September 30, 2012 Pupdate

               Good morning, good morning the little dogs say.  They seemed to have a restful night in their new area.  We let Doodlebug have the run of the rubber room so we left her in charge and went to bed.   Granted, I used the baby monitor and Bruce set his alarm to take Doodlebug out to potty and feed her (mostly to feed her but we make her go walk the plank just in case.)  I slept some but did get up pretty early to check on everybody.  They were eating when I came down.  Then the Mamabug had another 1,000 calories.  6 meals at nearly 1,000 calories each gets her through another day of growing the 10 little puppies.

               Dog Cindi brought some test fleece for their crate pads and I washed it yesterday and they are trying some out each day.  So far, we haven’t found one I love so they may not all match.  They will all smell like home though and that’s the important thing about them.  I’ll still wash numerous times before they leave but that’s part of the smell of home, too.  I will have the Mamabug lie on it as well as put it in with puppies shortly before they leave, too. 

               The pupsters are getting more and more mobile, capable of following/chasing the Mama in the pen for a snack.  Not very fast and they can’t reach up to nurse while she is standing yet but a couple of them have tried this morning.  More tried this evening when she went in to clean up and they are getting better and better at jumping up.  A few try to use her legs to help but nobody has quite accomplished it yet.  Fortunately, she’ll go in and lie down long enough for everyone to eat so it’s not an urgent situation.

               I also think they are starting to be able to see her because they will try to nose her through the ex pen.  If (ok when , who are we kidding with If) one sits in the puppy pen, it doesn’t take long for them to come over for a cuddle.  They are very cute and yawn a lot.  I don’t know if that is already a trained response so I can get puppy breath; they just need to yawn; or if they are already giving calming signals.  Since they usually snuggle in for a cuddle, I doubt that they are trying to calm us.

               Puppy yoga is now officially done.  Whatever will I find to do with myself and the puppies?  I’m sure we’ll find something.   I’m sure you are all on the edge of your seats to find out what…

9/29/12 Pup date 15

               Typing the title that way put me in a very Star Trek frame of mind.  I don’t think it’s talk like William Shatner day, so I’m not posting like Captain Kirk.

The puppies are adjusting well to life outside the pool.  It rained here almost all day yesterday and at 2:20ish, the power went out.  It’s not a big storm but it’s something different for the puppies to experience.  It was very Giiligan’s Island here since I hadn’t closed the back door of the vehicle enough and the battery was dead.  We had to walk down to the buildings to get all of the ex pens and little tykes puppy stuff (we brought it back up in the truck, we didn’t carry it.)  We unloaded it on the driveway beside the house and I sprayed it all down with disinfectant again.  Once more and a good rinse and I will probably bring it into the back yard and set it up.  They aren’t quite ready to go outside yet but I like to take advantage of the decent weather.

               I was using the 24 inch high ex pen with the walk through door and the Big Blue Behemoth spied his mother standing just outside the door so he climbed up and over.  I thought it would take a little longer but I finished sanitizing the fancy ex pen and set it up so now we are ready until I need to start adding the crate(s).

               The black puppy with the brown collar now has a nickname.  In honor of his skunk stripe (it’s on his nose), we are currently calling him Peppy.  Hopefully that will clear things up.

               Other puppies seem to be having nicknames that stick as well.  The purple puppy is PandaPaws, the red girl is Turtle.  They are all VERY cute and becoming more and more mobile.

               They had a photo shoot today and a lot of cuddling.  We forgot to put them in the box with the card so everyone can see how much they’ve grown so you’ll have that to look forward to when we get around to doing it again.  We did change all of their collars for the clean version.  I haven’t checked but I think Colleen probably got them on the right puppies.  I think she did them one at a time so they’ll be correct.

This week was filing toenails (instead of clipping.)  Dog Cindi did that today so they’ve been exposed to more than just me doing it.  Mamabug is now stitch free and seems to have healed nicely.  She does have hickeys and little spots that the puppies have sucked her skin raw here and there.  I don’t know how in the world she can stand that but she seems completely unfazed.  She also demonstrated her amazing proprioception jumping into the pen full of puppies and landing all four feet in the space about the size of a paper plate.  I know I am spoiled and just rely on her to know where they are because she does but I didn’t realize how small some of her available space really is.

               We are almost done with Puppy Yoga.  I wonder if they will miss that.  I figure we will have enough other adventures that they won’t sit around and demand ENS continue.  They are starting to gum around on fingers but I don’t feel teeth ready to erupt yet.  I don’t think it will be very long though.

               Day 1 of the water trial was today at the National Specialty.  I didn’t hear much about it (we kept ourselves pretty well distracted) but one of the puppies half siblings passed Junior today.  Good job Ziva!               Nighty, Nighty, Nighty…

September 28, 2012 Pupdate: TWO Weeks Old

               And Pink! has gone over the wall.  I’m not sure but I might’ve heard one say, “Mrs. Wetherholt, Tear down this wall!”  So far she’s the only one but I guess it’s really time to redo the puppy pen.   I think this might be earlier than the other litters but I’m not sure.  It may be that with ten of them, there is more of an opportunity to make a pyramid to assist with wall climbing.

               At any rate, I cleaned and steamed the floor on their side of the rubber room. and steamed 4 of the pieces of flooring. and put the plastic on the floor and up their wall. and put down their floor.  And set up the ex pens.  No wonder I was sore and tired.  It keeps raining on and off here so I think I’ve had some barometric issues as well.  The result was Bruce spent one more night with the dogs because he knew I wouldn’t rest with the monitor last night.

