I should have done something for the new puppies. I plead floods since a lot of the area around me was devastated by flooding. I was very lucky and there is only a small amount of damage to my driveway from flooding. It’s amazing to see how high the water got. I applied to FEMA to see if they will help with the repair. It rained last night and more of the driveway washed away. I have my fingers crossed.
The pups are so fat and healthy. I just love picking them up. None of them has a nickname yet since all they do is sleep and eat. Only one of them has fallen out of the bed, but I think that was really Raina’s fault. They were nursing and she jumped up to come after me. The last puppy still attached held on until it was free of the bed. I don’t remember which it was or a nickname may come out of that incident.
I scared myself the Saturday after the pups were born. I weighed them to check their progress and it appeared that they had all lost weight! I almost called the vet right then. I did some checking on the Internet and of course everything said to get them to the vet immediately. I just kept thinking that there wasn’t anything wrong. They were eating. Raina was nursing them on demand. Their behavior was appropriate. Later in the day it suddenly occurred to me that they had been wrapped in wash cloths when I weighed them the day they were born. I didn’t use wash cloths on Saturday. DUH! By the way there are 2 boys and 1 girl. Green and blue are boys and the yellow is the female. This time there aren't any big differences in size. They have been about the same size since birth.
The next milestone will be their opening their eyes. It should be happening any day now. The female has been exercising her front legs already. Serious walking work won’t start until they are 3 weeks old. They do remind me of human babies. It’s just that things happen at a more accelerated rate. I begin offering softened puppy food at 4 weeks because that is when you can feel their teeth about to come in. Raina will probably keep nursing them regularly until 6 weeks and then sporadically until the age of 9 weeks. By then I have them eating dry puppy food, but why not get milk when they can? It is instinctive for the mother to offer milk even though the puppies have teeth. I knew Raina was pregnant when she was only 3 weeks along. There was still some of Wookie’s last litter of puppies here. They were about 11 weeks old but Raina’s still let them try to nurse and she washed their faces and bottoms as if they were her puppies. I wish I would have the video camera that day because the pups were almost as big as Raina. She had to stand and they would lie on their backs. It was a shame she didn’t even have milk at that point.
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