Weaning

Harriett’s daily routine with the puppies always includes getting a weight for each individual. We use the weight data to determine if the puppies are eating properly. A puppy whose weight stays the same or decreases for more than one day is not getting enough food. It’s an indication that the puppy may be sick or there is not enough food available.

After the puppies had been here for a couple of days Harriett noticed that four of them were not gaining weight, but otherwise they were acting fine. Lola was unable to make enough food to satisfy their increasing appetites.

The first order of business was to mix up some milk replacer and start supplemental feeding. We use small bottles with nipples that are designed for use by animals. When we bottle feed puppies we record the amount each pup eats on the tracking chart. It’s just as important not to overfeed as underfeed, and the intake amounts along with the weight chart tells us if we’re feeding the correct amount.

Weaning is the process of getting the pups to make the transition from drinking milk to eating solid food. Puppies are normally ready to make the switch when they are between three and five weeks old, but they are ready when they’re ready.

Weaning starts by soaking dry puppy kibble in milk replacer until it’s soft. The softened kibble and milk is smashed with a stick blender until it’s a smooth, thin gruel. We offer the pups some of the gruel on a plate or finger and see if they will eat it. Usually some pups in the litter are ready before others. If they are ready, Harriett will offer gruel three or four times a day. If they won’t eat it, we wait a day or two and try again. This litter was ready!

It takes a couple weeks before the pups learn to eat without crawling into the feed dishes, so once the pups start eating from the paper plates we switch to special puppy feeding pans that are designed to keep the food toward the outside.

Lola, of course, continues to be a stellar mother. She provides as much milk as she can and keeps the pups very clean, even after they walk through the feed pans.

New Scale

We’re switching scales. Our old one weighed in 5 gram increments, but these pups are so small that that’s not accurate enough to tell us how they are doing.  We’re upgrading to get more accurate weights for this litter. The new scale uses 1 gram increments.

Since we switched scales there may be a “bump” in the weights for the second weight today.

The Eyes Have It

The pups are two weeks old and are hitting many milestones. They all have their eyes open now and some are taking their first steps. Two of the pups have already tripled their birth weight. Here’s a set of pictures we took earlier today:

Teslin (m)
Martha (f)
Gus (m)
Barbara (f)
Michelle (f)

Here’s the chart showing the weight of each puppy as a multiple of birth weight. The numbers on the left axis represent Y-times-birth-weight. You can see that Gus and Michelle have already tripled their weight and Teslin is not far behind. It’s interesting to compare this chart to the one at the top of the left column which shows their weights in pounds.

Jeepers Creepers…where'd ya get them peepers?

The pups are 11 days old and their eyes are beginning to open. That’s Teslin in the picture above…check out his right eye!

The puppies have been gaining weight steadily so Harriett will switch to weighing them once a day instead of twice.

Teslin (m)
Martha (f) Check out how the hair on her face is getting longer.
Gus (m)
Barbara (f)
Michelle (f)

Gertie’s Pups

Gertie’s Puppies continue to thrive. On average, it takes 10 days for a puppy to double its birth weight. As you can see from the graph below, these guys are ahead of schedule.

Tracking Progress

For the next few weeks Gertie will be taking care of the puppies’ nutritional and hygiene needs. Our job is to monitor their progress so we can catch problems before they get out of hand. The main indicator we use is the puppies’ weights.

For the next two weeks each puppy will be weighed twice each day. The weights are recorded on a log sheet and will be shown on the graph at the top of the left hand column of this blog. The log sheet is shown above. At the left-hand side of the page we have information that identifies each puppy. Included are the gender (‘F’ or ‘M’ at the far left) and a short description of color and unique markings. The times right under the ID numbers are the birth times.

We use a gram scale while the puppies are very small so the changes are more obvious. I convert from grams to pound for the graph we show on this blog. Gertie’s weight, in the last row, is in pounds.

You will notice that there’s a box drawn around the weights for Puppy #4. That box indicates that her weight has not increased and is a warning to us to keep an eye on her. No change or a minor decrease in weight for one or two weightings is not necessarily a problem because we may have weighed the puppy just before or after it has eaten. No gain or worse, a loss, over a 24-hour period means we may have to take action. We’ll be sure Puppy #4 gets time with Gertie in case she’s being pushed out by the other pups. Harriett will also give her some supplemental feeding to help her get going.

Ace Update

The intake form for Ace says “No time” as the reason he was relinquished to the shelter. If you look closely at the photo above you’ll be able to count each one of his ribs, and in the photo below you can see how underweight he is. I’ll reserve judgment about whether his body condition is due to withholding food or some kind of medical problem, but in either case I think it is unacceptable that someone would let their dog get in this condition and not do anything about it.