               All of the puppies are opening their eyes at least a little, I think.  Maybe Colleen will come to take pictures soon.  They only hold still during a post prandial nap

               Doodlebug’s caloric intake needs to increase again.  We are now up to 5,709.  I don’t know how we are going to accomplish this.  Poor baby is going to have to eat constantly.  She’s been pretty interested in food though.  Last night, I put her middle of the night bites in the ex pen right after I fed her the midnight snack and she ate them right away.  No wonder she had to go out in the night.  She is alternating between some actually good poop and some less good but not liquid.  I think the pumpkin is helping.  Or maybe it is because she doesn’t want to go out and get her feet wet so she holds it longer.  It’s not diarrhea, it’s just loose poop (a distinction that maybe only dog people make.)

               According to Iffen, it is 39 degrees at Lake Geneva right now but supposed to warm up to 70.  Low in the 40s tonight.  I hope the people practicing the swim with handler have wetsuits or get to go in the afternoon or some combination thereof.  At least in the trials, swim with handler is last so you’re very close to passing if you get to that point.  I think that and Julie’s wetsuit might be to only things that got me through the apprentice swim with Jack and Rend Lake when it was so cold.

               All of ya’ll at the Specialty, have some extra fun for me.

September 27, 2012 PWD National Specialty

               Many of my PWD friends are well on their way to the National Specialty in Wisconsin.  We’d been planning to go for over a year and hate to miss is but the puppies are too little to go so home we stay.  I’m sure that the puppies will distract me for most of the time and I can console myself with puppy breath, too ;-) 

To all of our friends attending, safe travels and good luck!  Maya (SammieDoodlebug’s littermate, she was the little green girl) lives very nearby so if anyone sees her there, give her a butt scratch and a kiss from me.  And keep us updated on Facebook or email or Twitter.  I know from past experience everybody’s too busy having too much fun to post much but we are interested.

We’ll have to do things in honor of the Specialty.  The big dogs are getting baths today.  I think I’ll do the puppies toenails, too.  Water practice is Fri and the Trial is Sat and Sun.  I think tracking might be this weekend, too.   I’ll be thinking ball drops and glove finding  for the dogs entered…

September 26, 2012

               Good morning, good morning the little dogs say.  Or at least that what they said when I came downstairs this morning.  The MSU was on duty and no one escaped from the pool in the night so all was well.

               SammieDoodlebug has also started taking some of her meals out of the pool (she ate 2 meals in her crate.)  She had just gotten out of the pool when I started to prepare the meal so she came out to watch me.  She even hid behind Bruce’s golf net (when I am making their food, she likes to lie behind the practice net) and then trotted in to the crate when I carried in the bowls.  She ate almost all of it before the puppies made noise and she had to go check on them so I brought the rest in to her.  She ate a chicken quarter in her crate today.  That’s nice because I didn’t have to hold it for her (I don’t like raw chicken all over the house)

               When I did the changing of the pools this morning (we took the noodle pig rails out of the second pool so I can use both of them again), the Blue Behemoth was walking all over the new one.  He has eyes!  Bruce said he was looking around.  I know they don’t see much at first but I did turn off the awful fluorescent lights overhead (pardon me while I rant, I HATE that you can’t get normal light bulbs any more.  The fluorescent ones make my head hurt more and they take forever to light up.  At least a candle would be immediate) and turn on the halogen lamp in the corner to help their transitions to sighted puppies.

               Pink! was also walking around.  I think they were looking for their mother who was in the other pool (true PWDs like to help you with whatever you are doing.  That usually involves being right in the middle of the way.  Try to move a rug with 3 of them on it.)  I let Dyson and Brown (he really needs a good nickname because his collar color is confusing.  I put the brown color on a black puppy because I had a better chance of be able to find that.  A brown puppy could’ve just been a streaker.  So while it helps me, it’s confusing in writing and I will have to remedy that) nurse until the Mama said it was closing time.

               While the 8 were in the other pool unattended by their mother, Grand dam Jill kept watch over them.  She didn’t get in the pool but she was right there and several of them touched noses with her. It will fun to see what happens when they are big enough to chase her around.  I wonder if she’ll correct them or let them get by with stuff because they are little.  Maybe she’ll help Doodlebug clean up after them.

               New observation today:  when I lean over into the pool on my elbows, the puppies all cuddle in closer.  They sniff and I get to smell puppy breath.

               Early Neurological Stimulation (aka Puppy yoga) is getting more difficult.  They are very good and cooperative at first (and almost always yawn so I can get a good whiff of puppy breath) but they are hard to keep on the cool damp cloth.  Maybe I’ll have to put it in a container so they can’t get away.  We don’t have much longer to be doing that anyway so we’ll work it out.

               While doing ENS last night, we did notice that more puppies are opening their eyes.  It won’t be long now.                     

September 25, 2012

               Last night, I set up the puppy pen so that nobody could get out of the pool and end up behind it.  If they are going over the wall, it’s going to be out in the middle of the pen.  Then we turned on the baby monitor and both of us went upstairs to sleep in the bed.  I slept halfway decently from 11:45 to a few minutes after 2am.  Bruce set his alarm to go let the MamaBug out to potty, feed her, check water, check puppies, etc.  I woke up when he got back and didn’t really sleep after that.  I think we’ll go back to someone (him) sleeping down here with them until they are out of the pool.

               Speaking of which, I probably better get ready for the next phase of set up.  I need to bring the other ex pens, crates, etc. up to clean/sanitize to be ready for Phase whatever number it will be.  That’s exciting because I can start putting toys and things in with them when their eyes and ears open.  They won’t have a shortage of siblings to climb over/on/through but I like to add other enrichment options as well.

