The Parents
This breeding is from Meadowfrost’s Krystal Memory (“Krystal”) by Redfern’s Tucker of Ivy Hill (“Tucker”). Krystal was whelped 10-13-08. Tucker was whelped 5-25-06.
3 Black (2 boys, 1 girl), and 4 Yellow (3 boys, 1 girl).
This litter is produced in cooperation with our friends at Redfern Canines.
Birth Week
Pups born in a relatively smooth delivery on Monday, December 5, 2011. Nursing well, and Krystal is being a model mom, doing all the right things. Weights good. The black puppies have good dark pigment on the nose and foot pads. Yellow puppies have normal pink pigment for nose and pads, but those will darken pretty quickly over the first week or so.
Eyes and ears are closed, so the pups navigate mostly by warmth and smell. They have NO problem finding mom and latching on for food. They all seem to be moving about quite well.
By their second day they have lost a few ounces, which is normal, but will gain that back and put on weight pretty quickly because of the high-octane diet provided by mom. They love to snuggle, with one another and with anyone who stops by to hug them. For the first few weeks they will rely on a heat lamp and snuggling for warmth, until their internal furnaces ramp up to power. On the dark puppies note the “eye spots” near their closed eye slits — this is a protective device which gives potential predators the impression that their eyes are open, and they are being “watched” by the puppy.
Week 2
My, how we have grown in just 11 days. Bulking up on that hi-test fuel, building up the muscles [yes, we ARE starting to walk (sort of)], the pigment in our noses and feet is darkening nicely, and we’re beginning to show signs in those eye slits that our eyes will be opening sometime in the next week or so. And we LOVE to be cuddled and loved. The puppy-huggers are making regular visits and we just adore the attention.
Week 4
WOW! — Our eyes are open and we now can hear. It’s a whole new world out there. Door bells, barking, yips and yaps. Humans muttering on about how cute we are in words we really don’t understand. Our eyes have a bluish tinge, and we’re still learning to focus, but so far what we see is NEAT. All these people hugging and cuddling us are each unique and feel and sound and smell different. Talk about sensory overload!!!!
And walking — lots of it. We’re doing our daily workout to tone up our muscles. We’re learning to hug back t our human friends.
Week 5
We’re running, and jumping, and responding to being called and just spending all our waking moments practicing for being CUTE!!! Our eyes are still blue, but beginning to loose some of that “cloudiness”. And we’re doing some “vocalizing” — a.k.a. yips. We LOVE to be held, and cuddled, and have our bellies rubbed. All those puppy huggers (more than 70 last week!) are doing a MARVELOUS job of helping us to like people. Oh, and those little shark teeth are developing just fine, thank you. So watch those fingers when you’re fooling around with us.
Week 6
We’re getting so big that we spend a good chunk of the day in the kitchen — helping with the chores, of course! “Lively” is just not adequate to describe all the activity — it’s just RECESS all day long, with chasing our brothers and sisters, romping and rolling, “swimming” (a.k.a. wading in the water bowl), interspersed with periods of siesta. Lots of puppy huggers stopping by to certify our cuteness. But we hear that we’re gonna be moving to new digs late next week. Oh, the excitement!
Week 7
End of this week we’re heading off to our new homes. OOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo, we’ve got goose pimples just thinking about it. Rumor is that our homes were hand-picked from a LOT of applicants. Just think, a real family of humans to lick every chance we get. Kids to romp with, people to snuggle with. Wonder if they’ll let us sleep on the bed? Here are our “formal portraits” taken shortly before we move in with our new humans. Some day we’ll look back on these and be amazed that we were this small.
Oh, and we now have NAMES!
And Beyond
Here are pics of the pups and their new families. We hope the families continue to send pics as the puppies grow.
