Puppy Grand Central! (Updated)

Welcome to Puppy Grand Central, and thanks to Stephen F. for the name. LOVE it!

Since we typically have litters far apart — and have never had two at once — I am not exactly sure what how this blog thing is going to work but I shall just give it my best, sharing photos and info about both Bright Stars and Moonshadows each day.

Daisy had a planned c-section due to litter size and etc. at 3 pm yesterday. Suzanne helped in person and we had Toby on Zoom to watch as each puppy arrived. It was Toby who kept count — TEN!

Almighty Heidi summed it up well in a text this morning:

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FYI — we prefer to say ten plus ten because twenty puppies just seems really excessive.

The puppies arrived vigorous and there were no issues.

Sandhano, who lives close to the clinic, stopped by to meet all of us and was a great help. It was fun to have Toby on Zoom, one of the tech’s daughters stopped in to meet puppies…

…and basically it was a fun and easy puppy party. Much gratitude to Suzanne for all of her help and support.

The Moonshadows are normal-sized puppies but look tiny when compared to the Bright Stars. Here is the first Moonshadow Puppy Pile photo…

The Bright Stars Puppy Pile — a week makes such a difference!

Claire is tough because she is not eating happily and there is her knee. Daisy eats like a champ and is super easy going about everything…

This would not happen in Claire’s whelping box!

BUT Daisy’s milk supply is slow. Here are the weights for the Moonshadows — note the weight loss. This is normal…

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…but that doesn’t mean we aren’t paying attention.

Puppies are nursing constantly in one-hour shifts of five, and we have Daisy switch sides with each group. This should help with lactation. Non-nursers are close by on a warming pad…

I will weigh the Moonshadows again this afternoon to ensure that they are at least holding steady, and if anyone has lost more weight they will visit Claire’s Milk Bar and Puppy Wash.

And speaking of the Bright Stars, we have their one-week photos to share. I confess we took them this morning but since they are not officially eight days old until noon, I consider this acceptable.

The amount of mouth action was amazing (this is developmental) and the Squirm Factor was high as is the Human Exhaustion factor and so the photos are imperfect — but the Bright Stars are perfection indeed…

Suzanne was kind enough to let us use her whelping box — she and Jay even delivered it. Besties, indeed. So the Bright Stars have been upgraded to the deluxe whelping box…

…but only because Claire did not appreciate being moved to the living room and was anxious in the new spot. And so at 11 pm I moved Claire and her babies back to their original spot in the new whelping box, and Daisy and her babies to the new location in our whelping box.

The Puppy Grand Central Mantra…