This week has been tinged with sadness, as we know that it is the last week that all 10 pups will be together. On the plus side, there will be less pooh to pick up!

The pups were taken down to the vets in two separate cars on Saturday. We decided that this was the best course of action as they are getting too big to put more than four in a crate together, and we wanted them to be as comfortable as possible.

We arrived at the vets on time, with the minimum of fuss, despite the fact that we had been cleaning the house down after a particularly nasty pooh fest overnight in the pen!  The pups were remarkably well behaved in the cars and only decided to voice their disapproval of being in the crates, when they arrived at the vets! The receptionists had quite a task to speak over the din of indignant pups. Finally the pups settled down and went to sleep, just as the vet was finally ready to see them..

We decided that it would be better to take the pups into the consulting room one crate at a time. The pups were checked all over and given their first immunisations. A card was completed for each puppy, and I had to shout out the colour of each pup and the sex for the veterinary assistant who was completing the cards for each pup.

The pups were all given a clean bill of health, and a few hundred pounds later, we left the surgery and headed back to the village.

What the pups didn't realise was that they were in for an "outdoor experience" courtesy of one of our neighbours who has a swanky gazebo with heat lamps et al…..

 

A purpose built play pen had been set up under the gazebo, complete with rubber matting and heat lamps above, just in case it got a little chilly.

The pups were all placed into the pen, and started desperately seeking a toilet area. They decided on an handy blanket, – this was swiftly replaced by a tray with some newspaper on, and remarkably they all toddled onto the tray and did their business! That was before they then decided that it would be a good idea to then shred all the newspaper and scatter it around the pen!

On Tuesday of the last week, I noticed that we were getting a little low on the Purina Beta Puppy kibbles, I decided that it was time that they transitioned onto the Large Breed puppy kibbles. These are much bigger than the kibbles that the puppies had been used to, so I was intrigued to see how they would deal with them. I needn't have worried, they proved to be a big hit and there were no kibbles left afterwards. I did mix them with the smaller kibbles and at first they appeared to pick out the smaller pieces that they were used to. I will monitor the toilet situation to see whether the new kibbles have any adverse effects. This will become very apparent, very quickly, so here's hoping that they react well to the change in diet!

By the end of the week the puppies are eating the larger kibbles with a dash of warm water! They seem to like it, although perhaps not as much as the smaller kibbles.

The first pup headed up the road to her new owners on Thursday night after our usual trips around the block in the car. There seemed to be quite a "hole" in the pen where the puppy had been – it's amazing the difference it makes losing just one puppy! We need to get used to this, as two more are going on Friday…..

Needless to say, Tilly does not seem to mind the fact that there are fewer and fewer puppies in the pen, as far as she is concerned, she has done her job and now it's up to us. I hope we have done the pups justice, so it's now up to the new owners to continue where we have left off, and bring up those pups to be the best dogs they can be.

 

We have made monumentous steps forward with the weaning. I was getting rather fed of of soaking the kibbles overnight and then having to liquidise them and it was proving rather messy on the floor of the puppy play pen.

Here's the new recipe for puppy food:

1. Soak kibbles overnight to soften them, but not lose their shape. Adding a dash of puppy milk as well as water.

2. When ready to serve, do not liquidise the kibble but add some gravy (made by adding a small amount of wet puppy food to hot water.) This has the effect of increasing the taste, adding a few small chunks of meat and also getting them used to more solid food.

Everything appeared to be going swimmingly well until we heard some rather loud windy noises coming from one of the puppies, followed by a spurt of liquid puppy pooh! The new recipe had obviously proved a step too far. The mixture must have been a bit too rich and we had several bouts of puppy diarrohea, which is not pleasant to clean up! Especially when the pups walk in it and then jump up at you leaving puppy pooh trails all down your sleeves! I'm not quite so bothered as I work from home and regularly live in my scruffs, however it didn't go down too well with my husband and his freshly laundered shirt prior to going to work in the morning. Pale pink with a hint of brown, did not go down too well!

I have now adapted the puppy recipe to dry kibbles mixed with hot water to create a gravy and then serving straight away. There is no soaking, so the puppies are having to chew their food. This is proving to be a popular choice and the puppies devoured the first batch that was prepared this way. I am now having to experiment with quantities so that I can be sure that the pups are getting the right amount of food – although you can usually tell when their hungry, due to increased noise levels! We are on our fourth sack of puppy kibbles!

The date has been set to take the pups to the vets for their first set of immunisations, so it is going to be a military task involving the transportation of 10 pups in several crates. We have already proved that our large crates are not really big enough to house 5 chunky pups comfortably. The crate would resemble a tin of sardines, rather than puppies. In order to prepare for the event and also on the request of some of our new puppy owners who have further to travel with their new pups, we are starting to take them out on short car journeys to get them used to the sensation of movement.  I did this with Tilly from 8 weeks old and she is fantastic in the car and very rarely gets car sick.

