Archive for the ‘nutrition’ Category
Puppy chow pictures
These pups are just a riot when they eat! A messy riot, that is. Here are a few “puppy chow” photos for your amusement…
A milky puppy mess
Well, it seems Willow (formerly Daisy, formerly Angel too!) is not at all happy about the puppies teeth coming through their gums. She yelped when they latched on last night. So, since they are very mobile for 3 week olds and since she seems to want to end her mama duties sooner rather than later, I introduced them to some formula and BOY did they ever get into it! They, more than any other litter seem very ready to eat from a bowl. They finished each of the meals I’ve given them, although clean up takes as long as their eating does. They trash the room with milky puppy foot prints. And each of them are literally covered in milk. I am hoping they get better at it soon.
The classic milk mustache!
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.
Angel is getting the hang of motherhood
The pups are getting bigger and stronger. And mama is doing better. I’m not sure what to call her, Angel doesn’t really fit…she is far too fallible and young for such a name. I had thought of calling her Brittany, which would be a perfect name for her personality wise, but I suspect she will be getting more mature more quickly than her namesake.
She is getting to be a better mother. Early on the first day as she licked her pups clean she would basically send them sailing across the blanket with the force of her tongue! But now she is more gentle and the pups are stronger so they tend to hang on and only roll around a bit. Plus they seem to be nursing well and are much better at finding and lacking onto the teats. So I am feeling a little more relieved.
Watch this video on YouTube.
Winding down with Chloe and her pups
Well, this puppy group is finally ready to move on. I know it as I see them play more and more with each other and less with Chloe. They still try to nurse but their attempts are half hearted and easily redirected. For her part Chloe is continuing to show herself to be a sweet, loving mother. I will miss watching her mother these little guys. She is so gentle as she tells them to stop nursing, carefully biting their muzzles away growling under her breath. They respond by climbing on all over her, chewing her ears and tail and nuzzling up to her and drifting off to sleep. It is a wonderful, heartwarming thing to see.
calling in the puppies
They come to me now as I call them into the puppy room in the afternoon. I clap and say in a high pitched voice “Pup pup pup pup pup” and they come running. Last night after I walked into the puppy room and woke everyone up I put them outside to potty. Usually after dark I just let them pee in the room on the newspaper covered floor but I’m trying to get them ready to be house trained by their new families. They did great! First they were a bit disoriented but after a bit they all spread out to do their business. The adoptive families will have an easy time of training them I think.
Mama dog Chloe nurses her pups
Here is a short video shot outside last weekend. Mama Chloe is nursing her puppies in the yard.
Watch this video on YouTube!
Puppies first day outside
Today the puppies explored the outside world for the first time and loved it. Their resemblance to their mama’s personality is evident – these puppies are outgoing, happy, and friendly. Nice combination. Afterward they were all exhausted and crashed out. Then as I went it for the last time tonight and fed Chloe most of them woke up and were climbing out of their bed area to see what their mama was doing. I put some dry food into a few bowls and all of them were very interested. I always wonder how much of these first dry food meals actually make it into the puppies tummies…mostly they seem to just mouth the kibble and spit it out again. But everyone was very excited, with much tail wagging going on. And them, by a happy accident as two puppies were wrestling, they discovered that some of the bowls hold water! They lapped at it as they’ve learned to lap their formula.
I always love this time because it signals the move from formula and soaked kibble to just good ole dry kibble – making for a much easier to clean up meal time.
What is interesting this time around is that I’ve found myself SO much less stressed than usual. It took me awhile to remember my routine but now it is very doable and I find myself enjoying just sitting and looking at them more than I remember at 4 weeks with the other litters. I have let go of a lot of my perfectionism, as silly as that sounds. For example, I no longer change the papers immediately when a pup pees – now I wait till the papers are pretty well peed-upon and then change them. Don’t get me wrong – cleanliness is still a priority, but I don’t worry about things as much. And therefore I seem able to get a lot more done. That is a good reminder for me.
Updates and naming the puppies
The puppies are getting the hang of eating on their own – today I counted 5 of the 7 all lapping from their bowls at the same time! A new record.
Tonight I weighed them all and gave them a wormer. Even though their paperwork indicated they were wormed when they came into the shelter I was having my doubts. They’ve been with me since Saturday, making this day 5, and their bellies were still tight. So at 4 weeks their weights range from 3 lbs 1 ounce to 4 lbs 3 ounces!! Most were in the upper 3 pound range. If I kept better records I would know how this compares with other litters but alas I have not. Oh well.
I was thinking, since we had so much success with Annie‘s puppies being named after Rudolph’s reindeers, I was thinking of naming this group after flowers. It took some head scratching to come up with male sounding flower names (we have three males in the litter) but here they are in order of my favorite:
Female names: Poppy, Lily, Iris, Tulip, Daisy
Male names: Sweet William, Aster, Crocus, Jacob (Jacob’s Ladder)
Any votes which we keep and which one of each group we throw out? Just comment on this post (below) and let me know.
