Click here to see the Puppies' Growth Chart.  This chart will be updated as often as possible to reflect the puppies' weights.

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May 26 (21 days old -- end of week 3):

Keeper's checking out her brood in their newly expanded whelping box/play area (above).   I simply removed one side of the box, surrounded it with x-pens, devised a shorter "gate" so Keeper can come and go as she pleases, and put rubber matting down over the entire area.   More waterproof stuff on top of that, followed by newspapers and blankets!

Look carefully at the puppies (above) and you'll see their first "meal" of soupy, pureed dog food smeared all over their faces.   Actually, everyone took to lapping out of the puppy dishes like ducks take to water.   (Only a couple of paws ended up in the dishes.)   Guess who ate the most?   Pastel and Lt. Blue, of course!

I'll be offering them this soupy concoction a couple of times a day for the next several days, as an introduction to the weaning process.   Keeper will actually make the decision when she's had it with feeding them herself.   (I don't believe in forcing mom to wean them at a certain time...as long as it's before the puppies go to their new homes!)   Clean-up is easy now -- Keeper takes care of the spills!

May 24 (19 days old):

Keeper & the kids are spending short periods of time in the outdoor puppy pen (above).

The pen has different surfaces for the puppies to get used to, and even a little obstacle course (above)!

It's great fun to have a digital camera that uses floppy disks...I can set the camera on the ground and just push the button...if photos don't turn out, I just record over them!   Now, have you ever seen cuter puppy faces (above)?

May 23 (18 days old):

The first big news for today is the puppies' weight.  Everyone now weighs 2 pounds or more.   Lt. Blue still leads the pack...now at 2.5 pounds!

In the past couple of days there have been several "escapes" from the whelping box!   Pastel was the first one out, and has escaped twice and tried a third while I was watching...so I scooted her back where she belonged.   White and Purple have also made it out.   In all cases they are trying to get to Keeper to nurse.   Sometimes Keeper stands half in and half out of the box, cleaning puppies, and they will climb on the puppy rail to reach the faucets.   Other times Keeper is lying right next to the box, and they can smell her, so they attempt to reach her.  

Pastel's escape was the most interesting.   She woke me up at 2:30 am on the 21st (day 16) with her complaining.   I found her sitting at the baby gate to the whelping room, howling away.  My other dogs (Ashley, Tyler & Journey), were in the hallway staring at her.  Keeper was in her box nursing everyone else.   Pastel was quite happy to see me and be reunited with her clan.

Purple and White did the same thing, but on separate occasions -- both in the middle of the night, of course.   They escaped to have their own private midnight snack.  It was the rest of their pack who woke me to the problem -- those tattle "tails!"   

Am I concerned about the escapes?   Not really.   There's nothing they can damage, and nothing that can hurt them, in the whelping room.   When they tumble out they either land on Keeper or the nice soft, padded carpeting in the room.   Am I getting closer to rearranging their set-up?   Yep!   It'll happen in the next couple of days.   In the meantime, a little adventure never hurt anyone!

Each day the puppies have had field trips to the living room x-pen, and they are more rambunctious when they go and always eager to nurse.   This afternoon they'll have their first outdoor experience, which should be quite fun and will lend itself to photos.

May 20 (15 days old):

The puppies went on their first little excursion today (photos above).   I put towels down on the living room floor, put an x-pen up to keep the pups corralled and let them experience the living room for the first time.   They wandered around on the towels, found Keeper, ate and went to sleep -- all in the space of about 20 minutes.

The most noticeable puppy in the past 24 hours has been Pastel.  She was the most active in the living room, kept moving around even after the others had crashed and proceeded to wander around the x-pen trying to roust her littermates.   She was even poking Keeper with her nose and wagging her tail.   Several pups are now wagging their tails in recognition of littermates or mom.