               Hardly anybody squalled during puppy yoga last night.  Lemony Snickett (aka Yellow) protested what she considered a series of unfortunate events but she got over it pretty quickly.  I adjusted everyone’s collar again and only had one mishap with a leg through the collar.  I pulled it off and corrected it pretty quickly, those Velcro collars are at least quick and easy to readjust.

               I noticed today that there is a little reflection in the corners of some of their eyes so we are on the way to opening.  When they have their eyes open, I can get in the puppy pen and let them roam all over me.  I am reluctant to try to lie down and navigate getting back up with 10 puppies and none of seeing worth anything.  I’d hate to squish any of them.  I have been snuggling individual puppies and had head and shoulders in the pool with them a lot so I am not exactly deprived.  They’ve also been getting up on all four feet and walking around.  Since their eyes aren’t open yet, I feel like they all should have little white canes.

               I put pumpkin in the Mama’s latest meals and that is helping with the less than good poop she’s been having.  Hopefully, I will remember to add it sooner next time we have a boatload of puppies.

               We had a weight watchers meeting and we have 17 pounds of puppies on the bathroom scales.  There is a little variation but that’s close enough for government work.  At least 2 puppies weigh 2 or more pounds and a third weighs close and over depending on how much he wriggles in the weighing bucket.  Big Blue the Behemoth is the heaviest and largest, closely followed by the Red girl and Orange.   Dyson is still steadily gaining.  (Dyson is the tan puppy.  He never loses suction once he is latched on, whether it’s on his mama or my finger.)

               I think that’s all for now.  I’m going to finish putting everything back (tonight was floor steaming night) and go nighty, nighty, nighty.  Sending puppy breath dreams to all of you…

September 24, 2012 Pupdate

Dog Cindi puppysat today while I went to the Dr to get my second set of injections. I hated to leave the puppies but I needed to get them since it was wearing off.  I was leaving them in capable hands so it was ok.   

I don’t know if she’s crafting her guest post or not (hint, hint, Cindi) but she did get a little cuddling in with at least a few of them (and Jack cuddled some as well.)

I took a little bit of video today of them napping, then the feeding frenzy, then the singing drinking songs. 

Here is an attempt to post it:

 

Calm before the storm:

 

Belly up to the Bar!

 

A few short drinking songs:

 

In other news, they are becoming quite mobile (I guess that shows in the video) but this morning when I was changing their linens (I am a puppy’s maid now), I put them on the pad and before I was done, 4 of them had walked/lurched off and I had to capture them.  I’ll have to put them in something more secure in the future.

There are signs that eyes will be opening soon as well.

For now, they’ve quieted down for a nighty, nighty, nappy.  I’m sure they’ll be up several more times to eat but right now, they need a cuddle.  Fortunatley, that is also in my job description.

           BTW, I haven't been putting the labels on these posts.  I never figured out what they did but if someone was using them, let me know and I'll try to put them on again.

September 24, 2012 Pupdate

Weight watchers update:  every puppy weighs at least a pound now. I’m trying not to obsess over each weight too much these days because we have to resort to different methods to weigh them.  Most of the puppies have outgrown my kitchen scale so we have to use scales that report to the 2/10 of a pound.  Camo, Blue, Red and Brown have all doubled their birth weights.  All of their collars will need loosened in the next day or so with the exception of Camo who is streaking again (or he is really good at camouflage.) I loosened his the other day and he promptly got his front leg through it so I quickly took it off.  He’s been too squirmy to put it back on but maybe that’s his plan.

               I finally got a picture of a puppy lying on SammieDoodlebug’s back.  That is at least the third one to do it but I never get pictures.  I am trying to do better but it’s not that big a part of my life.  (Touching them is a whole different story.)  Tan sucked on the end of my nose when I was trying to get a little puppy breath.

 

               Their singing sounds a little bit like a very distant flock of sheep right now.  It’s cute, like most things they do.

               During one of their drinking bouts today, one puppy (with a white front foot) was on the bottom on his back and another puppy was on the top.  They were paw to paw like they were holding hands.  I know they were really kneading like they do to make the milk come down but it was very endearing.

               I took Jill out of the dog yard to free range poop today but she spent her time scoping out a potential den. I guess she wants to be ready in case I put them all out of doors.  She hasn’t stolen a puppy yet but she is still very interested in them.  Jack even sniffed a puppy when SammieDoodlebug was outside and I was switching them from one pool to another.  He wasn’t overly interested, maybe he was just gauging how long he has before they start stealing his monkey paws when he drops it in the pen.

               SammieDoodlebug ate part of one meal out of the pen today but I had to get Jack to incite her to eat AND I had to hold it for her.  I haven’t had to hold her chicken for more than 5 years (and back then I only did it to make sure she chewed it up instead of swallowing it whole.)  If she had been willing to eat her chicken in the pool, I wouldn’t have minded but she was very picky about it until she got started.  Maybe she doesn’t think chicken quarters go well with puppy poop or maybe she doesn’t like what that does to puppy poop.  She can’t actually talk (yet) so I don’t know.

               Have I mentioned that these puppies are awfully cute?  It bears repeating.  I enjoy snuggling with them as a group and individually.  They are awfully hard to put down.  They are not the slightest but obedient though.  Occasionally, I am trying to hear something on my computer and I tell them to shh!!, and they keep right on making their little noises.  Oh well, I think it is too early for them to be considered juvenile delinquents but I think Colleen would be happy if I could hurry up and teach them to stay while they try to take pictures.

