You know what that means… puppy yoga! Every time I started to do the exercises, the puppies and their mama decided that they should eat. I persevered and won out though ;-) Some of them were quieter than others about it but the Mama tried to interfere with each one.
SDB is still eating in the box but I don’t have to drag her outside to walk the plank. I did have to convince her to go big though. I crated Jack and Jill so she wouldn’t worry that they were eyeballing her puppies in her absence and closed the dog door and told her she had to go. It was even good poop. As soon as she finished, she told me she wanted back in with her babies so I complied. They were still cuddled up asleep (she wasn’t gone 2 minutes total) but she woke them up and fed them again just in case.
A couple of times today she was yipping and trilling at me. It turns out she wanted a drink of water and didn’t want to get up (it is just outside the box but still inside the pen. I don’t want her to have to leave but I also don’t want to risk a bucket of spilled water in the whelping box. I asked her if she wanted a drink and she thumped her tail at me so I held the bucket for her and she took a big drink. She stood up and drank a few other times but I am still putting a fair amount of liquid in her meals.
The puppies experienced their first 2 thunderstorms today but I don’t think they noticed. Hopefully, we will have more in a few weeks. I can plan for a lot of things but not sure I can arrange a storm ;-) The big dogs don’t generally react to thunder (a month or so ago, we had a big storm with several extended cloud to ground lightning strikes which bothered Jack. He’s never cared before and hasn’t been bothered since but he was NOT happy that night) and I like to have the puppies see that it’s nothing to worry about.
They are starting to become more mobile, nothing like they will be later but they can find their way halfway across the whelping box to nurse. SammieDoodlebug will occasionally nudge them away to clean them up and she lets them find their own way back now. They occasionally protest during the cleaning but don’t really fuss as they army crawl back to the milk bar.
Although we still spend 24/7 by the whelping box, I realized again today how spoiled we are by Jill and Sammie. If a puppy is squalling and neither of them is reacting, it isn’t an emergency situation ;-) That comes in even more handy later when they are becoming little monsters (I can’t wait until they start turning into little monsters, that’s another fun part of having puppies.)
I brought the stool in today to make it easier to hover over the whelping box all day. I still end up sitting on the floor a lot of the time but I can straighten out my leg when I sit on the stool. I’m sure it’s really graceful but nobody ever said breeding puppies was glamorous. Well, at least not anyone who has a clue about what we do for the puppies ;-) Theoretically, I could sit on the couch beside the box but I can only reach Doodlebug and I have to get up to play Duck Duck Goose (also known as 5 4 3 2 1 currently) so I might as well stay down there. The MSU can see them from the couch so he doesn’t have to touch them every time.
All 3 girls are streaking. I took the Red girl’s ribbon off because she kept getting her leg through it. The pink girl’s was a little tight and after I retied it, it came untied. Not sure how the Purple Girl got out of hers but I haven’t put any of them back yet. I’ll probably put them back on for their photo shoot tomorrow night. I had to loosen both boys’ today so I am pretty sure they are doing ok in the weight department. I still prefer to have weights for my spreadsheet though so if they are too wriggly tomorrow, I will enlist sighted assistance for the weight watcher’s meeting. (They have to hold still for my talking kitchen scale to announce the weight.)
I’m going to go sniff a little more puppy breath before it’s time for nighty, nighty, nighty
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