Five Weeks and Four Weeks

The Moonshadows are four weeks old!

MS on teeter 2-25.jpg

I really need to be better at quickly identifying puppies in photos but everything happens quickly around here, as I bet you can imagine — and so this is a really cute Moonshadow.

MS 2-25 (2).jpg

Their noses darkened up quickly and so that makes it harder — I cannot go back and use noseprints to identify them. If I had to guess — based on the right foot, I would say that is Neil.

Below — hmmm and Arche (see the green collar?)

MS 2-25 (1).jpg

Titan and Daisy…

Titan and Daisy 2-25.jpg

With both litters, I regularly do shift nursing — five on and five off. I have a system for remembering the two “teams” from each litter so that things can be fair.

Daisy and five 2-25.jpg

In the Moonshadows, five puppies have swiss kisses — perfect! One team consists of the “kissed” puppies and the other team consists of the unkissed, so to speak (but trust me — they all get kisses!).

The Bright Stars — now five weeks old! — were not so obvious. What I did was make a team of the four girls and the smallest boy, which was Perseus at the time I formed the teams. So all girls plus him — and that is why Perseus is now called James.

James 2-25.jpg

If you understand why that is, post in the comments and I will send you a prize :)

The girls plus James always get to eat first during shift nursing because when it is everyone at once, I know those Baby Boy Hippos push their way to the best seats at the Milk Bar.

Think linebacker puppies — and here they are protesting this arrangement…

Boys 2-25.jpg

This is Claire nursing some and kissing another…

DSC_1256.jpg

This is Sirius — I keep a close eye on what they are chewing because puppies can and will chew off pieces of things and swallow them, and that can go badly…

Sirius 2-25.jpg

Since the puppies were familiar with the new playroom, it was time for new stuff today…

DSC_1243.jpg

I made a video so you could observe puppy reactions to new things. Note — puppies are not forced into new things — we let them decide to explore…

Claire will see her vet today to confirm the diagnosis and start making a plan; I also scheduled a teleconsult with Dr. Sherman Canapp for next week. One cannot make good decisions without information, and Claire deserves a good decision.

Have a colorful day!

Evening

We all feel like this tonight so we are calling it a day…

Capella 2-25.jpg