Oh Yeah, You Blend

The puppies are right at the start of the socialization period, so they had their first visitor! Melanie, who owns their half brother Enzo, came to see them!

First, here’s the puppycam

Second, the power went out at 1 AM, and it started to get cold in here shortly after, so I bundled the puppies and Alice up and headed into work, where there was power (and where there’s a generator even if the power is out). Power came back on about 2:30 and we headed back home once it started to warm up here. Alice was a trooper, hopefully it wasn’t too stressful for the puppies.

I usually start offering food around three weeks of age. They’re 20 days old today and everyone except Green Boy tasted some Royal Canin Puppy Mousse today! Green Boy said no thank you today. I will start offering them a little food every day, gradually increasing it as they get older. Eventually I will start offering them food before Alice goes in with them, but that will be after they move to The Big House. Right now Alice can come and go as she pleases.

They went on a field trip to the living room too! And listened to agility sounds from my videos (one heard Zhora barking on the video and barked back!?) as well as some thunderstorm sounds. We also dropped some things and slammed a door.

They are growing and changing quickly now! Today I will try offering them some real food for the first time (Royal Canin Puppy Mousse). Everyone got a dose of probiotics this morning (BeneBac). They are taking turns coming out into the living room one at a time for individual snuggle time, and we have started making loud noises. Alice has started interacting with their faces instead of just their bottoms now, and they have started approaching her head and face instead of just the milk bar – she’s now more than just a meal ticket to them.

They continue to get something new in the box every day, and this will continue until they leave. I don’t leave toys in there for more than a couple of hours, since they are learning how to walk and they don’t need more obstacles than absolutely necessary. The pink bunny was yesterday’s victim:

And the blue ball was back today (it’s ok to recycle the same things since after a couple of days, it’s new again!):

The puppies have a startle reflex as of this morning! So now they are listening to Mozart on Spotify, and we will start the Puppy Culture sound desensitizing protocol! They’ll also be getting something new in the box for a while every day! Now the fun (and work) really starts! You spend the first couple of weeks just making sure they stay alive and grow, but the dam does all the work. Now it’s my turn!

They change SO QUICKLY now! Just as of today they are able to see well enough to really interact, play bitey face, walrus over to see new fuzzy shapes like my hand in the box. They’ve been trying to move away from the sleeping area to urinate and defecate to some extent, so today I added a litter pan even though they really won’t be able to use it yet. They’re getting better at almost-walking. They’re basically drunk toddlers right now, moving in slow motion.

Today was the last day of Early Neurological Stimulation already! It’s always like this: the first two weeks you worry about keeping them alive, but they’re really just fuzzy jellybeans, then all of a sudden they’re puppies!

So last night Jim noticed that Orange Girl had a watery eye (her eyes aren’t open yet), and this morning her left eye was crusty. Because her eyes aren’t open yet, if she has an infection it has nowhere to go and you can end up with a problem, so I emailed my awesome repro vet and tech for help. They said if I wanted to pry the eye open I could probably treat it myself with help from my boss (I work at an animal hospital), but I said nope, I’m happy to pay you guys to do it! It’s her eye and I dont mess around when it comes to eyes, they only have two!

So today I bundled OG and her sister Red Girl into a little crate full of bedding and two SnuggleSafe discs (microwaveable heating discs), covered it with a towel, warmed up the car, and off we went to the vet. Dr Gray pried her eyelid open with saline and cotton swabs, flushed her eye and examined it. She says it all looks normal, eye, eyelids, etc all appear normal and healthy, and sometimes it’s just that they have normal discharge that gets trapped. But we have some ointment to use for the next few days just to be on the safe side.

Mr Pink is first to have eyes! A couple of others look like they will open their eyes in a day or two, but he’s first:

Soon the super fun “Mr Magoo” stage will start. We’re also checking a couple of times a day to see if they can hear yet. One of the most important things I learned from Puppy Culture is that there’s a period of about a week when puppies have a startle reflex to sound, but don’t have a fear response yet, If you can trigger that startle reflex several times during that period, the puppy may grow up to be less sound sensitive. Anything you can do to help a puppy have a better life is worth doing!

Now that they are quite mobile, I have added a little bumper mat as a bed for them. It’s also something novel in their environment!

From days 3-16 I perform Early Neurological Stimulation on my litters. This is a “can’t hurt/might help” thing, since they get a lot of handling anyway, but I’d always rather err on the side of having done something than wish I’d done it later. Orange Girl didn’t start until day 5, because I felt she had enough stress just gaining some weight.

There are five exercises designed to stress specific things and hopefully help the puppy develop a more robust response to stress as an adult. It’s like astronaut training for puppies, although we usually call it their ritual abuse. Tactile stimulation (a Q-tip on the pads), vertical position (head up), head pointed down, on the back, thermal stress (a damp towel that’s been in the fridge).

Here is Purple Girl with her ENS today: