:

Day 6

Their noses are starting to unsquash, they are starting to look more like Vallhunds and less like hamsters.  Their vocalizations are starting to sound more like dogs and less like kittens or experimental electronic music, in fact they have started making noises that sound almost like tiny barks!  Their ears are still closed, but have become less “glued” to the sides of their heads, they twitch a lot.  Their eyes are still closed, but you can see them moving underneath their eyelids.  Tails wag regularly, especially when eating, even the bobtails can wag what they’ve got.  Toes and noses twitch.  We have started trying to leave the TV on in the next room on the news or sports, so they hear people talking a lot (their ears are still closed, but they can probably pick up something).

So, the dog world is very, very small.  Sometimes this can be bad, but sometimes this can be spectacularly good!  It turns out that the Kate who’s in my Wednesday night agility class with GoGo the adorable Cardigan, is Kate from Hagaren Cardigans (who I know of via Joanna’s blog).  And Kate, as it turns out, likes making things…things like whelping boxes and puppy playpens!  Which!  I!  Need!  Nina’s puppies are growing so fast I think they will need a bigger box sooner than I was expecting, and Kate offered to build one for them!  So thanks A TON Kate!  We will repay the favor someday.