At the beginning of this week, I took some advice as to how often Tilly should be with the pups. She has been spending more and more time away from them, but whenever she hears a noise she goes running to check them, which results in a cacophony of noise as the pups see her and begin crying. She starts whining because she can't get to them, (but when offered the chance to, politely declines due to the imminent mobbing that she would recieve should she decide to venture into the pen). This is all very well during the day time, but when it happens at 1am in the morning it is not quite so amusing!

The veterinary nurse that I spoke to, advised me that I should try and keep them apart, as the pups nolonger required feeding from mum. It would also help dry up Tilly's milk supply, which is so big, she could supply milk to the whole village! I should also start to wean Tilly off the puppy food that she has been eating and increase the amount of exercise that she is having. This is easier said than done, when you don't particularly want to leave the pups for prolonged periods of time. Whilst they are safe in the puppy pen, they do still manage to get their limbs caught in the bars and catch their teeth on the bars when chewing. They scream as though someone is attempting to kill them, but jump free with a look of surprise as you come running!

We have also completed the second set of worming solution. This proved interesting, as you have to give them an increased amount from last time, depending on their weights. We are now giving them 3 ml of solution via syringe instead of 1 ml as done the last time. Trying to push 3ml of liquid solution that a puupy does not want into it's mouth is a recipe for disaster and a very messy business. Usually we get covered in more of the solution than the puppy gets, as he or she violently shakes their head from side to side in an effort to rid themselves of the apparent horrible taste in their mouths. Coming home from work one night, my husband thought I'd been painting, not simply worming the pups!

We have also fitted the pups with new collars. The paper collars were proving to be too flimsy and were getting too tight for some of the pups. My husband went onto Amazon and purchased some bright webbed collars which look great on the pups and should last a while too. There seems to be plenty of growing room for them! 

 We look forward to our trip to the vets, which could well prove a noisy business!

Well the puppies are getting bigger and feeding a lot more!

Tilly is well and truly fed up of them, and refuses to go near the playpen, as she get's mobbed as soon as she tries to enter. The puppies literally jump on her and demand feeding, even if they have only just had a bowl full of puppy porridge! It's as if they have never been fed in their lives!

Tilly just stands there and lets them feed, with a resigned look on her face. The puppies are strong enough to simply stand underneath her and lift their heads and feed from her. They even hang on as she is jumping around the pen.

I have been gradually reducing the amount of liquid in the puppy porridge and making it a drier mixture in preparation for the dry kibbles. However, we tried adding some wet puppy food to try and make a bit of gravy with the soaked kibbles and this proved a step too far. The mixture must have been a bit too rich and we had several bouts of puppy diarrohea, which is not pleasant to clean up! Especially when the pups walk in it and then jump up at you leaving puppy pooh trails all down your sleeves! I'm not quite so bothered as I work from home and regularly live in my scruffs, however it didn't go down too well with my husband and his freshly laundered shirt prior to going to work in the morning. Pale pink with a hint of brown, did not go down too well!

Onto better news, all the puppies have sold! We are very pleased, as we have found lovely homes for all of them and it only took 2 weeks to do this! The kennel club and the Drakeshead website have been instrumental in finding the new owners. We are still getting enquiries and have already begun a reserve list.

 

Day 17 has probably been the most intensive that the puppies have experienced so far. The worming process that we started on day 15, has to be continued for three consecutive days, so today is the last of the worming solution required. Another worming session will take place when the puppies are 5 weeks old.  We have continued with the weighing process. weighing on alternate days, so that we can see the progress of each individual pup. Any that are showing minimal weight gains, are singled out to be first at the "petrol pumps" when Tilly feeds them!

Probably the most exciting thing so far, has been the pups drinking baby dog milk from a small bowl. This has meant that they have had to learn completely new skills. For a start they are having to either stand or sit whilst feeding, as opposed to lying down and suckling from a teat. They have also had to master the art of licking and swallowing the liquid and using their tongues to direct the food into their mouth. Needless to say the bitches appeared to be better than the dogs at this first attempt. The dogs were content to have the bowl held for them with the minimum of effort on their part! Whereas some of the bitches were stood up and drinking like a pro!

Here's ten bowls of milk lined up ready!

The whole business of feeding from bowls was a little messy and we ended up with lots of milk moustaches and milk beards!

 It's now the end of week 3 and we have been feeding the puppies from bowls using a combination of milk and wet puppy food. They are starting to roll the puppy food around in their mouths, but they definitely prefer the milk at this stage. We have progressed from one pup at a time, to feeding four pups in one go. We've found it useful to take a "good" drinker with a "not so good" pup, and hopefully the less experienced one will learn from it's brother or sister!

