The Rascals Have Names

The Rascals litters are doing very well. The puppies were getting so big that it was quite a burden on Chocolate to try to feed them all. When two of them stopped gaining weight Harriett offered them solid food softened in milk replacer. Everyone dug in and we were able to start the weaning process. The pups are active and playful.

Chocolate was not very well socialized when she came here, but there are signs of progress. She is now accepting of petting and has started to seek out contact with us. Tonight during TV time she jumped up onto the couch with Harriett.

A few of the pups joined us for TV time tonight. Our work now will turn toward their socialization.

Naming the Rascals was a bit of a challenge. Some names, like Spanky, Darla, and Alfalfa are instantly recognized as Little Rascals, but many others are not. You can find the cast names at the Our Gang article on Wikipedia.

Chocolate’s Pups
Shirley (f)
Spanky (m)
Darla (f)
Alfalfa (m)
Ms Crabtree (f)
Jackie (m)
Tiny’s Pups
Mary Ann (f)
Dorothy (f)
Wally (m)
Wheezer (m)

Meet the Family

Here’s Gertie’s new family.

Teslin (Puppy #1) male
Puppy #2 female
Gus (Puppy #3) male
Puppy #4 female
Puppy #5 female

More names will be announced soon.

Puppy Update

The puppies continue to do well. They’re a very friendly bunch, though a bit mouthy. We’ve been working on bite inhibition using the “OUCH!” method advocated by Ian Dunbar. We’ve used this method on hundreds of puppies and it has always been effective. This litter is no different, and we’ve already noticed a dramatic decrease in the number of times the puppies bite us. We’re confident they will be fine by the time they go back to the shelter.

Last night we had a naming ceremony on PuppyCam. We decided to name this litter after some of the loyal “Cyber Aunties” that have been following our litters over the last year on PuppyCam. The Cyber Aunties are a wonderful group of people who stop by almost every night to chat and watch the puppies. Over the last year, the Aunties have been very supportive, sending toys and making donations for our foster animals, even though none of them live in this area. (They are spread, quite literally, all over the country and as far away as Australia.)

We didn’t have enough pups to name one after each of the Aunties, and we hope no one is too disappointed if we didn’t use their name this time. We’ll use more of the names on the next litter.

Cindy (f)
Doogie (m)
Demo (f) (pronounced “dee-moe”)
Mary (f)
Kira (f)
Schipp (f)
Rocky (m)

Puppy Names

Thank you to everyone who took the time to send names for the puppies. We received 140 suggestions! Don’t be too disappointed if we didn’t use one of your choices…we only had seven pups to name.

The pictures below were taken on Sunday evening. Here are the names we chose

Puppy 1

Puppy 2

Puppy 3

Puppy 4

Puppy 5

Puppy 6

Puppy 7

Help Name The Pups

It’s time to give the puppies names. Once again we’re going to take suggestions. All you have to do is add a comment to this post with your suggested names. You can make as many suggestions as you like. You’re free to suggest names for specific pups, but we reserve the right to use any name for any puppy. The suggestion period will end on Sunday evening at 5 pm. We’ll make our choices from the suggestions and announce the chosen names on Monday.

Over the years we've discovered that many people do not change the name of the animal they adopt from the Shelter. Remember this because you may be choosing the life-long name for a pup. When you're thinking of names, keep in mind that we enforce four simple rules for the names we give to our foster animals:

• The name cannot be derogatory, a double entendre, or have a risqué meaning in any language.
• The name must be easy to pronounce and the pronunciation should be clear from the spelling. (These pups go back to the Shelter for adoption and we want potential adopters and their kids to be able to say the name.)
• The names of Harriett and my current and past animals may not be used. The name "Elizabeth" is reserved.
• Names for pit bulls and other "tough" breeds must be very soft (ex. names of flowers, like “Petunia”). This rule applies to this litter.

Names

We’d like to thank everyone who sent name suggestions. We received 49 suggestions. Since we have only 5 pups we couldn’t use them all. To avoid bias based on who sent them, we listed the names together on a sheet of paper. Surprisingly, we already used a few of them for recent litters. From the rest we selected a name we thought fit the pup best.

	Wyatt A male and the largest pup. He’s black with a white stripe on his chest. We’ve never used this name before and liked it.
	Gertie  A female, Number 2 is a tri-color pup with a distinctive white stripe on her face. Harriett thought she was big enough to carry this name.
	Annie   The smallest female, Number 3 is developing brown highlights on her face. She has a white blaze on her chest and her left front paw is white. Somehow “Annie” seems diminutive.
	Oliver A male and the smallest pup. He’s black with a white stripe on his chest. “More soup, please.”
	Oakley A male and the first pup to walk, Number 5 is black with brown markings on his face and legs. Another name we hadn’t thought of before.

Help Us Name The Pups

It's time for the puppies to have names and since so many people have told us they are following this litter, we’re throwing the floor open for suggestions. Below is a picture of each puppy and a brief description. Use the comment button below this post to suggest a name. Make as many suggestions as you like until Wednesday evening, then we'll pick a name for each pup. The names will be announced during a live PuppyCam broadcast on Thursday morning. We’ll announce the time later.

Over the years we've discovered that many people do not change the name of the animal they adopt from the shelter. Remember this because you may be choosing the life-long name for a pup. When you're thinking of names, keep in mind that we enforce four simple rules for the names we give to our foster animals:

• The name cannot be derogatory, a double entendre, or have a risqué meaning in any language.
• The name must be easy to pronounce and the pronunciation should be clear from the spelling. (These pups go back to the Shelter for adoption and we want potential adopters and their kids to be able to say the name.)
• The names of Harriett and my current and past animals may not be used. The name "Elizabeth" is reserved.
• Names for pit bulls and other "tough" breeds must be very soft (preferably names of flowers, e.g. “Petunia”). This rule does not apply to this litter.

	Puppy Number 1 A male and the largest pup, Number 1 weighs in at nearly 4 pounds at 17 days. He’s black with a white stripe on his chest.
	Puppy Number 2 A female, Number 2 is a tri-color pup with a distinctive white stripe on her face. (Notice her right foot. She thought we had PuppyCam running and had just finished waving at Tammie when I took this picture.)
	Puppy Number 3 A female, Number 3 is developing brown highlights on her face. She has a white blaze on her chest and her left front paw is white.
	Puppy Number 4 A male and the smallest pup, Number 4 tips the scales at only 2 pounds 5 ounces. He’s black with a white stripe on his chest.
	Puppy Number 5 A male and the first pup to walk, Number 5 is black with brown markings on his face and legs.