We’re going to ease him into eating fairly large meals and Ace will be checked for parasites on Monday. Since yesterday we’ve learned a few things more about him:

• He’s most likely housebroken. He signals when he needs to go out (you just have to learn what the signals are).
• Despite not passing the dog introduction part of the SAFER test, he actually has no problem whatsoever with our dogs. I think the SAFER results were skewed by his fear of the shelter environment.
• He has no problem eating near Sidney and Russell.
• He loves to play and Sidney knows how to push the right buttons to start a romp.
• You can take stuff away from him, including his food bowl while he’s eating.
• He’ll jump up on the bed to snuggle.
• He won’t let me near him when I am holding the big camera, but  he doesn’t mind the compact point-and-shoot. (I find it interesting that Geo was the same.)

We think he’s adoptable, and with a little patience and training will make a wonderful, playful companion.

Good Gains

We’ve had good weight gains for the last couple of days. We stopped the supplemental feedings yesterday because it looks like Lucille’s making enough milk to support the litter.

The chart has a lot of wiggles in it, but if you look just at the morning weights (the ones at the vertical lines) you will see gains day-to-day. Sometimes the pups have just eaten before the evening weigh-in and that will look like a huge gain. That’s probably why #6 “gained” more than 2 ounces during the day yesterday.

We’re having trouble with the video streaming and chat for PuppyCam. I tried to switch to a different provider, but the video was less reliable so we switch back to Ustream. If you want to participate in the chat it’s easier if you come over to our Ustream Channel.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/pupsispups

PuppyCam Returns

Starting tomorrow morning PuppyCam will be back on the air. Our normal broadcast hours will be 8-10 am Monday through Friday, 9-11 am on the weekends. In the afternoon we’ll broadcast from 4-7pm. We’ll have some scheduling conflicts and will be on reduced hours off and on, but we’ll try to stick to the schedule as much as we can. You can watch the cam here, in the window to the left, or you can go directly to our PupsIsPups Ustream channel.

Also remember that in our rural community we’re at the mercy of the weather gods for the reliability of our internet connection. When it’s storming or very windy we may lose the signal or not be able to be on at all.

The picture to the right is puppy number 5. He’s the one who’s mostly brown. We think he may turn out to be brindle, like his mom. Cute, isn’t he?

The pups aren’t gaining as much weight as we’d like and number 7 has lost a little since birth. Harriett’s continuing with the supplemental feeding. Lucille doesn’t seem to have enough milk to support everyone, but at least she’s here for their emotional development and to keep them clean.

Lucille continues to be a very attentive mother. It’s even hard to get her to leave the pups long enough to eat and go outside.

Also check out the picture at the top of this post. You can clearly see the scar on Lucille’s neck from whatever contraption was used on her. It looks too low to be from a collar. I’m guessing it might be from a cable. A lot of people use overhead cable trolleys or cables on stakes in the ground to tie their dogs outside. That scar goes all the way around her neck.

My, How They’ve Grown!

We probably see the greatest physical changes in the pups even though we only have them for two months. It's fun to look back on their short time here to see how far they have come. Just five and a half weeks ago they were helpless newborns. Now they are fast-developing pups, each with it's own unique personality.

Here are three pictures for each pup. The one on the left was taken when the pups were 5 or 6 days old, the center picture was taken when they were three weeks old, and the one on the right was taken last night at nearly six weeks old. If you look closely you can see the changes to color and markings. Some are subtle, some not so much.

Wyatt (male)
Gertie (female)
Annie (female)
Oliver (male)
Oakley (male)

Continued Progress

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.

Steady Progress

If you’ve been following the weight gain of the puppies, here’s the data from tonight’s weigh-in:

Puppy	Last Night	Tonight	Change
1	945	975	+30
2	795	885	+90
3	490	555	+65
4	505	525	+20
5	775	835	+60

We’re keeping a close eye on Number 4. We gave him a private feeding for 20 minutes tonight and he was eating with great enthusiasm. We think he may be getting pushed off the nipples by the larger pups and isn’t strong enough to muscle back into the feeding scrum.

Daisy is turning out to be a great dog. She seems to be housebroken and knows to sit on command. Harriett was testing her for other commands and thinks Daisy may have had some basic training in the past.

Evening Weigh-In

The pups were weighed at 6:30 pm tonight and everyone’s doing great!

Puppy	This Morning	Tonight	Change
1	815	840	+25
2	655	710	+55
3	405	465	+60
4	435	445	+10
5	655	755	+100

Number 5 has made up for lost time and is back on track.