Patience presented us with five gray males and four gray females on August 19th.  Mother and pups are both doing very well.

What follows is an episodic narrative of the litter's development:  watch these pups grow !

Patience is a very attentive mother.

She is also rather relaxed with this litter.

08-08-22:

The five male and four female pups are doing well and now -- three days along -- appear healthy and growing well.  Mother is eating and drinking well and is providing lots of food for her pups.  We split the litter into two batches and are rotating them on two-hour intervals -- supplementing the withdrawn pups with a special puppy supplement -- to avoid crowding.  Once the pups eyes are open, we will stop the rotating.

08-09-01:

The eyes -- those beautiful gray-blue milk eyes -- have started to open.  She is now caring for all nine together.  The pups are up on their legs and walking around the pen.  They are a relatively uniform group.

Pink tongue

Milk Eyes

Siblings

One male and two females have been spoken for, but the other six are still looking for a new home.

08-09-04:

Since their eyes are open and they can see what they're doing (and also to reduce the strain on Patience) we've started the pups on solid food.  On a large baking sheet we place 4-6 blobs of rice pablum -- mixed with condensed milk -- and let them have at it.

Some are keen right off the top; others take a while to learn.

Some just walk away.

Some catch on late.

08-09-18:

One day short of one month of age, this litter is growing very well.  While there is some variation in size between the smallest -- a female -- and the largest -- a male -- the pups are fairly uniform.  They have graduated from pablum to puppy food.  We are feeding them three times a day with moistened and softened feed.  The rest of the time they have free-choice access to dry food and fresh water.  Mom's glad of the break.

Here are a few pictures of the group at the moment:

We still have our milk eyes.

We're anxious to get out and get going.

Some times our gray coats look very dark.

Then sometimes they are light silver.

It depends on the light.

How's that for a group shot?

Do I really look all that fat?

Curiosity

08-09-26:

The pups are now eating solid food three times a day.  Mother is happy, because both their teeth and their claws are rather sharp.  They should be fully weaned in a week or so, by which time they'll also be ready to move out of the whelping shed into the puppy pen outside.

08-10-11:

The pups have been outside for more than a week now and are fully weaned.

This page was updated on

 Saturday, October 11, 2008