Warning: potentially dangerous levels of cute

I 'm trying to upload pictures with Iffen.  Be aware that I just hold the phone and let the app take pictures. In this case, I didn't even have a sighted person check the pictures yet.  It's all 10 puppies cuddled up for a nap.

September 23, 2012

               The puppies are making Tribble noises now and at least one of them was doing something remarkably akin to barking.  Most of the time,  they sound like cats and kittens so maybe that is why I have that nightmare every time we are having puppies.

               I think Doodlebug might be spoiled.  I have been feeding her in the puppy pool while she nurses the puppies.  She  reclines for the most part (occasionally she sits up to let them nurse now), I spread a cloth over her front legs (so that they aren’t covered in food since she isn’t having daily baths) and feed her with a spoon from the bowl (I hold the food on the spoon, she eats it).  I’ve been doing this because so much of her time is spent nursing the puppies and it seemed reasonable.  Plus, she ate well the whole pregnancy with the exception of the day she went into labor.  (So many people have to resort to special food to entice pregnant bitches to eat, I was happy for every day she happily scarfed down her raw food.)

               Yesterday, I noticed she was out of the pool so I went in to prepare her another meal/snack (she eats so many times a day, I don’t even have names for them anymore.)   She came to see what I was doing and then got in with the puppies.  I fed her.  She did it again at midnight snack time.  Since she is leaving the pool a little more, I left dish of food out in case she got hungry in the night.  (I’ve been feeding her in the night as well, she’s making a lot of milk you know.)  I was actually sleeping all night in my bed, the MSU was on duty.  She didn’t eat ANY of it.  I came down about 8 am and she hadn’t touched it.  Very soon thereafter, though, she proceeded to puke up yellow bile – the sign of a dog that needs to eat. I get her a bowl of dog food soaked in goat milk and added some yogurt and she didn’t want to eat that.  (We actually call this feeding “good morning don’t throw up” because they need a cookie or something before it’s time for real breakfast)I primed the pump (put some food in her mouth for a few seconds.  They usually spit it out and then start eating.  I have no idea why but they all do.) She ate a little yogurt.  I finally had to let Jack stand nearby to get her to eat some (competition eating is always good, too.)  She didn’t eat all of it but enough that I wasn’t worried.

               Real breakfast time rolls around.  I go out to prepare bites, Jack and Jill come to supervise (I rarely prepare a meal without supervision, I might do something incorrectly) and MamaBug gets in the pool.  She was served breakfast in bed again!  I don’t know if I am going to have to get up in the middle of the night to serve her or if I just need to leave out something better than kibble.

               Puppy yoga went well but several of the puppies (eyes still closed) are mobile enough to walk/crawl off of the cool damp cloth.  By the time I get to the last couple of puppies, Sammie feels that she needs to supervise closely and I have to keep her from licking the puppy while we are doing their exercises.

               I hope this morning isn’t an indication of the weather we are going to have this fall.  It was cold.  The puppies won’t get to swim in the pond if it isn’t warmer than this.  They can swim in the pool but it’s not as easy to have a good experience because they have to come out the steps.  The pond is more gradual so they can do it without as much intervention.

               Dog Cindi is going to puppysit  tomorrow while I go get my next set of Botox for migraine injections.  Maybe she’ll write a guest post…

September 22, 2012 Pupdate

               The weather has gotten better for the first day of autumn but the sun still comes up later.  Fortunately for me, I wasn’t awake at the crack of long before dawn because Bruce got home last night.  He did the night shift so I slept after Doodlebug’s midnight snack.  I woke up at 6 something but he had taken care of the puppies so I went back to bed and sound asleep until 9:30 ish.  She spent part of the night out of the pool so the puppies must not need her every second any more.

               She has spent a little more time out today as well.  Dog Cindi and LeighAnne came to play and they took Bela and Indy to the pond with Jack and Jill.  Once again, Doodlebug thought that looked like fun but then she decided the puppies needed her.  She had one of her many meals and then I gave her a quick shower and dried her legs and jacket a little.  Cindi, LeighAnne and the other dogs were back and the dogs needed baths.  Doodlebug had decided that her babies needed to eat again so I gave showers while Cindi and LeighAnne made sure none of the puppies got wet and cold.

               They clipped the puppies’ toenails while I got the bottles ready.  They think that the Brown and Tan looked small compared to everyone else and they are but they started out only 2/3 the size of the big puppies.  Since I have the formula, we tried to bottle feed a couple of them but they had eaten and were sleepy.  Little Tan did drink part of it, then we tried Brown but he has way too sleepy as was Pink.  By the time we had done all of that I was cuddling Tan again and he started sucking on my fingers so I gave him some more.  He preferred to suck on my finger where the formula had dripped and that little fellow is STRONG.  Jaws might be another nickname for him since he can hold his whole body in the air by his mouth.  It’s a good thing they don’t have those little shark teeth yet or he could do some damage.

               Last night’s weight watchers meeting was eventful.  Blue boy has gotten too big for my kitchen scales apparently since I kept getting an error message.  I tried weighing him on the baby scale and sending pictures but I think it might not have been on zero to start because it was showing him much lighter than the day before.  I finally got out my talking bathroom scales and weighed him.  He will now be weighed to the 2/10^th of a pound unless we get the baby scale correct.

               9 of the 10 are over a pound and the Tan boy is closing in.  Camo is within half an ounce of doubling his birth weight and Red was within an ounce.  They cumulatively gained over a pound yesterday and have gained 5 lbs since birth.

