Puppy Play

Today is a rainy day with not much to do so the pups have decided to start playing with each other. White and green seem to"get it" the most and are nibbling and pestering their littler mates. Blue ventured over to the water dish today and took a sip. It's so amazing how fast they start to wean themselves. Speaking of weaning, by the end of this week we will have officially started that process. The first step was to watch for the pups to become curious about Molly's food and water dish. We are definitely there! Last night white, purple, and pink were taking turns gumming a piece of kibble that they found next to the food bowl. It was pretty cute....wish I got a picture of it. Oh well, there's plenty more eating in their futures :-). Another sign that they are getting ready to wean is the eruption of their teeth. Today I felt little nubs along their gum lines so teeth are not far off now. I had forgotten how yummy puppy breath is. Oh my, I love that smell!  I will introduce a dish of puppy formula first and see how well they are lapping it up. After they are good with that (usually about 2 days) I will introduce a formula/puppy chow gruel. They should be ready for this at about the 3 1/2-4 week mark.

They are also making lots of progress in the walking department. White is doing the best, followed by pink and then maybe green. Green, purple, and blue still flop over on their sides quite a bit but there is genuine determination to get where they want to go. White can take about 3 steps before getting off balance. I think purple is just too darn fat to support her body weight. :-) Not really, she's keeping up with everyone just fine.

Molly is loving the pups independence. She has found her way back to our bed the last couple weeks and I realized how much I had been missing her company. She was pretty devoted to the pups the first week to 10 days. Yesterday Will cleaned the garage and she spent the whole time down there with him wandering around investigating what he was doing. She's still really great about keeping the pups fed though. She seems to just have this timer in her head that goes off every few hours and she knows she needs to spend some QT with the pups. She disappears upstairs and you'll find her flopped over on her back in the whelping pool with the puppies greedily attacking her belly. At about the 2 week mark I really noticed an increase in their feeding time intensity. I guess part of it has to do with the pups increased mobility and ability to navigate, but oh my goodness, they are greedy little buggers! They practically swarm Molly and are constantly changing nipples and pushing others out of the way. They will eventually settle down and start to fall asleep after about 10 minutes (which is a good sign they are getting enough milk) but those first few minutes are pretty serious. I've been keeping their nails trimmed about once a week because I don't want them to scratch each other or Molly too badly. They seem to tolerate it really well and Molly's belly looks really good so far.

The Bio-sensor training is going really well. So is the submission exercises. Pink and green remain the most resistant to being turned on their backs but they are starting to calm down more quickly every day. Green has really made a lot of progress just in the last 48 hours. Blue remains the most passive followed by purple. White is in the middle.

Weights continue to increase by about 15-40 grams a day. Fatties purple and white remain in the lead. Pink is slowing down a bit but still doing well. Blue to really doing well and has increased from a usual gain of about 10-15 grams a day to 20-30 grams. Green has been pretty consistent lately and putting on about 15-20 grams a day. I'm extremely pleased with their weight trends and Molly's milk production.

Today I will introduce some toys for increased stimulation. I will throw in some of Molly's (cleaned first) for now, but I will buy each of them their own toy soon and it will go with them to their new homes. It will help increase their comfort level when the Big Day comes.....totally dreading it by the way. :-(