Archive for June, 2009
Puppies start to walk and open eyes
Well tonight (Monday) it was clear that these pups are out of the woods. And I am relieved. I noticed two days ago that some of them had little slits opening in their eye lids and today about half of them have their eyes almost completely open. We won’t be having photos for a week as the flash is harmful to their developing eye tissue. I may try on a sunny day to get some but not tonight. In addition to their eye development, they are starting to walk! It is only for a few steps, and they are very wobbly, but they are walking!! They seem to be right on schedule, so their bout of kennel cough didn’t set them back, developmentally, at all. In fact, as I watched them nurse tonight I was struck by how vigorous they all are. I think they are really hungry now, and I’ve noticed Daisy’s food intake increasing (finally). Yes, it seems the consensus is for the name Daisy so Daisy it is. I may be supplementing their nursing sooner than I had planned…I usually wait until they can stand (duh) to introduce them to lapping formula from a bowl and that usually happens after week 3…but here we are at 2 weeks plus one day and already they seem ravenous. If Daisy can keep up, then I’ll let her.
I also gave them their first worming today and from about 1.5 pounds at day 3 they are up to 4 pounds!! Yeah. I am really proud of this group. Also, I cut toenails tonight. They were crazy long and really scratchy. You are welcome, Daisy.
8 Tiny Puppies Nursing
As promised at the tail end of Mama Dog Gets a Bath, here we have an amazing video of eight 12-day old pups nursing their mama. TURN UP THE SOUND to hear all of the precious puppy grunts and slurps!
See this video and many other CanineFostering.com videos on YouTube.
Updates on Chloe’s pups
Brief snippets in no particular order:
William: My name is M-, and my husband L- and my sons adopted William. He is still William. We had been calling him that for so long before we brought him home that it just stuck. He finally slept through the night last night (11 pm to 5:30 am.) No accidents in the house today, and the biting improved 100% over yesterday (Thanks, Kristin for your advice.) I should let you know that our vet thinks maybe there’s some Great Pyrenees in there. William will be a much bigger dog than we thought we wanted, but we sure do love him already!
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Jackson
Jackson: Although he cried (at times actually yelped, whimpered, barked, howled, etc.) the first couple of nights, he now sleeps peacefully from about 11:00 pm to about 6:00 am. He naps willingly in the crate, and is waiting there happily and quietly when I go and get him in the morning.
He is a fairly cautious pup, and only feels really comfortable in two rooms of the house, but that is fine with us for now. He loves the backyard, and prefers to play in the shade. He digs in the grass, and chews up wet muddy clumps of grass, then digs his paws in the muddy spot left behind in the yard. Not one of his best traits, but we’re working on it. He has met several neighborhood dogs, both big and small, and has done great with all of them.
Like most of the other puppies, when he gets excited and really wants to play, he nips quite a bit. At first, the high pitched puppy-like yelp we made stopped him in his tracks, but now he’s become almost used to it. We try and give a stern “no bite!” and distract him with something else. He doesn’t nip as much, but when he’s excited he definitely still wants to.
When he was really young, you could almost not tell the difference between Jackson and his sister Poppy, but Jackson has what I call a white thunderbolt up between his eyes to his forehead. The kids call it his notch. Sadly, I think it’s fading and might be gone soon, but you never know. We’d love for it to stay. It’s one of our favorite parts of him. We get many comments from people wondering what type of dog he “is”, and I tell everyone about his 4 siblings who are white and tan and look nothing like him, and about Poppy and Violet who resemble him much more. Who knows who that daddy dog was? We really have no idea how big he’ll get to be, but it’s fun to wonder, and time will tell. His mostly black fur is also turning much more reddish brown in parts, like his ears and most of his cheeks. That’s a cute similarity to Chloe. He has beautiful markings overall, and is still adorable as he changes from tiny puppy to bigger pup.
Puppy playtime at Petco
We went to the puppy playtime from 2:00 – 3:00 pm on Saturday at Kristin’s Geneva, IL Petco store, and it was really fun to see him romp around with two of his sister pups. Most of all, that’s what I hope we can do more often. Seeing him with his littermates, pups the very same size as him, his brothers and sisters, is really heartwarming.
