The new puppies made their arrival on December 23rd. This is a repeat breeding of NFC-FC Watermark's Running Back, "Emmitt" and Copper River Running, "Koda".
One of our secret weapons for a quiet, easy whelping is our iSpy camera. We know when puppies are arriving and don't need to go in and out of the whelping area needlessly. Koda is easy going, but other females get upset when we go in the room too much. The red circle below shows one of the puppies just being born.
Five boys and four girls, all healthy, strong and very squirmy!! The girls are shown below.
The boys.
One of the reasons we rotate puppies is to make sure they all get enough to eat, especially when litters are larger than 7 or 8. Even then, it is important to make sure to weigh each puppy and make sure they are gaining weight. We will pull the big puppies off of nursing and place them in a warming box while their smaller siblings have a chance to get at the good milk stations!
This is an example of "nipple guarding". Orange is sound asleep, but he stays over his milk station and will wake and start nursing if someone tries to knock him off. This is a reason we rotate puppies and give the smaller ones a chance to nurse well.
When cleaning the whelping box, it's common for one of the nannies to get in and check out the puppies. Koda likes to sit in my lap when I have my camera, so it's tough to get good puppy pictures when she's with them. The nannies make sure the puppies are clean and they help to provide extra stimulus at such a young age. Below, JJ is listening to the iSpy camera, as Splash gets set to whelp. All of the house dogs get very excited when puppies are due!
Koda continues to take great care of the puppies, and they are gaining weight quickly. At the end of a week, they are serious chubbs! The next week will bring open eyes and ears. Oh boy!
No comments:
Post a Comment