Too cute

I really need to take some proper individual photographs in daylight (not under this red heat lamp)...but while I get my act together, here are a couple of cute ones I took this morning (making up an ad for the vet's office)

Feeding time at the zoo

This week I've started the boys and girls on some soggy solids. Softened kibble and puppy food mashed up together, yum yum! They didn't need any encouragement. First sniff and they dived in head first. The first couple of pups to realise there was grub abeggin' got stuck in. Their siblings were obviously curious and ventured over to investigate. Pretty soon all nine were stuck in, and I mean that, I was constantly lifting them out of the container. Their little paws skidding across the mush as they spotted tastier clumps of grub on the other side of the bowl. The state of their little faces afterwards was so funny. I had to carefully wipe their little muzzles clean. You can see their happy stuffed little bods lower down....

utterly stuffed!

I love the way they all started to lick each other faces after din dins...

angels with dirty faces

this it Little Gray - probably the most Zen like puppy in existence. See how calm she is with all others around her are manic. Her new mum-to-be, Zenia, called yesterday and picked her out of the crowd immediately. Well spotted! 

This is Smokey Joe - one of the kids' favourites. He's so soft and calm. Little sweetie.

Got to love a mother's devotion!

I'm in awe of Luna. This is her first litter and she's just brilliant. I waited until she was a good age (3 years) before putting her in pup and I am delighted I did. She was mature enough to have those motherly instincts readily at hand and I'm delighted with how she has taken to being a mum. Believe me, I get tired just looking at how much hard work nine pups are!!! See what I mean....

Mum steps into the puppy box and all hell breaks loose!!

Making room for nine hungry youngsters

She's so calm and they're totally bonkers!

Settling down - at last

And there she lies with nine pups feeding away. Good job mum!!

pups getting bigger

These little guys are getting bigger by the day. All of them are up and running around now, although a little wobbly on their legs. I've divided their box, with one half covered in bedding and the other half newspaper in an attempt to start "paper training". It's working for a few of the clever ones, but it won't be until about 5 weeks that I can really expect them to do this properly. The hopefully I can start to reduce the newspaper until they are all going to the toilet in the one spot - this will make house training later waaaaaaaay more easy.

As you can see, Iseult loves these puppies. All my kids do. In fact, Liam sits in the box reading to them every day! 

Getting handy with the saw etc

As the troops are getting bigger and their old whelping bog a bit shabby, I thought for a few quid I could run up a puppy pen/box. I quizzed the lovely and clever chaps at Kilkenny Building Supplies and they came up with this concept. Simple enough, for a newbie DIYer like myself, but big and strong enough to carry the pups all the way to 8 or 10 weeks, when with any luck they will all go to good homes. It only took a couple of hours to saw the pieces and screw them together. I just have the little hinged door to fit at the front so when they get bigger I can lock them securely but allow access when their mum wants to visit. Their blankets are all in the wash so they had to make do with carpet and an old Financial Times. Sure, it only bad news anyway. Pee away fellas!

Two weeks plus a bit

I can't believe how quickly these little pups are starting to grow. My son and I have just weighed the all and they range between 29 and 38 ounces!!! They look like tiny hippos :-)

At the weekend my kids were thrilled to see the pups were starting to open their eyes. And now they are walking/wobbling around their pen (and peeing freely, I might add!). But they are still so tiny. 

Every time I walk into their room I find one of children sitting among them chatting or reading to them, and the little pups are clambering over their legs and knees, delighted with the company. They will all be well use to children that's for sure!!

At seven days old

I've been checking and weighing the puppies every evening and I'm delighted with their progress. None of them have lost any weight - which the various websites said was most likely to happen. They have all put on between a half and two ounces every day - as of day 7 the weigh-in is like this:

Pup1 (boy) 16.25ozs

pup2 (boy) 17.5ozs

Pup3 (boy) 15.75ozs

Pup4 (boy) 16ozs

Pup5 (girl) 18ozs

Pup6 (boy) 14ozs

Pup7 (boy) 19.5ozs

pup8 (girl) 20ozs

Pup9 (girl) 18ozs

As you can see the girls are way out in front and seriously putting on the poundage!!! It's a gender trait I fear :-)

And I have to praise Luna, she's the best and most devoted mum, she's so careful and hardly leaves the pups at all, no wonder they're gaining so much. Wheaten are supposed to make excellent mums, and Luna is proof!

So it's time that these little pups made their individual debut. I've taken a photo of each one - because they wriggle a lot, this was not a straightforward task - forgive the orange tinge on most of these photos, they're still under a heat lamp.

Here are some photos taken on day 7 (except pup7, which was taken on day 10):

pup1

pup1

pup2

pup2

pup3

pup4

pup5

pup6

pup6

pup7

pup7

pup8

pup9

Random puppy photos- first days