DNA

Today I contacted AKC to get the registration papers for the puppies started and ran into a little snag. Apparently if a dog is imported from another country and was registered with the AKC after March 1, 2006 they have to be DNA tested prior to being able to register their puppies. Izza was born in New Brunswick, Canada and was AKC registered in September 2006. Therefore today I ordered the AKC DNA kit so we can get this on file and then we can move onto registering the boys ASAP. Live and learn!

A scratchy situation

The puppies nails have already grown to sharp little razors in their 5 days of being in the world. Last night was their first time having their nails clipped. We do them similar to the adults, lay them on their backs, feet to the sky so they can easily be seen. This helps make it easy to visualize what is quick and what is excess nail that needs to be clipped off. Instead of using dog nail clippers, seeing their nails are so tiny we simply use human nail clippers. Their sharp little nails will easily scratch mom's belly if not kept in check, so from here on out they will be clipped every 2 to 3 days. This also teaches them to accept nail clipping, making them better as adults as well as encourages their quicks to stay nice and short. Long nails are not only unsightly but a liability as they can get caught on things and even ripped out.

Dad's out of trouble

This is Orange, he was the first born and is a liver boy. At last night's weigh in he hit 23.5 ounces.

Last night Izza finally called a truce and allowed Romeo to come into the puppy room. He wasn't too sure about it last night but this morning he was right at home in the office/puppy room. He's pretty curious about his baby boys but made sure he only looked through the safety of the x-pen.

Willow tried putting her head in the whelping box this morning (3 times) and was told there is a line she's not allowed to cross. Willow being Willow, she had to make sure Izza was serious. She really wants to sniff a puppy, but she doesn't have any stiffness in her body when she is trying, so I don't THINK she wants to actually eat one, just check it out. Izza's being a very good mommy though and not allowing anyone to put their heads in the pool even though she's now allowing them in the room.

Yellow

This is Yellow's little face (actually big face - he's still the biggest boy). Yellow is a black spotted boy who started off the week at 17.0 ounces and is now up to 23.3 ounces. He gained 3.5 ounces from yesterday to today alone! (Actually, Green gained more than him, 3.6 ounces in 24 hrs!) By the way the boys are all gaining weight I think Izza is producing sufficient milk for the 5 of them.

Today we started doing Early Stimulation For Puppies (from the book Breeding Better Dogs by Dr. Carmen Bagittalia). Adrian and I had a good time doing all 5 stimulation steps to each boy. The book states: In simple problem solving tests using detours in a maze, the non-stimulated pups became extremely aroused, whined a great deal and made many errors. Their stimulated litter mates were less disturbed or upset by test conditions and when comparisons were made, the stimulated litter mates were more calm in the test environment, made fewer errors and gave only an occasional distress sound when stressed.

Our hope in performing the Early Stimulation exercises is to ensure these puppies grow up to be well balanced dogs who have the ability to handle any situation their new families thrust upon them. Anything we can do to encourage them to be Super Dogs the better!

Blue

Tonight's attempted head shot is of "Blue". He started off at 14.6 ounces on Monday and as of tonight he is 21.8 ounces.

All the boys have some nose trim and some eye trim; none of them are completely without and none are completely filled in yet either.

Wagging Tails

This morning the boys got to go visit the vet and have their dewclaws removed. Everyone seemed to do well, including Izza. The trip to town and back was very uneventful which was nice. Despite having 'surgery' this morning, the boys have started wagging their tails now - as seen in the attached short video. Enjoy and have a good day!

Things are smoothing out

We're starting to get things smoothed out with the puppy routine. Last night we left the puppy room door open all night. During the evening Adrian, Jazz, Willow and I all hung out in the puppy room with Izza and the boys. The puppy room is also our office, so it's actually the family hang out spot anyhow. Poor papa (Romeo) wanted to come in with everyone but as soon as he put his head in the door Izza growled (very loudly and as if she Meant it), so Romeo being the good boy that he is, backed out and went out onto the deck. Adrian felt so bad for him that once we were ready to head to bed he went out, picked up all 58 pounds of Romeo and carried him into OUR bedroom (the one place in our home that is dog free). When I tried to protest he informed me that Romeo was feeling left out and his feelings were hurt ~ so Romeo got to spend all night sleeping in our bed, right between Adrian and I. Romeo was quit tickled about this and today he's back to his wiggle-butt self. I on the other hand, spent the day yawning thanks to having two men in the bed to wake me up every few minutes, turning, kicking, snoring, etc.

Leaving the puppy room door open and allowing all dogs to go back to normal (having free run of our house and our doggy door to the backyard) meant that Izza could come and go as she wished and/or needed, so we didn't have any issues last night or today when we got home.

Today's photo is of Green. Per request, I'm going to try and get a head shot of each puppy to post (so early trim can be seen). It's much harder than I would have thought to get a good up close photo of a puppies faces at this age. This is photo #10 or 12 that I took of Green's face, it will have to do, although it still doesn't show his eye trim very well (he has a lot of eye trim already). Just to refresh (or save you from having to scroll down) Green is a black spotted boy. When he was born he weighed 15.1 ounces and day two he now weighs 17.8 ounces.

Izza's bad day

The boys are all doing well today, although momma hasn't had the best 24hrs. Last night we closed the door to our puppy room thinking it would allow Izza to relax and not worry about the other dogs. Unfortunately her 10:30pm potty break wasn't enough to hold her over until 5:15am when Adrian gets up. She had diarrhea overnight and of course the puppy room is one of the only two rooms in our entire home that is carpeted. Adrian tried his best, but from our bedroom I could hear him starting to vomit, so he headed to work and I cleaned everything up. There's nothing like spending the wee hours of the morning shampooing your carpet to remind you how much work puppies really are!

If Izza's night wasn't hard enough... seeing she couldn't make it all night and I have to be at work at 8:00am, I was worried about her making it until 3:00pm when Adrian gets home. My fix was to leave the puppy room door open and lock the other dogs outside for the day. I thought at least that way Izza could have her accident on the hardwood floor if she needed to - much easier to clean up. Of course it's been beautiful weather so I have all of our windows open. Izza being the good girl that she is, apparently had another bought of diarrhea and instead of doing it on the floor in the house, she jumped out the window into our backyard (we have a manufactured home, so the windows are not very far off the ground). Unfortunately for her though, the added wait of her milk and the fact that the window was only open 10 or 12 inches, made it so she couldn't make the jump back into our house. When Adrian got home and rescued her, the pups were fine but she has a scrap on her hip where she must have made it part way into the window but couldn't make it the rest of the way. Man motherhood is difficult!!