Journal
July 5 - Anika (or 'Nika' for short) comes to visit
us from her normal home on the goat farm to have her litter.
July 8 - Poor Nika is panting and looking a bit
unconfortable. She curl's up and sleeps on the bed next to me.
July 9 - F Litter Born early in the morning. 6 Girls,
2 Boys. 4
Black, 4 Wheaten. So many puppies! Good thing Vali got
up to take care of them.
July 10 - Anika, after first seeming a bit
bewildered by her first litter, has settled in to being a Mom with no
trouble at all. She also seems to enjoy being back to her
non-wadeling self. She's very attached to her puppies. If I
steal one to play with, she'll follow me around, totally forgetting the
7 others she left behind.
July 11 - Puppies had their dewclaws removed. These
are little toes on the back of each feet that allow them to scramble
over rocks, and in captivity, to catch of rugs and furniture. Probably
would of been better to do it the day after, but doctor was going to a
dog show of all things.
Doctor used liquid bandage rather than tiny little actual
band aids, so they won't be traumatized by ripping they off their furry
feet.
July 14 - Been really hot. Moved Nika and her
puppies down into the basement.
July 15 - Noticed that little puppies need their
fingernails trimmed already. Had to loosen all their
collars for about the 2nd or 3rd time too - they're growing so fast.
July 19 - Nika was rather restless last night.
Vali took her out for a morning of shopping to see if it would tire her
out.
July 21 - Eyes are opening! Eyes of black ones
seems to be a opening a bit earlier than the tan ones, but then the 3
biggest pups in this litter are black.
July 25 - Vali took all the puppies out to our sunny
deck (hey, it doesn't rain
every day in Seattle), and took some
good closeup pictures of them all. Unlike a few weeks from now,
they can't really move too fast yet and she managed to get some really
good non motion-blured pictures of them. You can find some of the
best in the the
Photo Gallery.
Just did some math - all told, puppies have gained almost 7 kilograms
(15 pounds) in the last 3 weeks and a full kilogram in the last day.
Jul 29 - Vali said Ouch! Puppies are staring get
their teeth. Perhaps I should call then point needles of pain
instead? So sharp. One got me on the nose, and I said ouch
too!
August 3 - Been busy this weekend with older puppies,
so Vali had to hang out with the puppies almost all by herself. What a
horrible fate.
Total puppy weight in excess of 10 killograms (26 lbs!) That's almost
more than Mom herself. And they're only 3 1/2 weeks old.
All puppies, including little green, weight over 1 kilo.
Not that it's accurate, but Big Blue seems the fastest - he's zooming
around the room and won't stay still to be weighed. (Vali calls
him Ferrari...) Smallest of the little Green is pretty vocal, but likes
to cuddle up - she crawled into my lap and didn't want to leave.
She's a real sweatie.
August 4 - Anika is no longer being the perfect Mom,
meaning I'm starting to have to clean up some of the mess. We have
some green puppy pads out, and their mostly hitting them. Vali won
some green colored ones that supposedly smell like grass and work better
than the yellow Costco onese we used on previous litters. I put a
couple of each out, see tomorrow if they actually are better.
We'll let you know the results of this experiment later.
The puppies have jaws fill of sharp little teeth too. Some didn't
gain too much weight yesterday. Luckilly the rock-solid
frozen contain of goat's milk we got Saturday has *finally* defrosted
enought. We'll try that in a bit
I did come to one conclusion - cleaning up after a litter of 8 puppies
is sort of like raking the leaves off your front lawn in the fall.
Just as you think your finished, you turn to discover the other half of
the yard is all messy again from new fall.
One more thought as I sit here typing in the middle of a Seattle heat
wave. It's pushing 90 in this room. Summer
puppies are still better than winter puppies.
August 5th - Puppies love the goat's milk.
They've been lapping it up all day. (I need to invent bib's for
puppies - they're kinda messy eaters, and the milk show's particullary
well on the muzzles of the 4 black puppies.) The puppies
that didn't gain expected amount of weight yesterday are back on track.
Well, one minor exception. Blue (who Vali call's Ferrai because
he's the fastest of the litter) took a spin around the X-pen this
morning and then managed to find his way out the doggie door and into
our yard. Vali found him about 6 this morning trying huddled near
the steps nearest the door unable to make his way back up.
This afternoon, didn't seem to have any lasting effects due to his
ordeal, but only put on about half his 50-60 daily 50-60 grams. He
certainly enjoyed the goat's milk party this evening - he should be back
on track tommorrow.