January 2, 2018
The puppies went to the vet today, and thankfully, they are all healthy.  The girl is 7 lbs even and the boys range from 8 lbs to 9 1/2 lbs.  They are all doing well, and have reached the stage that it is easier to say goodbye.  They tear up my piddle pads, and most litters, even very large litters, have been easier to keep clean than these four.  For some reason, they don't all hit the piddle pads and they play so extensively with each other that it is tough to keep them clean.  Today, they had a belly, bottom and paw wash prior to seeing the vet.  They all do well with baths.

None of them got car sick on the road, so that is a great thing.  Our little brown male drooled a bit, but he was the only one.  My female is the feisty one.  She initiates play and because she is a pound smaller, uses her vocal cords to make up for her lack of brawn.  The white male is my largest pup, but he is a gentle giant.  The brown male is my smallest male at 8 1/2 lbs and the black is right in between them.

They are good little eaters, they do not whine or bark.  They sleep through the night and are a pleasure to have.  I am so grateful for my four healthy puppies.


December 26, 2017

The pups are so social now.  They whine in their pen and want to play with the adults.  They interact well with each other.  They took their first baths yesterday, so I will post those pictures soon.  Not many people bathe dogs on Christmas morning, but we did because we had company that wanted to play with them.

It is so hard to keep them clean at this age.  They do not understand that the smelly warm brown stuff that they produce, is not fun to slide in, step in or run through.  I cannot keep up with them, so I just keep peeling off layers of bedding, to try my best at keeping them smelling like lavender baby shampoo.

They are all little love bugs and crawl all over me.  Every once in awhile, one takes a nip at my bare feet, but generally, they still give kisses.


December 17, 2017

Sorry it has been so long since I wrote.  We have had a challenging two weeks.  The little girl fell ill.  We knew she had a murmur or something, as her heart beat faster than the other puppies.  This is common with preemies and she was so unbelievably small when she was born.  She ended up with fluid in her lungs so we treated her with two antibiotics for that, but it never cleared up.  It ended up being her heart, congestive heart failure and we had to put her down.  This has been a very tough litter of pups, and I am happy we chose to spay the  mother.   They only tied once, but she had shown no sign of a heat, therefore, we think that as she came in to heat, she had sperm in her and eggs were fertilized as they were released.  There were two very tiny pups and neither made it.  They just didn't have enough gestation time.  When we plan a litter, we wait until at least day 11, then breed for 2-3 days and stop, hoping all the eggs had been released.  This gives us pups all the same size and weight.

The rest of the puppies are doing well, growing like weeds and now have teeth.  They play with each other continuously and are very social.  Today, we moved them to a pen downstairs, and if you ever have been in our home, you know where it is located off of the kitchen.  They whined for the first couple of hours,  and now seem to love the extra space.

Our adults love interacting with them through the pen.  Mom still nurses a few times a day, and the puppies drink goat milk mixed with soft puppy food.  They like the new flavor of their food.  They are now at the messy stage where they walk in the food, mouth each other after eating, and they smell like their food.  This too shall pass. 

I just posted the four week old pictures, and will get their five week old pictures uploaded in the next couple of days.  I take them on time, I just don't get them posted quickly.


December 3, 2017
Finally, our puppies are up and moving and I have stories and a bit of personality to share.  Our smallest girl is just the sweetest and calmest of our pups.  She is a great little nurser, interacts with the other pups and is not vocal at all, yet.  

Our larger girl is a bit feisty.  She moves her head left to right when nursing, as if she thinks more milk will come out.  She is a very healthy eater and we have to cut her off, as she will fill her tummy to the point that she cannot walk.  : )  

Our white male is extremely calm.  He is the largest of the puppies.  He is a calm little eater, takes the bottle well, just like the little girl, and is my gentle giant.  What a love.  Our brown male is the talker.  

Our brown male is the only vocal pup at this time.  He does not take the bottle well, moves his head from left to right so much, that I just give up.   I usually feed him a bit first, give up, then pick him up at  the end of the feeding when he has calmed a bit.  He is a gorgeous pup.  

Our black male is right between the white male and brown male, personality-wise so far.  He was the one that gave me the biggest challenge today to take pictures.  He was all over the place and I had to carefully hold him, so he would not fall.  

They are all very sweet puppies.

I have a list of 11 people that want puppies and only five puppies so if any of you are willing to wait until we breed Fiji in the spring, I would appreciate it.  Fiji is our only remaining female that is intact.  We have spayed our other females.  Thank you.

November 25, 2017:
Puppies have now opened their eyes and are making their way around their whelping box.  Some are able to make a bee line to mom, and others fumble around trying to find which side of her they need to be on to nurse.  They are all great nursers and bottle feeders.  We supplement with goat milk, as mom didn't have much milk come in, but milk production has improved.  She was also recovering from major surgery, so we lightened her load.  All are doing very well.

November 25, 2017:
Puppies were born Wednesday, November 8.  We were unsure if we had a litter arriving or not.  This was not a planned pairing and they must have only tied once.  It was a rough delivery with me awakening at 5:30 a.m. and our dog needing assistance.  We rushed her to a vet and they took an x-ray and did an ultrasound, and determined there were pups in her and this was the start of labor.  The vet said that some of the heart rates were normal and others were low, which concerned him with a c=section.  They gave her an injection of oxytocin to induce contractions, but were afraid to take them c-section, as they only have a 75% viability rate.

She gave birth to a male pup first that was a still born.  Then our black wavy male was born, followed by our little white female.  Both did well, but after hours of stimulating her, light pushing, we still could not feel any other pups.  We made the decision to take in her for a c-section/spay.  The vet was kind enough to let me in the room, as he needed all hands on deck to revive puppies, as the anesthesia lowers heart rates and a pup can pass.  There were four more pups in her, two needed resuscitation.  Our brown male, white male, larger white female and a black female were born in the operating room.  The following day, despite our greatest efforts, we lost our black female.  

We have never had a delivery like this and I am pleased this female is now spayed.  She is six years old, and we felt she was aging and  had not planned to breed her any more, but no life is a mistake, so we are blessed to have the five. pups that we have.  They are healthy and growing.  This also means that those that have waited and wanted one of our puppies may not be able to purchase one.  I am so sorry, but we just don't have enough pups, and those with deposits waiting for months/years, will have first choice.  We will breed our last female, Figi, with her next heat in  February.