Day 19 - The puppies become puppies and GROSS!

So I woke up two nights ago to the sound of a puppy just SCREAMING. I leap out of bed and run into the living room, flip on the light and . . . Reid has managed to fall out of the whelping box and is trying desperately to get back in. It would appear that the Fury is not on board with carrying her dogs (probably a good thing, or she would have moved them under my bed or to the backyard by now, I think), so she was just looking at him, like, "What?" Order restored.

I thought this was a fluke, but the puppies became noticably more active today. Perhaps because their eyesight is better and their hearing is better. As I was noting this, Moto, of his own accord, managed to hop the fence, too. And so now I figured out what the extra wood frame that came with the whelping box is for. They now have added puppy protection and that's something we can believe in. :) I would like to keep them in that box as long as possible because I have things like water, food, and Fury's in/out access to consider.
They are interacting a lot more with one another these days. After nursing, everybody gets to licking/cleaning the other puppy. Everyone's commenting on the pink noses and feet - in case you don't know, dog spit (I assume all spit, actually) is actually tinged kind of reddish pink, so when your dog gets to licking, that area gets stained. So too are the puppies' white areas stained right now. I think largely from simply nursing, not licking each other. They get Fury's belly SOPPING wet.

Here we have what was my failed attempt at first housebreaking surfaces. Pine chips. I tried to find cedar to no avail, but figured this was good enough . . . until Fury started tracking it throughout the house. My roommates were utterly thrilled with this development. We're gonna have to go back to the drawing board on this one. I didn't get the dog litter as I thought the surface wasn't very nice for the pups, and maybe I'll just settle on paper for now. Advice is welcome.

The pups have been enjoying their visitors for the most part, and they're getting very big and dog-like. This photo of Reid, can't you tell exactly what he's going to look like as he gets older? He's quite manly. Laura (that's who's holding him) my roommate says he's going to be someone's awesome buddy. She likes carrying him around and totally favors him, which doesn't bother me too much so long as all the dogs get handled an equal amount by me and by others.

Optimus starts up on the play fighting.

Here's Reid sitting up like a good, adult dog. They all slip and slide on the wood and it's so pathetic/cute I could squish them in a fit of appreciation.

Anyway, I was taking Fury running yesterday around Cerro San Luis, and was reminded that I should really address the less pleasant side of puppies, that is, the stuff that squeamish people should quit reading about right now.

There's only a few sources out there that warn you of this - your bitch will have globs of reddish mucous come out of her vagina for weeks. I picked Fury up the other night and sat her on my lap and when I stood up, everyone was like, "Ewwww, what is that?" Do *you* really want to explain where that comes from? And normally the very clean Fury dog would lap it up so no one (including me) would notice this was happening, but she appears to, on this particular front, not give a damn. Which is really fun when you take her for any sort of run or bike ride, because it gets the juices flowing and then that gets stuck in her breeches . . . yeah, awesome.

The other thing is that Fury has had, up until very recently, insanely loose stools. I've been trying really hard to keep her clean, but the poor dog was having a time of it. I assume it's eating puppy poo, goat's milk, and all the crazy things her body is doing now. When I got her on the Solid Gold puppy food, it seemed to get a lot better, so we're hoping crisis is averted, but dang.

And then I totally forgot to do something last week that I should have and so went to the store yesterday to get it - wormer. Oh yes, one of the things I remember VERY clearly when I helped raise litters with my mentor, that nearly all puppies are born with worms. I haven't really found a conclusive reason why, but my theory is that if the damn has immature worms in her system (ie, her system doesn't let them mature because she's immune, but she still is a carrier) they are passed in utero to the pups. You are supposed to start worming at two weeks. Ooops. My pups are doing pretty good so far and I haven't seen any eliminations like the kind that were burned into my brain when I was fifteen, so I think we're all good.

At first I tried to get them to just lick the stuff, but happily I have plenty of syringes lying around, so I just shot the puppies' mouths with the stuff and they all sat around smacking at the foreign, but not altogether unpleasant taste. It was pretty easy - "You want to insert something in my mouth? Okey doke." I also wormed Fury.

So there's your gross factor.

Anyway, it's pretty awesome that they're growing up. I have eye color predictions, but I will save that for when Chris comes over for our next photo shoot,which we've decided to have some decidedly irreverent fun with. I'm sorry, and I may be a dog person, but I am going to enjoy spoofing the classic "puppy with cute props" photos. Thanks Sharon and family for the initial idea.