Thursday February 1st 2007

Well it has been a busy couple of weeks. I have returned to work leaving Schatzi to care for her babies all on her own. Naturally she is doing just fine.

The babies are 3 weeks old now. They have completed their Early Neurological Stimulation and have had their first worming treatment. The puppies eyes opened about a week ago and they began to be able to hear about 4 days ago. They are now exploring everything and getting into all kinds of mischief. They have now had two trips into the yard to experience the grass beneath their paws.

The pups had their first try of real food today and jumped in with gusto. It wont be long before they start some basic training work.

The puppies have also been undergoing some early desensitisation to scary noises. While playing and feeding I have been playing them a CD of loud, scary noises like thunder and fireworks.

Friday 19th January 2007

The puppies are now ten days old. They are becoming much more mobile and are sometimes even up on all four legs. The hot weather has been hard on us all and they have been feeling it a little, but not quite as badly as Schatzi is.

The pups have continued with early neurological stimluation exercises. They are growing rapidly and are very healthy.

You can see a video of Schatzi and red boy at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPfw4SkDdoU

Sunday 14th January 2007

The puppies commenced ENS (early neurological stimulation) on Friday and are all responding in different ways to the stimuli.

They are growing very rapidly and the two big boys (blue and green) are both around 800grams already.

The babies pigment is starting to come in and it appears that they will be taking after Super in the pigment stakes.

Schatzi continues to be a good mum and is always proud when visitors come by to see her babies.

12th January 2007

It is now what would have been day 63 of Schatzi's pregnancy. It is instead the babies third day with us. They are wonderful little bundles of white and very much loved already.

The boys are like two sets of twins, Blue and Green who came first are the big cool kids in the puppy playground. Red and Yellow are the smaller boys but are real comedians, they have a lot to say for themselves and are always the first to crawl off and get into trouble.

The girls are all petite and sweet. Purple has her mum's personality already which is scary. I think she will be something really special.

Both Mum and Babies had a full check up at the vet on Wednesday and were given a bill of excellent health. They are wonderful little miricles.

I woke up at 6am yesterday morning (Tuesday 9th of January) to find Schatzi in stage one labour – she decided she was going to go three days early! She stayed in this stage for most of the day.

At about 3.30-4pm she started to have contractions and passed some fluid. She started really going in full labour at around 5.30pm.

At 6.45pm she gave birth to an enormous boy – he was just over 600g. After that we had two more boys and I thought we were going to be seeing only boys! I crossed everything I had and just before 9pm we had two girls in pretty quick succession.

Schatzi then had a fair break as she was feeling pretty tired. She got to work again at around 1045pm and in the following 50 minutes produced another boy and another girl. This left us with a grand total of 7 – 4 boys and 3 girls. To those who I said my gut told me we were having 7 – I was right!!!

Here is the full breakdown:

1845 – Blue boy – 601 grams
1947 – Green boy – 556 grams
2008 – Red boy – 510 grams
2053 – Pink girl – 453 grams
2109 – Purple girl – 455 grams
2245 – Yellow boy – 529 grams
2332 – White girl – 467grams

All babies and mum are looking healthy and happy and are doing really well so far.

Saturday 6th January 2007

Schatzi continues to grow more and more every day. She is sleeping more during the day and is more restless at night. I think if she were a human she would be telling me to "get these things out of me!!!" She is filling with milk and you can see in the picture of her sitting that she is now touching the ground with a lot of her belly. Everyday things like getting on the couch are now becoming a challenge.

Welcome

Thursday 4th January 2007

It is a week tomorrow to the pups due date and we are busy getting ready. The house is cleaned and the whelping box has been set up ready for the big event.

Schatzi is really starting to get uncomfortable in her new big, heavy body.

We will keep regularly updating this blog as things progress so all our friends will know when there are little white additions to the family!