               Eyes aren’t open yet but ears are definitely changing.  We’ll have to see if we can guess who might have hairy ears, I hope none of them though.

               The puppies are napping, the big dogs are napping, Bruce is napping – I think I should stop typing and take a nap, too.  I can’t quite fit in the puppy pool but I can get close (or I can steal a puppy to cuddle while I nap), Doodlebug is letting me take them more and more without checking so closely.  She still cleans each one when I return it but she’s not as worried about us stealing her babies.

September 21, 2012

               The pupsters are One Week Old today.  It’s also the last full day of summer but for Allyn Tense and Porpoises, it’s already fall.  The sun doesn’t come over the hill until late morning (it’s daylight, just not the bright, hot sunshine I prefer) and it gets dark earlier.  Fall is my least favorite season, I’m hoping that I will be distracted enough by puppies not to notice for a long time.  Of course, they will begin leaving in November and that will make that time even worse.  But there’s plenty of time to be unhappy later, I’ll just take another lit hit of puppy breath now.  Ahhh!!!! Much better.  If they could make scratch and sniff computers, I’d figure out how to put gadget for that on the blog.

               Aunt Colleen came by and took pictures last night.  SammieDoodlebug was happy to see them but eventually decided she didn’t like the way Bobby (Colleen’s husband) was leaning over her puppy in a box with a weird thing in his hand.  You never know, that could be some device designed to steal puppies.  Anyway, she stayed in the pool but got stiff and gave a growl so we put the puppy back and changed the setup before we started back up so she was happy again.  They also helped with the weight watchers meeting and ENS.  Did I mention that dog people are great help?  If she just didn’t keep calling the girls ‘out of name’ ;-)  It is hard to remember which one is Jill and which one is Sammie and harder still to get the right name out of your mouth (Bruce often replies “the black one” when I ask a question about which dog did something.)

               A couple of the pictures happened when the puppies were yawning.  I really like puppies yawning (and stretching and sleeping and eating and – hmmm, is there a theme here?) and it’s nice to have pictures of it.  It’s a great time to sneak some puppy breath.

               Cumulative weight gain since birth is just barley under 4 lbs.  Nobody has doubled their body weight yet but Camo appears to be closest.  That doesn’t mean he will get there first either.  Some of it depends on the timing of the weigh ins (who has been eating, etc.) so I really just worry about their gain over a couple of days, how they are acting and if they get nice little rounded tummies several times a day.  Having to readjust their collars is also a good indicator.  I am getting better at striking the right balance between too tight and so loose they get a front leg in it.  I’ve only had one foot incident in the last few days.

               I think I am going to give some of them a little supplementation now and then, not enough to replace nursing but I made the formula earlier this week and I don’t want it to go bad.  I am going to throw away the rest of the “mother’s pudding” I made for SammieDoodlebug.  I gave her some again yesterday and again it gave her awful runny poop and horrible gas (hey this is a puppy blog, dog people are worse than new parents to talk about poop.  It’s a huge gauge of how things are going) and she seems to have plenty of milk production without it. 

               The BabyMama’s caloric intake goes up to 5,136 today.  I think we will start adding peanut butter as snacks and to some of her meals.  2 tablespoons is 190 calories, a good deal when you consider the protein and fat content.  Even with the increased carbs, her ears have cleared up completely.  SammieDoodlebug has a tendency to get some ick in her ears if she has too many carbs.  It’s not hard to keep from happening unless I forget to reduce her carbs in her meals when we are doing water training (Her jackpot for that is Meat in a Metal Bowl!  Otherwise, her favorite training treat for that is milk bones.  They float, don’t disintegrate quickly in a wet lifejacket pocket and are easy to throw so we use them even if they are junk food.)  Anyway, when she was pregnant, I had to increase them and she got the telltale ear so I was cleaning it with white vinegar each day and that kept it under control.  Now, though, her ears are clear again without the vinegar.  Interesting (to me at least and I’m the one writing this so it’s in here) how her body uses her food.  Her mother, Jill, wouldn’t even eat carbs unless she was pregnant or nursing unless you really snuck them into her food (she’d turn her head from French fries, or take it politely and then spit it out) but she doesn’t follow that diet since she was spayed.

               Thanks to Chris, SammieDoodlebug has yet another nickname.  She is now also known as (the) MamBug.

               MamaBug and I actually got a little sleep last night.  For a little while in the middle of the night, she slept beside me and the box.  I think she is pretty hot with those puppies all over her and nobody was eating at that moment so she took a little nap.  When she got back in around 2, they set up quite the cacophony for a few minutes clambering to eat.  It quieted down quickly and then we just had the grunting, slurping, singing sounds of puppies at the bar.  Maybe I should play drinking songs for them today.  They are starting to drop off and lurch around like drunken sailors to sleep it off where they fall so midmorning break must be over.  It’s about time to feed the Bug again, now so back to your regularly scheduled life.

September 20, 2012

               I think the puppies have decided that ABBA’s Super Trouper should be their theme song and all they’ll do is eat and sleep and sing.  Actually, most of them are already up on all 4 feet lurching around when they are looking for the milk bar.  SammieDoodlebug is sitting up to nurse some of them now.  She left the pen for a minute or two here and there; and even let Jill in with her.  There wasn’t any stiffness between the girls but I’m not going to let it go unsupervised just in case.

               The pupsters are being very vocal these days but in a very cute way.  Sometimes it sounds like they are almost barking.

