Week Three Flame Puppies
Last Update 08/06/2015
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Wednesday, October 4, 2006 -- Day 16
I wasn't able to keep track of who's who in the above "head shots" but aren't they cute? (Photos were taken without extra lighting because puppy eyes are still sensitive to bright lights.) Teal Blue Boy was certainly hamming it up for the camera. It's amazing how quickly puppies develop. They are all now walking more than crawling, and don't fall over quite as often. Everyone is tall enough to almost reach the milk machine when mom walks into the whelping box and it's just a matter of days before the "prisoners" will be escaping from their box. (The x-pen security fence has been erected, so even if they escape from the box they'll still be secure.)
In the past several days we've had several visitors, some of which Flame is more comfortable than others. She got extremely uppity with Judy Else, so I instituted a different program for visitors. Up until now I've had Flame greet visitors in the living room and then allow her to be present when the visitors moved into the dining room (aka whelping room). Now I am making Flame wait behind the gait in the kitchen where she can see what's going on, but I'm not letting her back into the whelping room until after the visitors have gotten settled and interacted with puppies. It was time to tell Flame that they may be her biological puppies, but it's MY house, MY dining room, MY whelping room, etc...and she has to accept the people that I invited into the house. So far this new "tough love" approach seems to be working.
Yesterday Cathy & Sondra came over to help worm the puppies (and Flame) for the first time. Everyone sucked the Nemex II out of the syringe without any problem. Later in the day Cheri & Kendra came over so Cheri could cut my hair (THANK YOU CHERI FOR THE HOUSE CALL!) and daughter Kendra could play with puppies. Flame doesn't know either of them at all, and my new configuration worked well.
I've added a few more toys to the whelping box and everyone is starting to suck, push, pull on the various objects. The funniest thing is when I turn on the happy birthday cake toy (which plays the happy birthday song) and all the puppies howl in unison. I've started doing my "puppy puppy puppy" call when Flame & I come to the whelping box and everyone comes running. Tomorrow I'll add a metal & leather scent article to the whelping box -- you can't start articles too young, you know!