October 7 - C Litter Born. 2 Boys, 3 Girls. 3 Black, 2 Wheaten.
October 11 - Puppies first visit to the Vet. All puppies healthy. Dewclaws removed from front and back feet. (Some had 2 dewclaws on their front feet, which everyone says is weird!). Poor puppies with band-aids wrapped around their feet.
October 13 - Got a live web feed running. Ask us for a link if you are interested. (Sophie's eyes are evil in infra-red light!)
October 14 - Took band aids off of puppies feet. They used really sticky tape, and was hard to remove from their furry little feet. Poor puppies. We had to soak them in warm water to get them to loosen up. Then tried to piled puppies on top of each other to take a picture. So squirmy. Amazing how fast they are growing, doubled in weight already.
October 15 - Sophie crawled into my bed last night and demanded about an hour hugs and other attention from me. Then she went back to work. Puppies were happy.
October 17 - Missed weighing puppies yesterday since I was working on this website 'till 4 am. Weighed them today. Red and Green (the two black male pig-dogs) gained 3 oz each, but poor little yellow (black girl) didn't gain much. Vali thinks yellow isn't getting enough attention from Sophie, so she put them together by themselves for a bit. Blue and Tan (the two wheaten girls) are gaining, but not as fast as the boys. After looking at these puppies, that song "I like big butts" keeps going thru my head.
October 18 - All the puppies opened their eyes and took their first squinty look at the world today - wonder what they think of it? The two littlest ones (yellow and blue) gained a lot of weight over the last two days. Of course, the big black males also grew. Amazingly, puppies are all twice the weight as when they were born a week and a half ago. I've spent the last 3 evening solid until 4-am trying to patch up this website so it's actually useful. Little blue is now sitting on my mouse pad offering (dubiously) helpful advise.
October 20 - Was watching a werewolf movie last night with blue in my lap. Hopefully she was paying attention. Noticed however she had sharp little toenails, so tried to cut them. Got a bit close on one and she started bleeding a bit. After cleaning up, called Vali in to finish the job. We have several puppy gates in our house to keep other Bu's away from new puppies, meaning Sophie is behind them. Every hour or so she comes out and scratches at the gate so I can let her out, then half hour later she wants back in. Spending so much time doing this, thinking of getting a doorman's uniform.
October 21 - Yeah, Google finally index this site (it's only been there for a week!). Unfortunately, it found lots of spam in old FrontPage site that I didn't even know I had, and gave me lots of errors. Back to drawing board.
October 22 - Red tried to suck on my nose when I got him close, but thankfully no sharp little puppy teeth.
October 23 - Showed puppies on live feed to some friends of Vali and my sister. Lots of oohing and aahing. Puppies aren't too lively yet, so it was pretty easy to keep camera centered on them. Give them a week..
October 24 - Puppies no longer fit in my hand, particularly the monsters red and green. They sort of sprawl half way up my wrist now. Puppy Mitts! Actually noticed their weight while carrying them earlier today. Mostly sleeping, but red/green got in a small sumo wrestling match for us earlier -- they can't actually stand to well on their back legs yet, so it was sort of a pushing contest. Blue stayed to the side and chirped encouragement. Wonder if she'll be the noisy one?
October 25 (3 weeks) - Puppies have big butts. They have little teeth too, not enough to hurt yet, but I can feel them.
October 26 - Walked into check them late last night and red and green had escaped from their puppy pen! Somehow they'd managed to crawl over a 8" tall wall , and were huddled on the floor with Mom, getting a late night snack. The other (and smaller 3) were all alone. Easy enough to put them back.
October 31 - Puppies didn't go trick or treating, or turn into vampires. However, teeth are really coming in.
November 2 - Vali took two littlest out to our local dog store along with their Mom, apparently took an hour to get out of it due to all the oohing and ahhing. Bought them a new toy fox. When I got home, orange and blue were playing tug of war with it, while the others were running about. They're really fast on the rug, but haven't quite figured out the slippery wood floor yet. Rather than appearing like giant hamsters with big butts like last week, they appear to be all shoulder now - I call this the buffalo look. Played with Orange for a bit while watching TV - she has *very* sharp puppy teeth!.
November 3 - We let puppies loose in the kitchen (after making sure they couldn't escape or get in any cabinets of of course). They're actually trying to run a bit, but have a lot of trouble stopping on the slippery floor. It's not as if they slide forward into things yet (maybe next week), it's more one or two feet slide out sidewise and they fall over. Good thing they're legs are so short, they don't have far to fall. For a bit, they followed me around and tried to bite my bare feet - ouch! When you hold them close, the starting to lick your face and hands, just like the big Bu's.
November 4 - Mom (Sophie) seems to be getting a bit feed up with the teeth herself, and we started feeding puppies a bit of puppy food, water, and some goats milk today. They gobbled it right up. Sadly, didn't get a picture of puppies with milk mustaches. Red had one worth plastering on a 20' high billboard. One unfortunate consequence is that unlike with Mom's milk, a lot more waste products are starting to come out their rear ends.
One sad thing about Seattle is it's hard to get pictures this time of year in the sun. We had a bit of sun late this afternoon and we got a few photos of them in a Halloween bucket, but not many before it got dark.
November 8th - Puppies have started trying to grab my pants legs as I walk around. It's sort of cute how totally inept they are at it right now, but give them a week or two. I wonder if they think I'm a big sheep?
November 10th - Puppies also getting quite talkative. The woke me up in the morning wanting their Mom. Had to let her in for a bit. But yeah! It's Saturday and I can spend it playing with the puppies. We had races across the kitchen floor. If I was lucky, 1 out of 5 actually ran in the right direction. I threatened them with the way we used to race lobsters back in Boston - a big circle and the one that crossed it last got to be dinner first - they weren't impressed. Puppies are much better at face licking however, hold them close and they go at it. Green even goes after ears like is grandfather. Their still nibbling however - sharp little teeth.
November 11th (5 weeks old) - Sadly, it rained all day. Wasn't able to take photo's outside like I planned. We had a little singing lesson inside instead. Yellow seems to be the lead singer, and Green does a nice accompany. Blue is more interested in exploring the house, found her behind the washing machine, under the sink, trying (unsuccessfully so for) to climb the stairs, and many other places. Maybe she's going to be the Lief Ericson of the bunch.
Orange's and Blue's hair is starting to turn a bit from their puppy gray to light brown, at least on the tops of their heads. It looks like blue is going to have a light colored face (like their uncle Kaare), while orange will have the black mask. A bit too early to be positive however.
October 7 - Puppies Born
October 10 - First Vet Visit
October 14 - Band-Aid pulling..
October 18 - Opened eyes
October 22 - Some crawling
October 24 - Walking, Teeth?
October 26 - First escape!
November 2 - Ouch! Teeth
November 4 - First Solid Food
November 11 - 5 weeks old