Ida is one of the favourite girls. She looked so cute but has developed into a well-growing puppy, always keen on feed (hey, it’s a Labrador Retriever, what do you expect?!?), and full of self-confidence.
She’s the one starting to play and explore.
In a familiy of eleven, there are always some that are ‘just there’.
Lotta has been such a puppy for more than three weeks. She was there, never caused trouble. Born ‘somewhen in the middle’.
It was only after we had realised that we’ve never really paid attention to her that we discovered her personality (should I say ‘dogality?).
Lotta is brave. And loud! She doesn’t hesitate to let the others know when her full tummy aches…
Reliable is another suitable descriptor for her.
Three and a half weeks are enough! There was only one bottle teat that sufficed our demands in size and capacity. Bottle feeding of all eleven of us took an hour or longer.
Time to find a new solution…
Of course we did a mess! At the beginning and the days to come…
We’ve stepped into the bowl, we drowned our chins in the milk, we crawled one over the other, smearing the milk into the others’ coat…
And it didn’t get much better, when they started to mix pre-soaked puppy feed into the milk…
But we still got our mom and the delicious original stuff…
We must apologise for more than a week of silence. It has been somewhat busy. We’ve encountered new playgrounds. Or, well, sleeping grounds we should say.
Every day the bed is done new. Mind you, being all day long in that box, no-one has taught us yet where to go once the litres of milk or what’s left of it have to flee our small bodies.
It really looks good, doesn’t it?
Unfortunately, it doesn’t stay that nice for long, once we’ve been put back into the box… (But we’re going to spare you the look of dirty linen. Luckily for all of us, someone has invented washing machines and tumble dryers.)
No more photos of Karlsson! This order I issued when I went through today’s photos for this blog. He’s so cute and sweet to look at. If there were more photos as these there’d be the risk that I couldn’t let him go in six weeks time.
He seeks companionship, canine or human, and loves to cuddle.
These two girls must not be forgotten! Very brave and self-confident as they are, they have driven many people’s phantasies of what could be, what could have been.
Of the two puppies, Pippi with the orange collar is five minutes elder than Ronja. Pippi is as strong as her namesake and very keen on milk, be it from her mother or out of a bottle. And due to space restrictions in official documents, her real name is only ‘Pippi’.
Ronja is something special. Of course, all puppies are great and fun and develop personalities. And there ist the firstborn Astrid, the always hungry Lasse and Mattis, and and and…
But of all eleven Puppies, Ronja is special as she was born outside! After there had been only six minutes between Mattis and Pippi, and as Fluffy urged to go outside, she was let outside once she had licked dry Pippi. Fluffy made for a near corner in the garden, and not half a minute later, Ronja was born.
As we had read in books about such things could happen, we’ve never taken an eye off Fluffy. As at 7:03 a.m. the sun was already shining, we didn’t even need a torchlight. Fluffy was about as surprised as we were…
It has been a sunny and warm day. Just the perfect moment for a first trip into the green garden. So, just after we’ve been weighed we were carried in a big basket into the garden. No lawn-mower has touched the gras this year yet. We’ve been taken by surprise, but… we guess, we can get used to it.
Mattis was the first yellow male that was born. He is strong and good-hearted. And hungry.
Newborn puppies are kind of boring: Life consists of suckling and sleeping. Not even peeing can be done by oneself but needs the massaging help of the mother’s tongue.
But in those initial two weeks, before we open our eyes and ears, our brain develops. Not that we notice, but some clever humans had found out all about it. And they claim, it would help if our brain gets input from the little senses that we have available.
Each of the exercises lasted 3 to 5 seconds only. It was done only once a day.
This early neurological stimulation was done according to the findings and recommendations of Carmen L. Battaglia. More information at http://breedingbetterdogs.com/article/early-neurological-stimulation