02/17/25 5 Weeks Old!

How are they already 5 weeks old?!!  It’s all been a blur even more than usual (that’s Blindchick humor in case you didn’t catch it) but it doesn’t seem like they should be more than 3 weeks or so.

Instead of all of the massive rain we were predicted to receive yesterday, it turned to snow before noon.  There wasn’t a lot of accumulation but it did get somewhat slick.  It has at least been sunny a good portion of the day so a lot of it has melted (but not in the places that don’t get winter sunlight) just in time for it to get much colder and snow yet again.   I took advantage of the sunniest, ‘warmest’ part of the day and carried each puppy out onto the patio and let it follow us back to the door, then Uncle Daddy made sure it was warm before putting it back with the others (they weren’t outside/down long enough to truly get cold but ‘a pound of prevention’ keeps me from getting an(other) ukcer ;-)

Today’s theme for new toys is metal.  They seem to think that’s a good idea on their teething gums, too.  And it’s plenty noisy.  As PWDs are wont to do, they also create their own ‘toys’ from things in their environment and are very helpful about pulling up the fleece from the floor.  They are getting stronger and stronger pulling it with various items - including siblings (they don’t make as much progress with a sibling on it)

We held a weight watchers meeting tonight and we have a couple of 5 pounders.  And Fievel is knocking on the door of 4 lbs (he;s gained 7/10 of a pound since Saturday!) Everyone else is gaining steadily and we have almost 33 lbs of pure puppy cuteness.

They are becoming fairly adept at running around carrying things - including toys that are at least as big as they are and it is really cute to see them playing with spoons.  MarmieCarmie is feeling more playful and plays with them and her DaddyDeja and sister Elle.  When she plays with the pupsters, she alternates between going in an rolling around and standing at a gate with her head hanging over and playing with them that way.  Both are adorable.

She’s digging less so I left the dog door accessible part of today and she was in and out more.  She likes to go out and see what’s happening but doesn’t want to leave the puppies unmonitored.  I wonder if I’ll be able to take the small wading pool off of her favorite couch digging spot soon.  Her double dose of JillyBean (our foundation bitch) is coming out again now in how she exits the pen.  She goes in faster circles to get all of them following her like a conga line and then hops out a gate.  I guess that method keeps them from being between her and the exit so she doesn’t worry about anyone being underfoot.

Have I mentioned that they are very very cute?  The lot of them sitting at the edge of the pen waiting for greetings is nearly unbearable.  We try to acknowledge them in that position quickly because it’s a nice behavior.  You know, because we would otherwise ignore them because they aren’t cute at all ;-)

I should’ve made notes throughout the day because there were several other things to add but I can’t recall them now and I have puppies to put to sleep.  Nighty, nighty, nighty.  Puppy breath to all 

02/16/25 Pupdate

Good morning good morning the little dogs say.  I think they’d happily say it a lot earlier than I’m willing to start a day so they go back to sleep until a reasonable time but they are really cute whenever they see people.

We added 5 more people to their ‘new people after 4 weeks’ list today.  And those people (the people of one of GrandPaw Deja’s littermates) arrived as I was trying to change the puppy linens and clean their floor.  The puppies were ‘helping’ so I was letting them play on the piled up dirty linens while I tried to put down the new ones.  Instead, I handed them off to the visitors while I did it.  That worked much better than trying to keep them in a pool but requires more people than we normally have.  It’s time to start using the inside crates for that (and I’ll have to remember to put them where they aren’t able to use them to climb over the fence)

Not too long after that, it was feeding time at the zoo.  MarmieCarmie is now slightly more accepting of the idea of crating her posse (She didn’t want GrandPaw Deja or Sister Elle crated before and we didn’t crate her away from her puppies because she didn’t like that.  So we adjusted visitors to accomodate that.  She still liked the open crates just fine). Now that the pupsters are eating some mush, it is acceptable to her for the big dogs to eat in crates and them for me to feed the little ones.  As long as we let her back in in time to clean up the post prandial puppy pottying so we followed that system.  The puppies ate quite well; she came in to clean up and I eventually took their dishes in to clean while they helped entertain the company.

As the puppies wound down, we utilized all of the extra ‘holder’ and I gave them their first baths in a basin in the kitchen sink.  They were all very good for it and one of them was perfectly content to just float in the water.  That’s always funny to me but a nice soak in a lavender scented bath would be relaxing.  They all insisted on tasting the water a little (I guess I need to add a lline about not drinking soapy water in the official bath time song but I usually just try to keep their chins out of it) and everybody made  to the water straight from the faucet (it’s a progression from being placed into the basin of water to having the rinse water pours from a cup; then the sprayer; and, if all is still well; a little but directly through the faucet a little.)  

That hair already holds a lot of water so they had to be “wrung out” (but not always in the ‘proper order according to GrandPaw Deja) and then wrapped in a towel and snuggled dry by the visitor helpers.  It’s a tough job but someone had to do it (after I bathed the last one, I snagged one back from one of the double holders as my reward for all of that ‘hard work’ 😉)

The rest of the evening was more routine.  Puppies played and played and took a nap and had some dinner and snacks and I tried to hold out until bedtime but my ipad wasn’t charging correctly (I’m lucky if I keep it from dying  even charging while I use it, last night I was losing the battle for some reason) ended up sleeping instead of finishing the blog post.  Hope everyone had a good nighty, nighty, nighty