The pups are growing daily and are becoming healthy chunky pups. We have had loads of visitors this week, and the pups have been handled by many adults and children. We have been lucky enough to find six homes so far for our pups. We are still looking for homes for two bitches and two dogs, but we are happy to wait for the "right" people to come along.

Since the puppies were born, the last two weeks have seemed an age! Sleep deprived is an understatement, but the fun of watching the puppies has been immense.  We have watched them grow from small rat-like animals into cute puppies that can't quite sit up yet, and can't quite manage to stumble all the way across the whelping pen without tumbling over. They are now beginning to grow into their faces, and less resemble a "bulldog chewing a wasp" and more resemble a cute puppy-like face. They have opened their eyes (at Day 14) and now stare at you with sleepy looking eyes most of the time.

We have also completed the first toe nail cutting exercise! That was an experience! This will have to be done again very shortly, as their toenails are razor sharp and would do some serious damage to the skin on Tilly's underbelly if they were left without trimming.

Another drama underfolded earlier in the week, when Tilly's face suddenly started to swell and she came up in all sorts of lumps and bumps around her muzzle. It turned out, she had been stung, either by nettles or otherwise and had suffered a bit of a reaction. The vet was not overly concerned about the swelIing, as it had already started to reduce in size within an hour of it happening, but I took the opportunity whilst there, to get the worming solution necessary for both the pups and Tilly. It was also a good chance for the vet to give Tilly a check over. 

It turned out that the worming solution had to be given by mouth, and since they were still feeding from mum, we needed to use a syringe to administer it! To complicate things further, in order to give them correct dosage, we needed to weigh the puppies and give them the correct proportion of worming solution for their weight.

One of our neighbours rigged up a brilliant weighing machine, using a luggage weighing device and a handy storage box, and we were able to easily weigh the pups, tag them and then administer the worming solution. All this was done without any fuss on behalf of the pups. I think they are starting to get used to being handled. The toe nail cutting was a bit traumatic for them, but the worming was a breeze, which is just as well, since we need to do it again in three weeks time.

Here's a picture of one of the pups, looking less than impressed with worming solution all over it's chops!

 The benefit of having tagged the pups, is that we can now identify them and notice particular characteristics. For example, one of the bitches is so laid back, she is almost horizontal. I think she thought she was at the manicurist when her nails were being cut, she was not bothered in the slightest! I don't think she even woke up when we weighed her. That said, she is not backward about feeding, she is by far the greediest pup but very content once fed….  It's going to be interesting watching them as we move into the third week. We are going to start the process of weaning them, and already have ten little bowls lined up for them to use, once they are able to take milk from a bowl rather than from mum.

Here's a picture of our laid back girl pup….

 

Here's the question we couldn't answer the first night they were born… How many bitches versus dogs did we have?

After a day of recovering from the sleepless night before, we finally managed to confirm the exact number of boys and girls.  We actually have 6 bitches and 4 dogs! This does nothing to improve the boy/girl ratio in the house at all, girls still outnumber the boys, by a long shot!

The first three days are going to be the most critical for the development and survival of the puppies, so we are keeping an extremely close eye on the puppies, to ensure that they all get an even share of the milk. The puppies are certainly letting us know if they can't get milk, there's plenty of squealing going on when that happens!

Tilly is taking everything in her stride and is being the "best mum in the world!" She is endlessy patient with all the puppies and gets very concerned when one appears to be too still for a while, even though it is trying to sleep, she still tries to rouse it and encourage it to eat.

We'll continue keeping a close eye on them, we have another 7 weeks to go before they can be sent to new homes.

Lots of caffeine required though, for the night shifts, as Tilly requires so much additional food in order to feed the pups….

Lots more photos and videos to come, as the pups grow.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, we've ordered the whelping kit, the whelping box and an appropriate vet bed to line her box. Now we are just waiting and watching Tilly's tummy grow bigger and bigger!

The normal gestation period for dogs is said to be 63 days, which is a rough rule of thumb. However, dogs can give birth from 54 days onwards according to my Book of the Bitch which has become my bible over the past few weeks…..

I have been taking measurements of Tilly's girth (tummy) and the first one was 30inches – although I am not sure what she started off at, she's normally a very slim girl! It has gradually increased day by day until the last measurements were approximately 34 inches.

Taking Tilly for a walk is a completely different experience, whereas before we were used to jumping in the car and taking her for hour long or more walks - now we are restricted to walking around the village and taking much shorter walks and stopping when she wants to. We cannot allow her to jump in the car anymore, for fear of damaging the pups….

Anyhow, hopefully soon the waiting will be over, and a new chapter will start, complete with little pups!