A month ago I bought a puppy pen at an estate sale
because I thought it might come in handy someday.
Little did I know that someday would be 13 December 2012.
Did I bring this on myself by buying that?
Puppies get outside for the first time
I set it up outside, hoping the rain would stop and
the pups could see the outside. It finally did.
Mattie & puppies are doing well.
I've never had to take of a litter before,
so I researched online about weaning;
several sites recommended taking her away from
the puppies for a few hours at a time, starting about four weeks.
This morning she had an hour break from them.
I will do another longer break this afternoon.
The weaning articles also said to cut down on
Mattie's intake to help dry up her milk,
but I'll sure hate to do that, as she is severely underweight.
She is now getting seven cups of premium food per day,
spread over three meals.
A fellow rescuer suggested cottage cheese mixed in the puppy food.
They really liked that, especially the milky part.
They still much prefer momma's free milk fountain,
but we are making progress.
It was 34 degrees in the barn aisle this morning at 7 a.m.
No worries; the stall is much warmer.
Even though the puppies' ears were warm,
we built them a straw-bale cave inside the stall
for additional warmth and added another bed for Mattie.
I also put a 2x4-foot sheepskin in the puppy cave -
another estate sale buy from last month.
Thank goodness for that crystal ball!
My brother & his family came by in the afternoon.
My seven-year-old great-nephew loved playing with the puppies.
My brother held puppies while I clipped their toenails
withÊfingernail clippersÊ(another on-line suggestion)
- how cute is that?! He also helped me tie
different color rickrack on the pups,
a suggestion from several people on the Airedale email groups.
Let me introduce, in order of size: Red, Pink, Blue, Green, & Purple.
I took puppy poop to vet. SURPRISE! They had roundworms.
My husband helped me weigh them so I could get the
correct amount of dewormer for them -
wish we had had a third person to take pictures.
We put them in a bucket balanced on a 25-pound kitchen scale.
They weighed from six pounds for the smallest
to eight pounds for the largest.
Then I went to pick up the dewormer medication,
only to find out it was in the form of a pill.
I figured I'd need to find some chain mail gloves
to protect me from razor teeth, but I managed to get it down
their throats w/o being slashed (I coated the pills with a little butter).
Some of the puppies started following my Jack Russell Terrier
around when they had their barn outing.
It was like a wave of sharks and she ran like crazy!
Normally she is the boss dog,
but she ran for cover when five puppies came running after her to play.
I'm trapped?
Tug of war with horse's cross tie;
fortunately no horse on other end
I've been letting the pups run around inside the barn
while I clean stalls when the weather is too nasty
for them to go in the puppy pen.
I had to shut myself in the stalls until the manure was picked up.
"No, no puppies . . . those greenish-brown balls are not toys,
nor do I want you to eat them."
Ms. Green seems to be fascinated by green things.
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