Day two and three

Top photo is the gang on the heat bed. They spend a lot of time on that when Nina isn't cuddling them. Then Orange girl on her back, having a meal. The third pic is someone on the heat mat, but cuddled under it's fleece cover....and then of course, there's pretty Momma Nina!

Last night was the first Biosensor night: http://breedingbetterdogs.com/pdfFiles/articles/early_neurological_stimulation_en.pdf

I've also added a "novel scent" to the nightly stimulation. Last night was cinnamon, tonight will be alfalfa pellets. The puppies only have scent and touch for senses right now, and there is some research indicating that adding novel scent is good stimulation for them. It's really interesting to note how they react. If the scent is particularly interesting, the puppies go very still.

Sunday Morning

Here they all are on a quiet Sunday morning. Weigh-in done, all made good gains. The three littlest are back at birth weight, the rest have made really good gains, with the biggest now weighing in at 400 g! They were really quiet last night, I only heard them once, for less than a minute. So, that tells me they're warm and well-fed. Nina is eating quite well, and looks really good.

Bums and toes!

Nina is looking really good this morning, very relaxed. She's eating well, goes outside willingly and is moving normally again. She's had some good rolls in the fresh snow as well. Puppies are reasonably quiet, but if someone falls off a nipple before they're satisfied, then there's an awful lot of screeching going on. I may resort to putting half the puppies on Nina at a time, when I'm home. Later this morning, I'll do a weigh-in and try to match puppies to my whelping notes from yesterday, then put some collars on to start identifying them. We'll be starting the Biosensor exercises tomorrow along with the introduction of a novel scent each day to stimulate the puppies' senses.

Day one!

Puppy Pen

We set up the puppy pen tonight, so it's ready to go. Nina will likely move into it tomorrow night, spending the nights inside, days still at the kennel with the other dogs.

Poor girlie!

Just when I thought she couldn't get any bigger, I come home from Richmond to this! There will be no walks this week for Nina, nor will be allowed to hang around outside by herself. This morning I caught her trying to go to the machine storage, and I'm sure left to her own devices, she would have been burrowing under the deck mower!

Catching Up

Wow, no idea where this week went, but it did "go"......we haven't found time to get the pen set up yet, as other more pressing items have arisen. That's fast becoming the next very pressing item. Nina is very, very big and it looks like a football team in her tummy....they are a very active group of puppies, little ripples and bumps all the time! She's sooooooo tired, all she wants to do is sleep and eat. She did go for a 45 minute walk yesterday, but she really wasn't having much fun, poor girl.

Sooooooo tired!

Nina accompanied me and the other dogs on an hour and a half walk this afternoon. She was certainly dragging her butt by the time we got home. I spent yesterday afternoon thoroughly cleaning the puppy pen, whelping box and all the other goodies. We'll set the pen up one night this week, and after next weekend Nina will start spending her nights in it, to get her used to being in the pen.

I don't think she'll be going on any really long walks now! Her appetite is huge, she's getting 3-4 meals a day, since there isn't much room left for food. I'm pretty sure I felt puppies moving this afternoon, but she was also breathing very deeply, so I could have been fooled.

Photos of the Little Momma-7 weeks pregnant

Nina's belly, just about 7 weeks.

Still fits through the dog door.

Further proof that she does still fit through the dog door!

Countdown is on

Hi all

As promised here is the beginning of the Trey x Nina puppy blog. Nina has totally lost her waistline and tuck-up, and is scraping the sides of the doggy doors when she goes out. She's still very willing to play ball, and go for walks, but we see that she tires much more readily now. And she is sleeping very deeply at night when I bring the dogs in for a visit. Earliest due date is March 29, based on the first breeding of January 26. This coming weekend we'll move the puppy pen and whelping box into it's spot in the basement and start getting her used to hanging in there. For now, she's still sleeping at the kennel with Parker and Chime as that's where she's most comfortable.

Keep checking back here for updates. I'll do my best!