April 3, 2016 Pupdate - Happy birthday Nana!

Happy Birthday to the pupsters Human Great Grandma (my mother) and Great Aunt Marolyn!

Sorry the update is late.  The trip home was rather eventul.  Not for Mila and the pupsters, they just hung out in the traveling whelping pool (except when I had to put the pupsters in the puppy tote to have Tamara hold them while I was violently ill.  Thank goodness there is are toilet facilities in the van).  As usual, my dogs are MUCH better travelers than I am.  Since we had to stop driving every time that happened, it took quite a while to get home.  Finally, while we were at the Jackson rest area, Tamara called in the Villagers for reinforcements.  Colleen and Jeremy live the closest to where we were AND they could both come so one of them could drive each vehicle; Tamara could be in charge of Mila and the puppies; and I could take every med I had that could possibly help.  (I was not exactly helpful).  

When we got home, the MSU had the room arranged and they brought Mila and the babies in to the pool.  And then he unloaded ALL of our paraphernalia from the van while I took a bath (TMI alert, my first hurling bag had a hole in it so in additon to feeling awful, I was wearing vomity clothes.  I'd much rather have puppy pee and poop on my clothes) and went to bed.  

And, as if he hadn't already gone abpve and beyond the call of duty, he stayed up with Mila and the puppies all night long so both Tamara and I could do real, honest to goodness sleeping!  

We held a weight watcher's meeting before we left yesterday and every puppy had gained more than an ounce.  Mila is licking them more and more (she is stimulating and cleaning urine but not certain about poop yet) and she has reached the stage where she doesn't want to move from the box unless she absolutely must.  (As in, we have to put a collar on her or use a puppy for her to follow to get her out.)

During toenail clipping yesterday, I quicked a puppy nail. In all of these years of doing puppy nails, I haven't done that.  I could tell as soon as I clipped that it was deeper than I meant to go and I don't know how I got there unless it was one I had already done individually.  But I go by feel so I should've known.  At any rate, the puppy didn't fuss and there were only a couple of little tiny dots of blood on the white cloth I had under them and it stopped quickly so it's not the end of the world, just the end of my perfect streak.

Mila, the puppies and I are happy that they are in the round whelping pool again.  There was a nice whelping box at Tamara's but I am more familiar with the round ones.  In round, there aren't nearly as many places for the puppies to potentially get trapped behind the dam (that's why you use pig rails) and there is less space for them to get too far away.  There isn't room for us to lie in with them (but I couldn't actually stretch out in it anyway, it was just a skosh shorter than I) but it is easy to reach everyone from the ottobenbed, couch or chair right beside the pool.  Someone should make one of the really fancy ones round.  But, then again, using the pools works really well because I can get 4 and switch the puppies over while I clean the one they've been in as needed. And when they atart going over the wall, expand their area.

Against all odds, the puppies managed to get even cuter.  And they are still quite sweet and cuddly.  I don't know why anyone ever tries to do anything else when they have puppies.  They are magnetic.

Puppy breath to all

April 2, 2016 Pupdate

We are getting into a little more of a routine with MilaMoo and the pupsters today.  Mila's hormones are coming on board more and more and she digs up the bedding at the end of the whelping box.  She is careful to dig where the puppies are not.  She's aware of where they are and places her feet carefully when she gets up.

There's a lot more licking of the puppies going on (by her, not us) but she isn't cleaning them yet.  We've been stimulating them to potty, so, hopefully,  she will be doing it soon.  I suspect her Mama will do it for her if she doesn't after we get home tomorrow.  That will either kickstart her into doing it or she'll just leave that job entirely to others.  They'll have clean faces and ears at any rate.  :-)

We've held 2 weight watchers meetings today.  My talking kitchen scale fell out of the box at the vet yesterday and no longer works properly so I hand the puppies back and forth and scribe the results.  They've held their own.  Often, puppies will lose a little weight after birth while they are only getting colostrum from the mama. I look for them to start gaining tomorrow but they weren't tiny puppies - the brown girly weighed a pound and the others weren't far behind - so I'm not overly worried.

I keep thinking of things I want to include but sleep deprivation puppy brain has already begun and I didn't make notes of them throughout the day.  I will try to do better in the coming days but even though Tamara and I are sleeping in shifts and taking naps, neither of us is getting a complete night's worth of sleep yet.

The puppies had a couple of visitors today.  Mila didn't protest but she did watch them closely while they held puppies.  When each puppy was returned, she licked the head and face and back quite thoroughly.

I've started clipping puppy toenails.  It'll be a daily event at a minimum, especially because we just take tiny bits off each time.  Some of them were fussy during one of the times today and Mila wasn't thrilled with their protests so I did even less.  I'll have to do a better job of choosing when to do it in the future.

I'm certain there are more things to post but Mila and the pupsters need a cuddle (or I can't resist cuddling them, it's the same result either way so it doesn't really matter which is first.)

Puppy breath all around.

Cristi Fogus Wetherholt (Blindchick)

Allyn Portuguese Water Dogs - Structure,Temperament, Drive...ALL IN!

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