The pups are doing very well. Everyone’s gaining weight and looking good. From now on we’ll be charting the puppies’ weight in the chart at the top of the column on the left side of the page. The pups will soon outgrow our gram scale and we’ll switch over to a baby scale that weights in pounds and ounces, so the chart will show the weights in pounds from now on.
One of the interesting things about puppies is that all breeds start out pretty much the same size and shape. Of course there are exceptions for very large or small breeds, but generally speaking this is true. Breed characteristics such as ear and muzzle shape begin to show up as the puppies grow. A good example of this are the ears.
Puppies are born blind and deaf. At birth the tiny ear flaps are flat against the head and the ear canal is sealed shut. Over the first three weeks the ear flaps drop down. If the pup will have erect ears as an adult, they will often go up and down until the pup is about 6 months old. The ear canal starts to open when the pups are about 10 days old and will be fully open by the end of the third week. Daisy’s pups are now 10 days old and you’ll be able to see in their pictures that the flaps are either sticking straight out or have already dropped into position. Daisy is a Labrador Retriever mix, so we’ll expect these pups to have drop ears—the flaps will hang down, covering the ear canal. The noise in the puppy room will increase dramatically after the pups can hear and they start to bark at each other and their mother to communicate.
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