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Lily: Some things we found that have worked is a tick tocking clock to simulate her momma heartbeat, right next to the crate at night. Either Lily has taken to the crate or in combo with the clock, she sleeps so nicely!! I think along with several other puppies she has taken very well to potty training, no accidents in the house for 6 days and counting. We do give her tiny little nibbles of a treat for going potty, and it seems to work.
more Petco puppy playtime
Also on Saturday we have taken her to the puppy playtime with Kristin at Petco and she loves it. This last week Jubilee and Jackson were there and it was so nice to see them all remembering each other and Ryan was there too and that was fun to watch them interact with him. I have a nephew who is Ryan’s age and he met her yesterday and I think because of Ryan, Lily let him carry her everywhere practically choking her, but she didn’t even care. Her little tail was wagging the whole time.
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I took Lily to the vet today for her 9-week checkup and she too is 12 lbs and parasite free, yeah!! We are having the issues with biting also. I bought some bitter bite spray to spray the chair legs and it doesn’t work. She bites what she wants to regardless of the bitter taste, so don’t waste your money.
Mama dog gets a bath
Well, today was SO hot that I figured if I bathed Sandy? Daisy? Angie? (still haven’t found a name right for her) outside she wouldn’t mind the cold water and she’d dry off in a snap. Plus I figured she’d like the time outside. Boy was she freaked out by the water! It could be that it was spraying at her from the hose (I tried to be gentle but there isn’t that gentle a way for one to spray another with a hose) or that it was cold, or that she’s never had a bath or a hose bath before – I’m not sure which it is. But once she realized that all I was doing was hosing her down and that she couldn’t get away from me, she submitted. It sort of was humbling to me, how dogs let us submit our will on them rather easily. Now I know what I was doing was for her own good and she ultimately seemed to really enjoy being clean (you know how dogs do that rubbing thing on the carpet once they’re clean? She was rubbing herself along the garage door!!) but it sort of hit me how I could have been doing anything to her and she would eventually give in. How trusting, and how sad that so many people betray that trust. It just really hit me today for some reason.
But anyway, hopefully she will be ok with her next bath and hopefully I didn’t teach her to be deathly afraid of them…I think not as, like I said, she clearly got into it after a bit. And it is nice to have her clean!! Birth is a yucky business and that first week continues to be a bit yucky. Add to that her bout of whipworm and the poop that goes a long with that, and her pups crawling all over her and THEIR loose stool and… well, you get the picture. The dog needed a bath. (more…)
Bauer update at 7 months old
An update on our winter puppy, Bauer. He had his first “sleep over” recently and here’s what his owner had to say:
I was playing around with my Picasa photo editor, and made a “collage” of Bauer, from puppy to well, big puppy!
I thought you would get a kick out of seeing how fast he grew!
I thought you’d enjoy some of the pictures I had a chance to take this weekend….Oscar spent a couple days with us…
I was a little worried at first, because both Bauer and Oscar are used to being the main dog around, but so far everything has gone well with Oscar staying over. We’ll be sad to see him go home tomorrow! N- dropped Oscar off shortly after I got home from work, and of course he and Bauer had a blast playing right away. As soon as N- left, I leashed both of them up and took them for an hour walk. I figured this was the best way for Oscar to learn how things are run in my family, and I think this truly did help! Bauer an Oscar walked so well together…..when we’re out walking, I feel like I’m the local dog whisperer or something. At first, I thought it was weird that so many people were staring at me and commenting on the puppies and me walking both. Then I stopped to think about it and realized that to an outsider, I was walking two “ferocious” looking dogs. This made me laugh, as this is not the case…they’re merely two 7 month old puppies (I keep saying 6….I just realized Bauer is 7 months!!) so full of energy they don’t know what to do with themselves.
About instincts – Mine and the mama dog’s
Daisy May? Angie?
Tonight I tentatively let out a sigh of relief…it seems our mama, Daisy May? Angie? has again decided to act like a mother. Her pups seemed content and are quietly sleeping when alone and vigorously crawling when she’s nursing them. They seem cleaner and as I watched her tonight she is attending to each of their elimination needs. although somewhat frantically. So it seems whatever derailed her a few nights ago is past us, that she’s back on track.
