First Meal and other photos

The above and below photos are from their first meal on thursday. Ground Beef Heart and Raw Goats Milk. Mmmmmmmm.

The next two were from a few days before. Bear with me. Trying to catch up :)

Good Suckling Reflex

This was from the first day I had the pups in the living room. Ell decided she could walk out of the box and the pups still were attached and nursing, and unharmed. These are the three black boys with mom. Needless to say we didn't do this set up again :)

i'm catching up! Bear with me!

Everyone just settle down!

Shearing. Lambing (every 2 hour barn checks 24 hours a day for the last three weeks...(read no deep sleep)). farm spring cleaning. business preparations. taxes and preparing for those. puppies. preparing for national and being gone 12 days. Dealing with a computer that has ZERO memory. i.e. COMPLETELY full. I cannot download photos without deleting some others. Choices choices! My puppy buyers are not even this relentless! And the pups are not even 3 weeks old. There is nothing special about them! Well...ok...they ARE kinda cute. So let's all take a deep breath, and relax. I needed that too :) "END VENTING"

I do have a video I took today, two minutes long of them just drunken sailor-ing around the box. I'll try and post that tomorrow.

SERIOUSLY!

No really. They haven't changed much :)

Actually they change so fast by the time i upload/download the photos from camera to pc and then to blogger, they have changed!

Most of their eyes are open and they are stumbling around to go potty away from where they are sleeping, and are starting to hear noises. They are so adorable. All of them appear quite thick (body mass), full, heavy and content. Ell is being a great momma. I moved them to the living room as its much warmer now in MN than it was in December here. Zoe assuredly tells me that those are her babies, come back reincarnate, and she must go in there to be with them. Ell thinks differently.

Ava just wants to play with them...but I don't think they are ready for her YET.

Photos on Sunday. I know I know...that's two whole days. But I'm too busy to upload now....lo siento

Sleeping Beauties

Six puppies...blacks and reds sleeping together....

The red brindle girl always sleeps alone....maybe she thinks she's better than everyone else? :)

ok....ok.....ok.....here ya go!

They are a week old today. All they seem to do is eat and sleep. Sounds like such a luxurious lifestyle right about now! Ell is being a GREAT mother, and all pups are nursing well and gaining, but I can tell that Ell, my A.D.D. dog is extremely BORED.OUT.OF.HER.MIND in that whelping box all day! I do let her out to play with the other dogs and hang out with me, but her first duty (especially for the first few weeks) is to feed and clean those pups! While she does do it wonderfully, she doesn't ever like to go BACK in the whelping box (well she does but boy does she POUT!) Any suggestions? I do feed her in the box, which she jumps in for then, but she just seems so BORED. I hate to put treats or toys in there at this stage. Suggestions?

These photos are all taken from the past few days.....

hanging out
such a rough life!

my two smaller boys
comfy?

relaxin'
nearly all in a row (the black girl is mysteriously missing from this photo)

This last one is from just moments ago! Happy 1 week old kids!

Day 1 puppy photos!

As promised....(or else I'd be hunted down for not taking some!! By SEVERAL people even!)

I was kind of concerned about milk with Ell, as she hadn't really bagged up (dairy term sorry). I am NOT worried any longer! ALL puppies were between 10-12 oz. at birth and all have gained 1.5-2 FULL ounces in 24 hours! I am just tickled with this information and they are all fat and sassy. I must say day old puppies sure do move around a lot! These puppies were basically crawling either in tight, fast circles when I tried to take photos, or were on a death march to only they know where to. It was so fun. Ell is such a SUPER mom, just like Zoe, and she is already loving her svelte figure again. She only gained about 6 pounds during pregnancy by the morning of her whelp, and that is about right with the puppy weights and then figure in placentas etc.

The first FIVE puppies were all born within 65 minutes. She would barely contract once or twice and the puppy would nearly shoot out like a cannon. I felt like I needed a catcher's mitt to stop them. She was on a mission! The 6th puppy came out an hour later, and the 7th, an hour after that. The 8th puppy, a brown brindle bitch, I lost after 5 full hours between puppy #7 and her. Ell had stopped pushing, although was still contracting. My vet, upon palpation was able to touch the sac and it was sitting right behind the pelvic ridge, just out of reach and Ell was pretty pooped out. We gave a shot of Oxytocin and within 3 and 1/2 minutes the puppy shot out, d.o.a. The sad part is I sad it moving earlier when the other seven were nursing, and it was still close to her ribs, in the belly. She was either moving around b.c. she was suffocating, or because she was trying to move her little body to the birth canal. A well marked, normal sized puppy with no birth defects. After weighing the pros and cons of Oxy with several vet techs, vets and cardi breeders, I opted to use it, to expel the puppy, and save Ell, rather than take her in for a section, as that is also hard on a bitch. I feel I did the right thing, considering the puppy had sat at the pelvic ridge for several hours, even after we ran around outside with a leash, flashlight and towels in case it was dropped outside in the snow/ice. We did laps around my kitchen, we walked up and down stairs. we played 'touch' (Ell loves doing that in agility too) and we could not get her to push or to pass that puppy. Considering the nightmare whelping with Zoe and stuck puppies I was reliving all of it again with this puppy, but it was not mean to be. That puppy was NOT coming out without intervention. Ell was d.o.n.e. I guess after 5 puppies in an hour, with little time to rest, she should be tired, even though it seemed like it was hardly effecting her at the time.

