October 2012 Pupdate

Peppy managed to stay on a long time while Doodlebug was standing but he wasn’t on a nipple.  Not sure whether that’s more or less points.  A little later several of them were managing.  It was amusing to observe how they figured out what they needed to do, some of them climbed up her leg for stability, some of them used each other and Turtle could apparently reach while she mostly sat.  They are awfully cute little pupsters.

I think they might be working on getting some teeth because they are starting to mouth on each other and the pen.

They don’t seem to be scared of wandering around.  I hadn’t been connecting the little ex pen to the big piece because they are too small to move it but SammieDoodlebug likes to lie down on one side of it and she moves the big one a little when she does that.  She did it enough in the night that there was a breach in the defenses and 3 puppies were moseying on out.  I think that’s my cue to go ahead and bring in the other pieces of ex pen and reinforce the defenses when I am not right here.  Bruce was down here with them and they hadn’t gone more than a few steps but that’s more steps out than I want them to take unsupervised.

They will be 3 weeks old tomorrow. I can’t believe how quickly the time goes.  They are all growing  though Dyson is still smaller than everyone else.  He still feels very solid, he is just smaller overall (at least at this point.)

I reassembled their playhouse equipment on the deck now that I feel it to have been sufficiently sanitized.  Obviously, they aren’t quite ready to go out there yet but some things are better to have done ahead of time just in case the weather doesn’t cooperate.

At times they remind me of the male penguins at the Pole because they are in a mound singing but constantly moving until they get themselves arranged the way they want or they fall asleep.  Maybe they are just singing themselves to sleep.  Maybe I should start singing the 3 songs to them now instead of waiting.  Of course, it upsets Jack when I sing the bedtime songs and it’s not bedtime.  He gives a long-suffering sigh and prepares to sleep but is always happy when it turns out to be a false alarm. 

Magic whistles are on their way.  I was going to start prepping things for the puppy books but the assorted pastel paper doesn’t have pink. They have yellow and beige but no pink.  What is the deal with nothing including pink?  First the pupcollars and now the paper.  I don’t think I’m going to color all of the paper with a sharpie, I’ll just order some pink paper.

Jill has continued her role as supervisor.  She pays attention but hasn’t tried to take over any of the puppies.  She will get in and check on them on occasions but SammieDoodlebug is fine with that.  Since I don’t leave anything to chance if I can help it, I don’t leave all of the big dogs loose in the rubber room unsupervised.  So when I let the Jack and Jill into the rubber room, Doodlebug gets in and feeds the puppies and gives a warning growl until she sees that everybody remembers just who those puppies belong to.  She’ll go out to walk the plank with them and comes back in very nonchalant so I don’t know if she thinks there are some other dogs going to come in or what but she is prepared.  I wonder if she gets that from me.

The puppies’ relatives are doing well at the Specialty.  On their sire’s side their half siblings took second in Brace, their Uncle won working titled dog and on Doodlebug’s side their grandsire, aunt and uncle won the Breeder’s class.  There are a couple more days to go.  We hope everyone there is still having big fun and we hope to be in Oregon for it next year.