So, thinking this, I took her out for her last potty of the night. And I see her sniff and squat and I think “FINALLY” and then she sits down and watches the fireflies…sigh. But sooner than usual she gets down to business and potties…hurray. These little steps, like her realizing that she gets only a few times outside and that is the time for her to do her business, are huge accomplishments for her. As I was scooping up her liquid poop with a plastic bag in the dark while trying to hold onto her leash the thought hit me, “do veterinarians really know what they are talking about? Really?” I was told that whipworm is extremely contagious and that I should pick up all the poop immediately. As the vet told me this I said, “really? How?” and then as if an after thought they say “do the best you can” But when I ask abut how to protect myself and my family they say “make sure you wash your hands with soap and water.” SO, this highly contagious parasite that can live in the soil for FIVE years is adequately done away with using common soap and water. Why then can’t I just carry a spray bottle of the stuff and after unsuccessfully removing the poop blob just spray the whole thing with the apparently toxic bathroom staple?? Something doesn’t jive; either the parasite’s virulence is overrated or the merits of soap and water are. Either way, I think it is clear that NO ONE IN MY VET”s clinic (and I have to say I like these people a lot) have had to deal with a dog with whipworm or her poop lately – otherwise they would never advise me to remove all the poop, they’d say, “get the majority of it up and then NEVER WALK ANY ANIMAL ON THAT STRETCH OF LAWN FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS.” Right?
Whatever.
So, the puppies are all sounding snotty and nasally. Sigh. I also feel sort of duped by the vet for bringing them all in and then getting no advice (or treatment) on how to stop what I knew was going to be an outbreak of kennel cough across my entire litter. I also suspect that the vet visit was a major contributing factor in making mama Angie or Daisy May or whatever we are going to call her feel like rejecting her pups….Sigh. Should have followed my gut there. Next time.
Now don’t get me wrong. I like medical advice. I also like medicine. But we need to always listen to our instincts and not follow other people’s advice without checking it out with ourselves first. Lesson learned, again.
Mothering doesn’t come easy to some dogs
It has been awhile since I last wrote. I’ve been in a very resistant place regarding this new mama we’ve got. I now think that taking on another foster so soon is extra difficult because the comparison between the dog and puppies that are leaving and the new group isn’t fair…one set is used to your routine and are a known entity, all fun and cuddly and ready to go to their new homes, and the other set is clueless to what you want and skinny and needy and frail…
So, needless to say this transition has been difficult on me. Added to that this new mama… the name Angel doesn’t fit, I like Angie better, or Daisy May. Anyway, this new dog is really young and doesn’t know what to do. So I was full of resistance to what is…I wanted her to be like Chloe (who I really miss and who was such an amazing mother) and she’s not. She’s not like any of the dogs we’ve had but she isn’t all that bad…but just as I was sitting down to write this, about how our stories cloud our true vision and how when we stop resisting what is, we get all this new energy for dealing with what is…she started drinking the mop water…with bleach in it! So, she is sort of really stupid on some level…or really clueless, a real Daisy May…very sweet and skinny and cute but DUMB.
Ok, no more stories… Here is what has been happening… She seemed to be gaining her mommy legs after the tragic death of her puppy, nursing them well and all that, but then something (more…)
Puppy update on William
A note from puppy William’s (formerly Sweet William) new family…
Hi Kristin,
Sorry to take so long to get back to you. It’s been a crazy week, and William has been the least of the chaos! He is a super puppy. The only problem is he has his days and nights mixed up–he sleeps all day, then we’re up most of the night. I’m hoping to get him turned around starting tomorrow.Any advice you can give on biting, I’d appreciate it. William loves the boys so much, that he just bites the heck out of them. They aren’t able to enjoy him yet like they want to.
Good to hear from you. No wonder he was always so sleepy when people were coming over! I wonder if any other puppies are that way – that would make sense, he and someone else staying up all night playing and lounging around sleeping all day…
About the biting. Biting is very normal puppy behavior. He needs to be trained not to bite humans or our clothing EVER. So, every single time he bites you tell him sharply “no BITE”. A (more…)