               Dog Cindi took Jack and Jill out to play yesterday.  Jack and Jill were happy to get to go run and play a little and earn a shower.  Jack got to run and run and retrieve and retrieve, he doesn’t have much concept that 10 year old dogs are supposed to slow down and has been very bored with only playing in the house and dog yard for the last week.  JillyBean even did a little wading in the pond.

               We didn’t think Doodlebug would be interested but she did go to the door and sit and fuss a little (going to the pond is a BIG DRAW for Sammie.  Even if she really wanted to go, she can’t because of her stitches) but as soon as a puppy squeaked, she was right back in there with them.  She spends more than 23 hours a day in the pool with them.

               It is difficult making sure to get enough calories in Doodlebug each day.  Poor thing has to eat and eat and eat.  Just for reference, if she were eating only EVO, she would still have to eat more than 8 cups per day to get enough calories.  She is actually eating a combination of raw and some kibble plus a lot of eggs, yogurt, cottage cheese and goat milk.  Tomorrow, she starts needing over 5,000 calories per day.  That’s a lot of eating and it’s all going to puppy weight.  We had at least 10.45lbs of puppy last night.  I caught most of them sleeping so I could get their weight before they started wriggling around too much.  I did puppy yoga right after they nursed so there was very little protesting.

               They have a photo session scheduled for this evening so there will probably be pictures up soon. 

September 19, 2012 AM Pupdate

        It’s a good thin' I don’t have a web cam because I be aye people would think I be constantly playin' a bizarre puppy version o' duck, duck, goose when I be countin' puppies. So far, thar be still 10 so all’s starboard with our world.
        T' hot pink collar turned out nice and bstarboard, I hope it doesn’t wash out when I clean it but I can always color it again. T' little lad fka as light grey then rainbow then streaker be now t' be known as t' camo lad. I couldn’t get light blue, light green or yellow t' show up differently enough on t' grey collar so I ended up usin' blue and then yellow t' make a sort o' new grass green that reminds me o' camouflage so that’s what he’ll be called. For a while anyway…"
       Pink lass be often called Pinky which then requires t' Brown puppy t' be mispronounced as t' Brain and they get t' little song. If this isn’t amusin' t' t' rest o' you, try it again when you aren’t sleepin' much.
      Thar's 12.6 ounces more puppy than we did t' day before. Not everyone be cooperative enough t' get a really good weight so we sometimes just go with t' lowest number t' scale seems t' show. As long as it’s a gain and t' puppy seems healthy, I try not t' worry but that doesn’t mean I’m above sneakin' that one aft onto t' scale when it be sleepin' t' try t' get an accurate number. 4 puppies be over a pound, and 2 or 3 will probably get thar today. 
      I still haven’t made SammieDoodlebug eat outside t' puppy pen but I be doin' somewhat better about keepin' it out o' her hair. There be almost always a couple o' puppies nursin', sometimes they aren’t on a nipple but be still suckin' away. Poor Doodlebug probably has hickeys.
      After t'olde dogges go t' bed, Doodlebug comes out o' her whelpin' box a little more. She comes over t' have a cuddle or a scratch but if they puppies make a noise she’s starboard aft over t' check on them.  Twas gettin' t' collars ready for t' weight watchers meetin' last night and she kept givin' me t' little worrrr noise. I finally figured out that she wanted us both aft in t' room with her for her current version o' only dog time. It’s t' same noise she makes when she wants someone t' keep her company on t' bed in t' RV."
     In t' mornin', I be realizing that she’s only frettin' bout Jack if he doesn’t have a monkey paw. If he has one, she doesn’t care if he be droppin' it over t' side o' t' ex pen. I guess she knows t' routine and wants t' stick with it. Jack retrievin' be t' status quo in this house.
      Training t' scurvy little deckhand for gettin thar sea legs went well a fore bed. T' ones who were nursin' when we started their turn were even quieter than when you get them sleepin'. Only one or 2 squalled and Doodlebug wasn’t concerned enough t' get up from t' 2 that were still nursin'. With t' other litters, I always did thin's in birth order but I don’t like t' interrupt nursin', especially for t' smaller ones so we have a couple o' other systems this time. One be we put t' puppy that has been done into t' other pool (I change them often so I can clean t' one they’ve been in anyway) and t' other be me version o' movin' magnets on a white board. I cut a little piece off o' t' end o' each o' t' collars and stuck them t' one o' t' black collars I be not usin'. I hung t' black collars on t' ex pen. Then when a puppy be done, I can move that piece t' t' other black collar. What can I say, I like systems.
     I think they be goin' t' get t' hear (as much as they hear anythin' with their ears closed) t' mechanical deck swab t'day. Thanks t' me mother in law, we came home t' a clean house but doin' all o' t' puppy laundry seems t' create lint and dust. 
    Somebody be sin'in' in t' pen but Sammie and Jill aren’t concerned. I’m still goin' t' go check - and maybe wallow in t' puppy box. I’ve been gettin' t' sniff a little puppy breath, methinks it’s better'n rum or whiskey.

9/18/12 Pupdate - late afternoon

               I’m getting really good at counting to ten.  Wonder if that will help me stay calm throughout the rest of my life.  My goodness, these puppies are cute and so very sweet.  They eat a lot and THE Mama is keeping them nice and clean and well fed.  The puppy box is almost irresistible.  The only one of us who isn’t highly interested in them is Jack and he has better things to do.  He probably realizes it’s only a matter of time until they are big enough to take his toys.

