Day Nine A.M. & P.M.

All is well here at Puppy Central. Three puppies have doubled their birth weight: Buttercup, Mallow, and Paintbrush.

This is Paintbrush doing his Yoda imitation.

Don’t worry — he will have normal ears for a Berner!

This is Clover — she is in second place in the Heavyweight division, which is rather surprising as she was not one of the bigger puppies at birth. She started off at 16.55 ounces and is now at 31.15.

A look down at the Milk Bar crowd.

Mariposa is posing for those of you who love tummy pics.

Clarkia (pictured here with Paintbrush) retains the heavyweight crown — for now. She weighed in at 31.3 ounces this morning — just barely ahead of Clover.

This is Sage and he is demanding a recount — apparently he is confused about how things work. He was just one-half ounce behind Clover this morning.

Mallow, pretending to be a bug below, remains the smallest puppy at 24.35 ounces. Given that he started off at 12.15 ounces, I think he is doing just fine.

You will note some new whelping box decor. Yesterday I braved the Great Viral Unknown — once Dear Husband was awake to watch puppies, of course — to do the monthly shopping and so I treated the puppies to new fleeces.

We love a fun whelping box — and good thing because the puppies got flocked!

Nine KaiBobs showed up yesterday.

For those who are new to the blog, that won’t be as funny as it is to those of us who have seen KaiBobs show up for multiple generations of Kaibab puppies.

Their sender is a mystery but we think we know exactly who that generous person is — and we love and thank you for your support and always being so darn FUN.

And speaking fun — click HERE to watch a morning meal with the Wildflowers and to see why we do quite a few shift feedings during the day (and night). It is a bit of a rodeo, as you will see.

A shift feeding just means we let 4 - 5 puppies nurse at a time while the others continue their naps. This helps ensure weight gain is even — bigger puppies easily push smaller puppies off nipples if we always allow everyone all at once.

In addition to shift feedings, we also make sure Daisy nurses puppies on both rows of nipples by having her down on alternating sides for meals. Like with humans, lactation in dogs requires some thought and strategy to make sure it works well for all concerned.

NEWS FLASH and evening photos

Eyes are starting to open!

The eyes open very gradually over a period of days and vision is not clear at first. Ears typically are a week or so behind the eyes — but this means that the Wildflowers are getting ready to take in more of their new world.

Here is a better mouthing photo — as I said, they are not very good at it just yet. This is Lupine.