We have one week under our belts and Maya and all 13 puppies are doing well!
The first week is bumpy (standardly), with Maya recovering from delivery & gaining an ample milk supply, and puppies trying to get traction in nursing and start gaining weight, and everyone waking up through the night frequently. I’m pretty sure Maya and the puppies lost weight at least initially, and I was gaining weight that week. So scales and weights became central in our lives.
Scales are actually important the whole way through, and puppies are weighed daily for weeks. Checking weights every day is one of the quickest guides for me to know if each puppy is thriving or if trouble is brewing. And every puppy is now thriving.
That was a hard won battle though, because Maya was back to her pre-pregnant weight within two days of whelping, and exclusively nursing 13 puppies was not reasonable. Even with Maya eating 5-6 full meals per day, plus supplements. I tried to help out with supplementally bottle feeding the puppies, and it worked for some, but ironically the puppies that needed the hand feedings the most, frequently rejected the bottles I offered. While I went on a mission to find the right bottle I preferentially placed them on the most prolific Maya stations, but a couple of puppies continued loosing weight. They were otherwise vigorous and healthy, but weight gain is essential, and weight gain was a struggle for a few puppies. And then I found the perfect bottle: The Avent Natural glass bottle. Every puppy accepted it, guzzled it, was not revolted by it, and was able to clear any bottle nipple clogs on their own without my help. Every puppy started gaining weight. I had found the holy grail of bottles. At least for this litter. I know full well that the next litter may fully reject it and demand something different. But I’m singing it’s praises for now. Behold the Advent Natural bottle, key equipment for thriving puppies:
A blessing from the bottle feedings is the connections made with the puppies. After bottle feeding a couple of days I noticed when I’d step into the whelping box that a few of the puppies would scamper over to my feet, and smell me, pecking at me. I realize they don’t love me as I love them, but they run to me because my scent tells them that the secondary food truck has arrived. They are much more pleased with being picked up by me and my guys, and a couple of puppies fell asleep and snuggled up to my sons after doing ENS the past two nights. So everything is heading solidly in the right direction.
Puppies make cute little moaning, cooing, and groaning noises. Multiplied by 13 it’s a continuous symphony. Add in when puppies holler because they wandered too far from Maya, got too cold, or lost their place at the drinking fountain, and it’s a true cacophony. Even through the night. Because blind deaf puppies have no sense of night and day, they only think milk until they fall asleep. And when they awaken it’s miiiillllk again until they are off in a food coma. It’s rare for the room to be quiet near the whelping box, and when it is, you kinda think, oh my gosh, what’s wrong?!
And then you realize that everything is actually just fine. They are all just in a synchronized moment of contentment.
On day 3 we started ENS. You can read about it in a previous post from before. What’s new is that along with ENS we also started Early Scent Introduction (ESI) which I’ll write about in it’s own blog. Just know that we are working hard every day to bring you strong, stable dogs with built in skills!
I’m going to now try to put the updates out in Tuesdays, correlating with their weekly birthdays.
On the agenda for week 2:
-Continue ENS & ESI.
-Daily whelping box changes/challenges
Here are a few other favorite pictures from week 1!
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