Rise and Shine!
A morning wake up call, a light clean up and then breakfast!
After you turn it on, be sure to click on the CC button beneath the video to read the captions!
AKC Havanese puppy
One Week Old and Twice as Big!
The beginning of socialization! My daughter in law getting her first wiff of puppy breath and giving Sienna some loving!
Our puppies turned 1 (week) today! They are doing great…even the little one! Everyone has at least doubled their weight which is a good sign.
The first three weeks are always the clinchers. I
don’t want to let Sienna outside because we have tons of deer in our neighborhood. They are beautiful but also disease carriers. While the pups do benefit from Mom’s antibodies in the colostrum and in her milk, I am nervous.
Here are some recent photos!
Grandson Ben loves to hold puppies! This is the same young man featured on the “cover” of this website….10 years ago! He is holding our littlest one, Luxio.
They try to sleep in clumps!
You can’t see them all, but the other 5 are nestled under the whelping pen’s pig rail. A pig rail prevents mom from accidentally crushing one of her babies.
Sienna getting some quality on my bed with Luxio. My way of making sure this pup gets all the milk he needs. Special times.
Sienna, me and Luxio. (I am terrible at selfies!)
And Now We Have Names!
For those of you with young children in your lives, this will sound familiar.
This is my Pokeman litter…named by my grand daughter Lulu. Please bear in mind that these names have little to do with color or characteristics!
Our first born, a boy, is Ash. Ash is mostly black with a white face, feet and chest.
This is Eevee. He is a gold sable with white face, collar, feet and tip of his tail.
This pup is our tiny one. Born at just 3 oz. he has almost doubled his weight (with a little help from his human)! He is a dark sable with white paws, tail tip and patch on the back of his head. We are calling him Luxio.
Puppy #4 is a girl. She is white with soft gold spots that will likely fade to cream. We are calling her Pansear.
One of white and cream pups, this is the boy. It is almost identical to puppy #7 except that she is a girl and quite a bit larger at this time. That will likely change. Anyway, we are calling him Togepi.
Puppy #6 is a boy. He is white with dark sable spots. If you look carefully you can see he is already sporting pigment on his nose! We are calling him Pikachu.
This is our other cream and white pup. It is a girl and we are calling her Swirlix. She was the last born and rules the roost! Her nose is darker but not at all finished darkening.We are calling her Swirlix.
I hope you enjoy the fun in this name selection! What we don’t do for our grandhildren!!
Sienna’s Puppies–Day 3
As a first time mom, Sienna was a little bewildered when her puppies began to arrive. But after the fourth pup descended (she has 7!), her instincts kicked in big time.
Fast forward to Day 3 and she has got this!!
In the video below she is seen picking up one of the pups to gently (puppy never made a peep) and place him in the circle of babies so that she could curl her body around all of them for nursing. I think this is just amazing!
Day 2–Everyone is Gaining!
With seven puppies, I expect them to be small. There is, after all, only so much room in mom’s belly! I weigh my newborns twice a day to catch any weight loss that may have to be addressed with supplemental feedings. I was particularly concerned about the little boy who weighed in at just 90 grams (3 ounces) at birth. I was ready to start to feed him, but really wanted him to take full advantage of mom’s colostrom during those critical first days. (A dam’s milk does not usually come in until the 3rd day or so). Colostrom is loaded with nutrients and antibodies for puppies. Nature’s way of getting them off to a good start.
Suffice it to say I was nervous.
It is quite common for puppies (and human babies, as I understand it) to lose a bit of weight their first couple days of life. Imagine my surprise and glee when all the puppies actually gained weight their first 24 hours of life! Even the little guy.
Kudos to Sienna!
Sienna’s puppies, day 2. The little guy is on the left just below the dark brown and white pup that is about twice the size!