               I gave Doodlebug a quick shower today and force dried her coat a little before I let her back in with the babies so they wouldn’t get cold.  It didn’t take long and I put the fleece pad in the pool when she came back.  SammieDoodlebug the Princess (Jill has always been the queen) is accustomed to being wrapped in a towel after her shower so that helped keep everyone warm enough as well.  As soon as I put them on the fleece, the puppies started rooting around to see if they could nurse on it but they bellied up to the bar pretty quickly. 

 If SammieDoodlebug isn’t in the whelping box, she’s perfectly content to have Jack and Jill around and doesn’t bat an eye but she is still spending most of her time in the pool.  I’ve been feeding her in there which is part of why she needed a bath, she had yogurt and cottage cheese and other such delights in her hair ;-(  I still gave her one of her lunches in the pool but I covered her hair with a towel.  I think she might need a bib or she might start taking her meals out of the pool. With 10 little mouths to feed, a few are almost always nursing so I hate to make her leave to eat.  She may be a little spoiled but she’s saving me a lot of work by feeding them all and cleaning up after them.

               While I had her in the shower, grand dam Jill supervised  the puppy pool.  Cindi let her check on the puppies and surprisingly, she just checked them from the side of the box and then arranged herself in a supervisory position on the dog bed couch.  We were worried that she would try to take over the puppies (she was a VERY good mother, too) and that SammieDoodlebug  wouldn’t  take kindly to that but they’ve been fine.  If one of the puppies makes a noise, you can tell whether or not to worry about it by how the girls react to it.  I often check anyway but it’s nice to have backup. 

               The puppies have definitely started to do some tail wagging while they nurse.  They’ll be nursing and those little tails will be up and wagging furiously.  A few of them have white tip on the end of their tail that we didn’t notice initially. 

               The pink girl is going to get a collar like everyone else’s since I got the permanent markers and colored the white ones for her.  I got metallic silver markers for the grey puppy’s but it doesn’t show up much either for me.  I think it might become light green or light blue.  I got a lot of colors so when dog Cindi wakes up from her nap, I’ll see what she thinks it prettier.  I’ll still have to do a little test patch to make sure it will be different enough for me to see it.  When I get that straightened out, I will try to post a list of which puppy is which so you can follow the cast of characters (at least until I give them each twelve nicknames like I do with the other dogs…)

               I’m going to post this now so I don’t have such a hurry to do it right before my shift to sleep tonight.  There might be another post today or it might be in tomorrow’s.  I’m sure you will all be on pins and needles waiting to hear what color grey becomes ;-)

              

September 17, 2012 Pupdate

               Good morning,  good morning the little dogs say.  Actually, that’s a very loose translation of what is more likely “feed our mama so she can keep feeding us, please.”  We did 4 hour shifts around the whelping box last night so everybody could get some sleep.  SammieDoodlebug actually started really resting a little during the night.  She must be exhausted but she’s doing a great job.

               Since I got to sleep the early shift last night, I took Jack and Jill up to my bed.  When I got up at 2 to relieve Cindi, they didn’t even get up.  She took them in to sleep with her but when I went up to get my water bottle a few minutes later, Jack was at the baby gate so I took him down to walk the plank.  When we came back in, he went right back up to my bed and stayed there until I came back up at 6:30.  Jill had taken up the other half of dog Cindi’s bed and wasn’t going to let him in anyway. 

               As is my wont, I rearranged everything again.  I put the dog bed couch behind the pool against the wall so I could pet her and easily reach over her to the puppies.  When I was on the air mattress in front of the box, it was harder to reach.  I am not a big fan of air mattresses anyway. I need to find someone to make my leather covered twin size mattress bench.  The leather covered might be the hard part, I can explain the rest of what I want but it never seems urgent until we have puppies and then I am too busy and then we don’t  have puppies for a while and it’s just a vicious cycle.  But, hey, it may be the only recorded instance of me being patient about anything.

               I tried to do a mini- weight watchers meeting this morning of the 2 smaller puppies and they appeared to have regained to their birth weight or day after.  The problem with weighing puppies on a talking kitchen scale is that they wriggle around a lot and skew the results.  So I am now borrowing a baby scale from our friend Marta (SammieDoodlebug and I nannied a litter of golden puppies for her a few years ago) and I will use my handy, dandy Iffen (for anyone who doesn’t know me already, my screen readers pronounce iPhone as Iffen so that became its call name) to take pictures for sighted people to translate – unless one of the really cool scanning apps will do it, they have them for money after all.  Dog friends are some of the best people, I don’t know how I would do it without all of them since Bruce’s golf events went into overdrive this year and he isn’t home to do night duty and drive us around this week.  Between Dog Cindi (for the anyone new, that is a term of endearment to distinguish her from my cousin Cindy,) Debbie (she is keeping Indy and Bela while Dog Cindi is here), Marta (loaning us her puppy scale,) Colleen (taking pictures) and everyone else we call upon in our moments of need, we may have everything covered.  It’s all about the dogs here.

               Since last night, we’ve made a concerted effort to make sure the smaller ones get a good spot at the milk bar and don’t get pushed off until they have eaten well.  I may supplement the puppies but haven’t yet.  I made up some formula last night but only Doodlebug was willing to consume it.  Maybe I’ll try the trick people use for tube feeding and put a little Karo on the nipple to make it more palatable.

They are all strong little puppers but it is especially noticeable how strong the blue and orange boys and the red girl are.  They have no trouble getting across the pool and forcing their way in to a spot no matter who or what is in the way.  And you can feel their strength when you hold them (unless they are snoozing.)  It’s amazing to me how well they do without vision or hearing and how SammieDoodlebug knows who needs help getting there and when they need to move around .

