Diva whelped 5 boys and 2 girls on January 4th! Everyone is hungry, healthy, and are already seeming to grow.
Click the slideshow to the right to play our first photos.
The pups and mom are doing great! We are starting to see tiny slits of eyes now and the pups are beginning to show more personality.
Soon these guys will be starting on our signature puppy mash :)
Diva has been a very good first-time mom and is very attentive to her pups. Unfortunately, she also likes to escape from the pen and we often come home to find her room in disarray. Oh well. At least she seems to have given up on the idea of moving the pups outside!
You will see one pic in this slideshow of a dog sitting outside of the box, wearing a collar. This is daddy Gibbs admiring his kids. He just loves the little slugs and cannot wait to be able to play!
A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks! Everyone's eyes are open and they have all become romping terrors. Unfortunately for Diva, they are cutting teeth now, so are especially mouthy and Diva is especially sore.
Last week had a storm come through and lost power. It was cold, so the group was moved in on the bed to keep them warm. They lapped it up! Sorry for the dark pictures, we were using one phone for light and one to take the pictures. Thankfully power was returned quickly.
We also started weaning this past Friday with moderate success. Yellow girl was the first to understand the value of location and promptly dove in! Others found it beneficial to clean the food off of their siblings face and feet.
As you can see from the photos, everyone is up and walking, even escaping from the whelping box when we leave the partition out. They are quite adventurous!! We have an abundance of toys which they love to stalk, attack, bark at, growl at, shake and then forget about - lol! There is so much to do in the life of a puppy!
Living arrangements have changed as well. Now that everyone is "going" on their own, we have instituted the "litter-box." You will see in the pics that one corner has pelleted litter. This is a non-toxic, compressed pine bedding that is designed for small animals. So far they are pretty good about at least getting 2 feet in the litter - lol!
Lastly, the big dogs love the pups. We included a picture of our year-old pup Mya as she admires the little ones. Mya is still not allowed to play with them as she is too rough for their size, but we promised her that it will not be long before she can romp.
That is all for now :)
It is amazing how quickly 5 weeks goes by!
First, two of our boys have gone to Mason to be foster brothers to a lonely girl. The girl belongs to very good weim friends of ours and she was born, an only puppy, just 3 days after our litter. It was a perfect fit!
The Mason puppies are Black (used to be white) and Green. Red (used to be orange), Blue and Purple are still here, as are the girls Pink and Teal (used to be yellow).
Food wise, everyone has graduated to puppy mash exclusively. Though they still get a drink from Diva from time to time. They have been terrorizing our family room, and do not seem to be afraid of anything.
Most have attempted our flight of stairs, but only Teal has successfully scaled the obstacle thus far. She was very proud of herself and paraded in front of the big dogs to show off.
Another new thing to note are the beds that they frequent (which they received at about 4 weeks). These beds are new to us and so far dogs young and old seem to love them! I must admit, the large tan ones (outside the pen) seem to be the favorite.