For photos of that puppy, or for more on the story of whelping, just give me a holler, I'll be glad to relive it again. Perhaps learn something from it.

Here's a family photo from this AM I finally loaded up for you :)
And introducing, in order of appearance:



* red brindle girl. with black mask! Born breech.
See! its touching the eye!


* Red/Sable male. I'm guessing its just a red, but it sure is dark! and a black mask! How does one tell the difference between red newborns and sables?



* black and white, brindle pointed girl: (blaze doesn't go all the way to the collar!)



* Black and white male brindle pointed. Barb Hoffman said some of the blacks could be black brindle and I think this boy is. He doesn't have the brindle pointing (not all black/whites show them I know) but he seems more 'brown' today. This sure is a learning litter for me with colors!



* black and white boy with 'tan' points:



* black and white male with brindle points. narrow blaze

* Red/sable girl, black mask. She was the biggest pup, nearly 12 ounces at birth. She was born breech!


I would love to see how each puppy grows, not only structurally, but marking wise...if the masks will fade, or be dominant like Ell's. How much color 'fills' in on the face as they grow, and the shades of colors the body will do as they grow up.

Also, I believe Ell carries fluff, as her dad was coated, and Pilot does too. When can I expect to see some fluff puppies showing up? OR maybe I'd get lucky and not have one :) :)

I had dreams of having all brindle fluffs and BOYS , but that thankfully didn't happen lol

Will this do at least for a day or so? Please?

Puppies are here :)

For those not on Facebook...the puppies are here!!

I will add photos however here first. Group photos most likely now and individual photos will be taken this afternoon. I hate to disrupt them too many times :)

I thought initially this was a tan pointed black/white male, but it appears to be just very bright brindle pointing. 'le sigh'. I'll watch him to see....
The first four... from left to right....brindle girl, red/sable boy, black/white brindle point girl, black/white brindle point boy.

Ell with seven pups before the last puppy came....
Ell with her seven live pups.
This morning at 12 hours of age....This is the photo with the brindle girl who has the small dot almost touching or touching her eye. it may 'grow' as she ages too. we'll be watching.
Both reds/sables have masks.
Final count: 1 red/sable male, 1 red/sable female, 1 black/white brindle pointed girl, 2 black/white brindle pointed boys, 1 possible tan point black/white male, 1 red brindle female. We lost the brown brindle female with nice markings five hours after the 'last' pup.

More story later...i need to take a nap.

NO stinking puppies...yet!

At this point I'm extremely crabby from listening to her nest and try and get as comfortable as she could in her whelping box in my room. I'm a light sleeper so usually have white noise like my aquarium and box fan on so I can't hear anything else. Well I turned them both off so I could here Ms Ell Bell and let's just say i got barely any sleep and I'm very cranky! This should be fun today when she DOES start whelping. *sigh*

For those following my farm blog, the prolapsed ewe looked like she was in labor at 4am this morning so i ran back and forth between Ell and that ewe for a good 90 mins before i told the sheep she's on her own. The 7am barn check resulted in a ewe chewing her cud and laying comfortably.

This is a conspiracy!

Someone is trying to get my attention......

HEY GUYS! ITS ME MITCHAM! remember me?? Dad has been awfully busy with Zoe and her pups and now with Ell and her soon to be babies, not to mention the lambs that have started coming! Its ok. We still go for our daily mile walk, and I get plenty of time with Dad and the other dogs but I thought I should get some blog time for all the hard work I do around here!


First of all DAD hasn't been the only one busy with Zoe's pups. It seems Zoe feels her motherly duties are over and now its up to ME to have to baby sit them. Thank goodness there is only one left! I was going crazy with four mouths full of puppy teeth! Every where I walked, there was a puppy in my way and DAD kept telling me to be careful. Ugh.I guess when they are sleeping they aren't so bad....kinda cute actually.

But then I give Dad some sad eyes...Hoping to distract him from whatever he is doing....Sometimes it works.....

Sometimes it doesn't and then I have to pout and feel sorry for myself and the rough life I have here. I wonder what I could do to get his attention?

Litter Theme and Registered Names

SO while wait.....

I"ve come up with a litter theme for Pilot and Ell's puppies!!

Its the "RULES" litter. AND they must start with a B :)

Ebonwald's Barely Legal (perhaps for a Pilot marked baby?)

Ebonwald's Bend at the Knees

Ebonwald's Be This Tall to Ride

Ebonwald's Bring Your Own Beverage

Ebonwald's Beyond This Point

Ebonwald's Be Home By Midnight

Ebonwald's Be Careful

Ebonwald's Burn After Reading

Ebonwald's Because I Said So


That's NINE names. Have any other good ones I missed??