3 Weeks Old!

               Happy 3 week birthday to the baby dogs!  We’ve been busy here this morning.  They’ve had a few meals and their mother has had a few meals, that’s a big part of the routine these days.  They’ve had a nap, the girls have had naps, Jack has been retrieving, he’s not a big napper.  If he ever starts acting his age, I am going to panic.

               I held a weight watchers meeting this morning while they were fairly sleepy.  They had nursed and played a little and were sacking out so it seemed like a good time.  We are to the bathroom scale so some of them are the average of 3 numbers.   We have 27.6 lbs of puppies these days.  4 of them weigh 3 or more lbs.  Behemoth is living up to his name in this litter at 3.8lbs  I guess he’ll but hitting 4 pretty soon.  Turtle, Camo and Lemony are in the 3 to 3.2 range.  Pink!, Orange and Peppy are in the 2.6 to 2.8 range.  TJ and PandaPaws are 2.2 and Dyson is 2 lbs.  So except for Behemoth, they are definitely in little weight clusters.  I think when I start feeding them, I’ll need to figure out how to make sure they all get enough.  I don’t want the big ones to eat more than their share but I figure Dyson will be pretty hard to guard if last night was any indication.  That boy likes to eat!

               This is sort of the golden time for puppies in terms of clean up.  SammieDoodlebug is still cleaning up after them for the most part.  If they pee on the rubber, she will clean it up and she’ll clean it up if she’s there.  I haven’t had any evidence of poop (not even remnants on their linens) for days so there is less laundry and it doesn’t involve much in the way of stain treatment.  That will all change when she stops cleaning up after them.  I am hoping she takes after her mother in that she will keep doing that even after they start eating other food.  I have heard of dams stopping as soon as the puppies begin eating solid food and I did discourage Jill from doing it eventually with the first litter but I learned my lesson and didn’t stop her from the second one.

               They are definitely interacting with each other and the toys in the pen.  I put the vtech piano toy that their grandsire Spencer sent for the puppies in Doodlebug and Indy’s litter when they were babies in the pen today (after I disinfected it and inserted batteries).  They have climbed over and onto it a few times but I don’t think it was intentional yet.  They do intentionally seek out a sibling to mouth, paw and wrestle but it doesn’t last very long.  And in true water dog fashion, I’ve already caught them sleeping with parts sticking through the ex pen.  I tried to take pictures of it today. 

              

 

The first one is a paw sticking out and the second one is a tail.

 

Colleen didn’t get the pictures of the feeding frenzy on my computer last night so they aren’t on Picasa yet. We’ll try to get them on there after she gets home from work this evening.

               In the meantime, I think I might join the dogs in a little nap while we wait to find out who won Best of Breed at the Specialty.  Nighty, nighty, nappy