I have no idea why yesterday’s post posted so early but it was easier to just add anything new to today’s than try to fix it. Nothing big happened last night after it posted so I guess it was all ok.
Things I have forgotten to mention in the past: The day after Doodlebug threw up for the puppies, Jill threw up for the puppies so now they BOTH have to see them eat in order to forestall that. Both will go in to clean up any food that they have left but thank goodness Jill isn’t nursing them. Had she not been spayed, I suspect things would have been different in that regard. Jack hasn’t thrown up for anybody since the night Jill had Sammie’s litter and I hope to keep it that way.
The puppies all love their uncle Jack. He consistently drops his monkey paw into the pen hoping that one of us will throw it. The puppies see him and know that a FUN thing is about to be given to them and rush over. Some of them continue to try to reach him as he stands over the door, waiting and hoping to get it back. Much of the time, he has to wait for the puppies to finish with it or get a new one.
Thank goodness the proposed APHIS rule didn’t come about. The AWA standards are how commercial breeders do things. We wouldn’t have been allowed to let the puppies be in the same house as their grandma Jill or Jack (not to mention visits from Uncle Indy and Aunt Bela.) That was just one of the MANY ways that those rules were not good for people who want dogs to be a part of their family. I hope if they trot that out again, anyone who understands what goes into planning, whelping and raising a litter of puppies will oppose it and explain to all of their friends and family why it is so bad. I’ll get back off of my soap box now.
Since the babies have really started eating, I’ve been giving them water in their pen. Like the little Water Dogs they are, they immediately play in it whether it’s in the bucket, dish or puppy feeding saucers so they don’t manage to keep it in there all of the time. Since their food is still pretty moist and the MamaBug is still feeding them, I’m not too worried but we’ll have to work up to keeping water in the buckets for them to drink. I may hang one of Jack’s bottles on the pen to help them get water but lessen the messes while they learn. Jack always played in his bowl, digging every bit of water out onto the floor so he drinks out of big Lixit bottles. (He can drink out of a bucket too, there just isn’t one in his crate.)
Since we were expecting visitors this morning, I didn’t wait for the puppies to go to sleep before I closed them in the crate before they were asleep. They. Were. NOT. Pleased. And they made that quite clear. For a long time. Eventually most of them went to sleep but 3 of them did not and as soon as the crate door opened, they came out. Within a couple of minutes, they were asleep. I made a point not to know which ones they were. We’ll try again tomorrow with a little better incentive to go in the crate awake and let me close the door for a moment.
While they ate their lunch, the heard gunfire. Nobody noticed at all while the screen door was closed so I opened it for a couple more shots. They looked but more in an ‘that was an interesting noise’ way. Then they went back to eating. Good little pupsters.
They and their mother have been wallering the ex pen all over the place so I reinforced the straight sides with some PVC. In several spots, I tied it on with long strips of flannel and left the ends hanging for them. Bruce said this evening that we had caught a lot of puppies on those trot lines. Not only do they pull on them, they sleep on the ends they ‘catch’.
Since you can’t start them too early and we did go swimming yesterday, I gave them a gear bag to play with today. I put a toy in it and one of the monkey paws on it and they’ve pulled it all over the place. A couple of them have been sleeping on it as well.
I set the yellow stool that I use to give the dogs showers in the pen today. It gives us a place to sit and they are fascinated with it. I am smart enough not to put it close to the edge because they are very close to being able to climb up on it and from there they could easily go over the side.
Bruce was supposed to watch football with the puppies today but he got sidetracked. We did watch one of those fights where the people kick and whatever they want Thursday night. It even had airhorns. The puppies were unimpressed as was I.
I’m not sure what fun adventures we may have tomorrow. If we get the snow, I’ll have to take the puppies out to experience that. It’s another form of water so they’ll probably think it’s pretty cool. They may be annoyed that it covers their favorite prey – leaves.
But for now, I think we will call it another day. We will all yawn big so the puppy breath gets maximum velocity and say Good Night Moon! Hope the Frankenstorm doesn’t cause big problems for anyone. Nighty, Nighty, Nighty.
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