J&A's Brittanys Just Born Puppy Photos

The 'TIMELESS TREASURES" Litter

72 hours have now passed since Holly gave birth to her beautiful babies.  She is doing so well for a first time momma. Over the past 5 days I have only spent one of them sleeping in my own bed.  The rest of the time has been spent close enough to intervene with Holly if necessary yet at a far enough distance so that she has the privacy to develop an intimate bond with her puppies. 

Public Service Announcement:  Okay.  So it's 5:30 pm on Wednesday afternoon.  I just fell asleep at this keyboard and when I opened my eyes I saw about a dozen lines of dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd's.  Not tired, no, not at all!  We'll return to our regularly scheduled blog. 

I don't like to use collars, rick rack, markers, nail polish or most any other method to identify pups when they are born. What has always worked for John and I at least since the inception of digital photography is time stamped images. As John helped Holly with each puppy, making sure things were going well with placentas, cords, breathing etc. I was busy weighing, disinfecting what's left of the umbilical cord, aspirating raspy sounding pups, and trying my best to get a just born photo in the scale while at the same time recording the weight.  Not to mention gender.  Believe it or not, in the hustle and bustle of delivering puppies and doing all that I just mentioned it is possible to get the gender wrong! 

I make simple ID cards ahead of time so that all I have to do is circle boy or girl, note time of birth and weight. I keep them in a pile next to the scale where just born information is noted.  When everything is said and done, like about 72 hours later, I can go back and put it all together. So that's what I have been doing this afternoon but that's enough of about my OCD.  You want to know how the puppies are!

John came up with most of the following litter nicknames

Legend (Heartfelt Legend, Pips name)

Mo (Mopar equals Hemi engine or something like that)

Star (Treasure & Wish when you WISH UPON A STAR your DREAMS COME TRUE)

LJ (for Jack dog = Little Jack)

Dude (Bullet nickname)

GIRL NICKNAMES

Dudette (Julie and a friend use this)

Polly (rhymes with Holly)

Dolly (rhymes with Holly)

Beth (Holly Beth) 

(These are all temporary although sometimes people will keep them.)

It's been challenging to feed Holly.  One minute she's loving nursing mother's pudding and the next she hates it.  This is true for whole fat cottage cheese and whole fat yogurt.  All three of these are high in calcium and that is the goal right now.  We give her calcium tablets with every meal (1 Tums). The other day John roasted a turkey just for Holly!  I've been boiling liver and keeping the liver water from it just in case one of the pups needed a little extra nourishment.  Pups on the other hand are all little piggy puppies.  The average litter weight at 72 hours is 13 oz.  The pup who's just born weight was 6 oz now weighs 11.  They are gaining more weight every day.  Personally speaking, I like to see a pups weight closely coincide with how many weeks old they are. I'm already comparing these pups weight with that of Holly's litter and all of Treasure's litters, and of Wish's average litter weight at this stage.

Puppies are agile, strong, active and very content.  They move around the whelping box from one end to the other. Like little wind up clocks though they do run out of steam.  I love to watch Holly watch her puppies. It's funny, she sits up in the whelping box sometimes to nurse.  It's like she has a better vantage point to keep an eye on them.

The room is kept warm and under the heat lamp it is much warmer.  Think of a brooder light for chickens. The warmth is not too hot for pups but a little rough on mom. High temperatures are desired for puppies the first week or so. Lots of reasons including preventing a few diseases. Holly has yet to leave the box very often even if she's panting.  Eventually though, once pups have been fed and are fast asleep Holly will begin to step out and rest in a cooler area. Holly has enjoyed running and jumping.

Yesterday tails were docked and dewclaws removed.  We like to do that within the 36 hours or soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo  

Okay okay this time I left it here so you can see.  Stick a fork in me, I am done for the day!  I'll catch up again soon. And stay tuned, we're coming into the final countdown for the ever sweet Miss Toph!  zzzzzzzzzzzz