Day 5

Mary-Ann Sontag June 9, 2025

Puppies are increasingly mobile. They have a drag/lurch mode of transportation but it gets them where they want to go.

Jasper is especially active and busy, and has been since the first day. He is constantly on crawlabouts, and you can hear him doing directional sniffing around the whelping box from across the room.

Noses are starting to darken up — I call this time the Smudge Puppy stage because the puppy noses look dirty and smudged for a while ❤️

This particular fleece makes for a pretty background.

I love this photo of Star Garnet 💖

My cats are quite confused. Apparently, night time is when they do their important cat work and these all-nighters are interfering with that. Even the elusive Nikki Summer Dawn has been appearing to try and figure out what the heck is going on.

“Go to bed, human and dogs! This is Cat Time!!”

Pro Tip: When the summer heat hits, 2:36 a.m. is a great time to boil pasta.

Puppy Pile!

🥱❤️

Evening Photos

Star Garnet was licking Capella’s foot — so cute!

At 11:30 pm, all is well. Puppies gained nicely in the last 24 hours, and Capella is being an attentive and careful mom 🩷

Day 4

Mary-Ann Sontag June 8, 2025

All is well here. The arrival of milk also means the arrival of oxytocin, the Love Hormone, and it shows. Capella is currently contending for the Mother of the Year award, which makes things SO much easier.

It is currently 2:45 a.m. I have been up since about 8:30 pm last evening. Galen is helping to watch puppies — thank goodness! — but we have to find 6 - 7 hour shifts that work for his responsibilities, and that has been afternoon/evening hours. Luckily, I am so tired that I can sleep whenever the opportunity presents.

It is very odd to be awake when you know most people are not but it is not unpleasant — it is just strange. And quiet.

The puppies seem to have suffered no lingering effects from the removal of their many dewclaws. Every puppy gained a good amount of weight in the past 24 hours — yay!

And since I have time and Capella is making things easy — I made a video.

Later: Random Photos

In this photo of Star Garnet and Sapphire using Topaz as a bottom bunk, you can see what I mean about their opposing white muzzle markings.

Star Garnet is the one closer to Topaz’s head. She has more white of her left side.

Topaz did live through the experience — this is him.

This makes me laugh!

End of the Day

The Gems have been alive for four complete days now; they were born later in the day on June 4 so a complete 24 hours ends in the later afternoon.

We like to see puppies double their weight in the first 7 - 10 days, and we are on track for that. Here is how much each puppy is up from his/her birth weight:

Jasper: 58% (now weighs 26.8 oz)

Star Garnet: 51% (now weighs 21.8 oz)

Topaz: 43% (now weighs 17.4 oz)

Sapphire: 41% (now weighs 22.8 oz)

Thanks for following along 🩷

Day 3: Well, That was Traumatic!

Mary-Ann Sontag June 7, 2025

Today was D-Day.

Dewclaws 😬

I only do the rears and this time I was thinking of leaving them on. Unfortunately, seven of the eight rear dewclaws were D for Double, and those are too big to leave on.

And so I packed everyone up and off we went to the clinic. Some breeders remove their own dewclaws 😱 but I am not in favor of practicing veterinary medicine without a license.

Anyway, it was fast and they got to nurse right before and right after so that helped. Bottom line — we all survived.

I have collars for the puppies but there are only four puppies and they are so distinctive that I decided to skip the collars. Today’s post is all about how to tell them apart (and processing my trauma — see above).

Jasper is easy — he has the extra white on his neck. Plus, he is a baby moose. “Chunky Monkey” the tech called him at the clinic, and that is not fat shaming for at least two reasons. First, it is accurate and second, we love our plump puppies!

Anyway, you will know Jasper by his extra white, his almost perfectly symmetrical muzzle markings, and his heavyweight crown 👑

Topaz is easy for the exact opposite reasons — he is small (for now — that won’t last), and darkly marked on his face.

Sapphire and Star Garnet are interesting. Each has one side of the face that has slightly less white than their other side — but it is the opposite, and that makes them easy to tell apart (plus they have different plumbing).

This is Star Garnet — the left side of her muzzle has lots of white. The right side of her muzzle has white but it is less.