So happy to have had a good first week. With a new mother, it is always a marvel at how so much of what she does is pure instinct. Just up to the humans to keep things clean and warm. And of course, keep Hope fed. She is up to 12 cups of puppy food with additional wet food a day.The demands of nine pups is pretty high. To keep the whelping pool warm, we regularly place hot water bottles around the edges of the pool. These also help the pups not get crushed when Hope slides in to feed them. Or falls asleep in the pool and rolls over. For the first few days, like all Moms, Hope stayed in the whelping room 24/7 except for nature call breaks. By a week, she has become much less enthusiastic about staying in the room. However, she is in there about 50% of the time. As the weeks progress, Hope will spend less and less time with the litter.
For those of you who are new to how we do things to keep you informed, we would just like to let you know that we paint paws at birth. Then we keep repainting so we can follow the pups until they go to their forever homes. Once the pups are bigger, we do put collars on them to reflect their paint colour so it is easier to transition in following them. Once they are bigger we also do not paint as often. For the first couple of weeks, the pups are weighed daily to ensure they are gaining weight as expected. Some days they gain alot and some not so much, because weighing a moving pup is more difficult than you might expect. You will also notice the colourful blankets, that also reflect the colours of the pups. These were new blankets and one will go home with each pup. The idea is to get the scents of their Mom and litter mates imbedded into the fabric, so they will have this for comfort as they transition to their "furever" homes. And yes they will get peed and pooed upon, and that is just part of the scenting process. We will wash them regularily. At this time we do not have collars for gold girl and orange boy. Also missing some of the blanket colours. But we can always just send one of the girls blankets, as we still use Maggie's, Hope's and Abbey's blankets for the pups.
Over the next week, we will be expecting the pups to open their eyes. Yes right now, you can see from the photos, all eyes are closed. Also their ears are closed too. So their only senses are smell and sensation. They really hate the smell of the nail polish we use to paint their paws. But it sure has been an effective way to watch them grow.
Also I would like to apologize for the lack of videos on You-Tube. Policies have changed, and my software is no longer accepted for direct transfers. So just when I get one IT issue figured out, another arises. If you are an Instagram follower, I can try to do a live feed every day. Perhaps Puppy Families can email or text me when the best time will be for a live Instagram video. They are usually only a minute or two long. Although once we get outside, it can be longer and more times a day.
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