Lily's puppies have doubled in size!!!

Lily went through a tough time.  She had really life threatening bleeding for a week after whelping.  After a couple of vet visits and medication she is finally playing again and acting herself.  She really never stopped eating which was a Godsend.  She has been a wonderful mother, carefully tip toeing into her pool full of puppies...never once smashing one even for a minute. 

 They have been gaining from day one and now at only 12 days old they are as big as 4 week old puppies!  They are just starting to open their eyes.  I took a few crazy time-warp videos of them on Monday and will try to post them here:

 It shows how they barely look like they move normally but when sped up over time that they move like little caterpillars! 

Lily whelped tonight!....or still is...

Lily went into labor Saturday morning around 12:00 pm.  Her first pup was born at 3:47.  She was huge so I knew she would have more that the ONE pup she had her first litter with Boomer!

The first pup all dried off.  A big boy that looks to be a red and white.

Second pup came somewhat later at 6:13 pm,  a beautiful almost white spotted puppy, a girl this time.

Third puppy was born after a long nap--8:27 a big puppy with bold spots. Another girl.

A long time went by and then finally more pushing at 10:15! He was so funny with his solid white belt across his rear end.

I gave Lily a shot of Calcium then and she got a burst of energy...she had also been given a few spoons of canned food after each puppy since she was willing and hungry.  

Next came at 12:27.  A boy this time.  First without a tail. 

12:34 and more pushing ---female without a tail too...We would lose her the next day...she was having trouble breathing from the first moment and had a "spongy" body when she was born.  Number 6

Then at 12:46 she pushed out a 7th puppy:  one boy with a panda-eye...all the pictures I took were blurry though!  

All nursing quietly at 1:01 am, but then at 1:07 came the 8th: Girl with a screw tail.

Then at 1:33 the last puppy came this time a girl with a crazy zig zag on her back

Finally at 2:30 I crashed...just couldn't stay up any longer.  I tried standing, sitting everything but I was just too tired and so was she.  At 4:10 I woke up to find her sleeping with two stillborn pups still covered in the birth membranes.  Neither I nor Lily had stirred to help them.  One was still warm at 4:10 but I could not revive the little one.  A sad reminder that these dogs cannot whelp alone or outside like most dogs since I had helped her clean each pup and get them started until that time.  She had a very easy but extremely long labor, over 12 hours.  

Snail-ee

You may remember the posts about Little's puppy...the one that Salty ended up raising?   Snail-ee is now 11 weeks old and doing great.  She's a little fire cracker here with the other dogs but a sweetie too.  Here she is riding to the vet for her second round of shots Saturday morning!

Socialization

My granddaughter spent a few days with me and that of course was great time for her to play with puppies and for puppies to play with her!  Socialization with "little people" is great for young puppies!  They need supervision though so they are not allowed to develop bad habits or do things like jump or bite.  That's something their new owners will need to do also so they will be good citizens and pets to their family and friends.

A few new pictures

Here are a few new pictures of the gang outside this morning!  Puppies learning how to go out and potty....they love the "outside"  part more than the learning though.

 "Am I supposed to be doing something out here?"

 Little doesn't mind providing shade for a stick chewer....

 Or showing them what grass is good to eat...

 Helping them find bugs...

 "Hello, what are we practicing again?"

Lily just laughs at everyone!!  

And this is what happened with Gingerbread's pups~

 Gingerbread "Little"  whelped almost two weeks ago and had a very difficult labor.  We had a big puppy stuck and was actually out in the yard getting in the car to go for a c-section when I managed to help her get the pup out.  It was not alive and then she easily had two living puppies.  

The problems started almost immediately as that dead pup was delivered outside and we took her back in for delivery...she began looking for the (dead)other puppy. She would not be quieted nor consoled.  She was sure there was another puppy somewhere.  She spent the next week barely feeding her living puppies all the while leaving them to look everywhere for the lost pup.  This quickly let to us bottle feeding the pups that had become weak... The mother stopped milking and actually had a type of asthma-like attacks where she couldn't breathe!  A lot of vet visits you could imagine.   In just hours the pups were in such a negative state nutritionally plus dehydrated   requiring them to have sub-cu injections of saline IV to rehydrate them every few hours.  I started on tube feeding since they were just not getting enough bottled milk as their suckle reflex was so weak.  We lost the first pup on Friday am 1:15.  I became aggressive with the tube feeding and had the other puppy in a much better state by Saturday night.  

Sunday morning at 1:00 feeding, Salty came to the rescue.  She (we had tried her 5 days earlier and my son's dog too) started nursing the little pup.  By Sunday night the little one was perky and nursing great. 

 Weighed her yesterday and she had gained 3 ozs, now up to 16.7 oz.   Her eyes are opened now and her little razor backbone and ribs are being covered over in normal puppy fat!  It's been a journey.  

Snuggled up with her piglet....

Little is back to her normal playful self, puppy worries long forgotten.  Salty, her grandmother, has completely weaned her big puppies and taken on the task of mothering this little girl.

Long overdue update on Salty's pups

Well, this is long overdue.  Salty's pups are almost ready to wean.  They went Thursday to get examined and their first shot---everything went fine except the little beautiful female had a faint heart murmur.  The vet said it would most likely close up by 8 weeks but she needs to go back to be checked (so I haven't shown her to any prospective buyers).  She has a lovely face, taking so much after Boomer.  The two male pups are bigger and had a clean bill of health.  

The little girl, still asleep but made to pose for a picture!!

That will be a stiff neck in the morning.