               We mixed up some supplement to bottle feed them a little just in case but after tonight’s weight watchers meeting it was clearly unnecessary.  We gave it to a few of the puppies just to get our skills honed and see which nipple would work.  Once we got the nipple unclogged, they went at it like gangbusters.  I have it in the refrigerator just in case we need it, though.

               I had to loosen every puppy’s collar tonight, another good sign they are gaining weight.  2 boys are over a pound and 2 of the girls were within half an ounce so I figure they will hit it soon if they haven’t already. In fun with numbers, we have gained almost a pound and a half of puppy.

               It’s time to do puppy yoga and then go nighty, nighty, nighty. 

September 16 Pupdate

               SammieDoodlebug ’s eating great but it’s certainly going to take a lot of calories for her to feed those puppies. She needs 4,373 calories per day for the first week and it goes up from there.  I think I’m going to use my Loseit app on my phone instead of my spreadsheet so I can just scan the bar code when I give her something new (the eggs are a different size this time.)

               I must say it is a lot easier when the Male spousal unit does the night shift.  I stayed up by the box until about 2 and then Dog Cindi came down to take a turn and I went back to bed until Bruce got up to leave for his golf tournament at almost 6 am so Cindi could go back to bed.  3 ½ hours sleep is somewhat less (ok at least 5 hours less) than I need but I don’t want to miss anything.  It’s amazing how mesmerizing 10 little puppies can be.

               Green curly boy played a version of the itsy bitsy spider this morning but instead of the water spout, he went up his mother’s neck.  So now in addition to dragging them out from behind her, now we have to make sure they don’t go over the side of the pool.  I may be building up the side earlier than I think I did for the other litters.  If I weren’t so busy playing with the puppies, I’d go look that up.

               This is day 3 of their little lives so we started puppy yoga.  SammieDoodlebug supervised carefully to make sure we did it right.  We had a weight watchers meeting and all but 2 of the puppies are gaining rapidly.  Blue boy is over a pound.  We are watching the 2 smaller puppies and making sure they get to nurse or we will supplement them. They are vigorous, but not as fat as I like.  A few of them are going to have to have collar adjustments tomorrow.

 

             The puppies are singing and dropping off to sleep, it's a nice lullaby so I think I'll go nighty, nighty, nighty for a while, too.

 

 

September 15, 2012 Pupdate

          The puppies are a day old and settling in nicely.  Technically, they weren’t due until today but they weren’t waiting.  They can maneuver all over the whelping pool and each other but they were all climbing pretty well yesterday.  The boy with the blue collar (at the time known as puppy #2) almost crawled off the table before the vet tech put him in the incubator. I had them in a box with a fleece pad to carry them out of the vet’s office and while we were getting the rest of our stuff ready, they were climbing up and over the pad (several inches high but not high enough for them to get out of the box.)

               We now have our spreadsheet of puppy information so we can start having fun with numbers.  I haven’t weighed SammieDoodlebug again but she is obviously MUCH lighter.  And it’s no wonder since she had 116.5 ounces of puppy.  For those of you not inclined to compute it for yourself that’s slightly over 7 1/4 lbs. of infinite cuteness. I can’t get this post written because I am constantly being mesmerized by puppies.

               Since Bruce is headed off to the USGA State Team matches tomorrow morning (bad timing that), Dog Cindi is staying with me so I can occasionally sleep.  SammieDoodlebug is very careful about not stepping or lying on puppies but I still don’t like to leave them unattended for at least the first week.  These puppies LOVE to crawl under between her front legs, under her armpit and cuddle into her back under the ‘pig rail’.  Doodlebug doesn’t mind but I’m not thrilled with that arrangement so I am often reaching under and pulling them back out.

               We’ve had a little bit of collar color glitch, I can’t really tell much about the grey so I am going to change that one.  We temporarily put a sort of tie dye rainbow color on that puppy but I couldn’t tell it from the other colors and it came off so that puppy is streaking right now.  It occurred to me to take a sharpie marker to the colors I don’t like/can’t see so I am planning to change the white one to pink to replace the rickrack and do something better/brighter with the grey.  With 10 though, I run out of things that I can distinguish in a box of puppies.  Other than that, I do like the Pupcollars.  They are a great idea, just not the best colors to me.  (That is not a paid endorsement, I doubt they care what I think but I may eventually tell them anyway.)

               The puppies are very busy growing and are already adept at vocalizing their emotions.  So far, we haven’t had the baby alligator in distress noise much but we’ve had a little bit of displeasure when we took them out to take weigh them and take pictures.  When the puppies are unhappy, we have to contend with Doodlebug and Jill.  Mostly though, they are noisy eaters (and sometimes sleepers.)  They sing and talk while they eat and, occasionally, I hear them smacking as they nurse.

               They need their toenails cut but they needed that when they were born.  I should have done them yesterday while Doodlebug was still a little out of it from the anesthesia because I am pretty sure she isn’t going to stand for it now.  I’m going to have fun with her on Day 3 when we start ENS.  She’s not threatening but she tries to hide them so I can’t take them and if they squall while we are holding them, she’s right there.

               She’s rotating so they have to move around so they’ll get stronger and is eating well, albeit in her pool (she is eating out of the bowl some instead of only from a spoon or my hand now.)  It’s funny that Little Miss “I don’t eat meals without meat” (remember that Tamara?) is now gobbling down yogurt, and cottage cheese to the point that I had to dip her steak in the yogurt to get her to eat it today.  I guess she does know what she needs.  She certainly seems to know what those puppies need!

 

               I’m going to lie down on the bed beside the box until Cindi’s shift so nighty, nighty, nighty for now.