Chihuahua Update

The Chihuahua Pups are four weeks old and doing well. Stewie has a little congestion, but he’s getting better by the day. We’ve had quite a few developments in the past week.

All the pups, except Stewie, have made the transition from bottle feeding to eating kibble that has been soaked in water to make it soft. It’s been interesting to figure out much to feed these little guys. We’re looking for slow, consistent weight gain from one day to the next. At their current size, Megan gets 8 kibbles per feeding, Brian gets 7, Peter and Lois get 5 each, and Stewie gets 3. Stewie is also getting a small amount of milk while he works through the congestion. We don’t want him getting dehydrated. As long as the general trend on the weight chart is up we’re doing fine. We’re down to five meals per day and by the end of this week or the beginning of next, we should be down to four. We’ll stay at four meals per day until the pups are ready to go back to the shelter.

Behaviorally, the pups have also made progress. We’re getting a lot of mouth games, pawing at each other, and generally what could be called play fighting. This is critical behavior and helps the pups learn proper dog etiquette and bite inhibition. They’re staying awake a little longer and are a lot of fun to play with.