Neverland-Retrievers

Last night I fed April a small amount of puppy weaning food. She lapped it up tentatively at first and walked through the plate a bit until she got the idea of standing at the edge to lick at it. Today, Tinks and I were outside for most of the afternoon, so when we came in I put approximately 60 ml of food on a small saucer plate in the whelping box. April must have smelled it, because she came right over and lapped it all up like she’d been at it for a while.

April is much more active and routinely plays with her mom. She bites on Tink’s ear flap or paws at her head. Tink doesn’t seem to mind much, but after awhile she puts April in her place.

April’s weight change is steady, See Chart Below, and now weighs 4.66 lb (2.11 kg).

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It’s Saturday and life is moving a bit slower this morning. April is more active with each day. She is mainly walking around the whelping box. I only see her crawling now when she climbs onto the rail. Eventually she rolls off and falls onto the soft floor. She broke 4 lbs yesterday and weighs 4.41 lb (2.0 kg) today. Here are some current pictures. Of course, Tink could not stand that April was getting all the photo opps, so she jumped onto the couch and posed for a few with her daughter.

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April is now taking tenative steps around the whelping box. She likes to crawl onto the rail and sometimes sleeps with her head on it in the corner of the box. I’ve placed several items in the box to get her attention. She found the blue squeaky crab and thought the claw was one of mom’s milk dispensers. We went to the vet today to remove Tink’s stitches and give April a quick check. Everything is fine with both. At two weeks old, April weighs 3.59 lbs (1.63 kg). By comparison, at two weeks old Tink weighed 3.1 lbs. April is about .5 lb ahead at the same stage of development.

Below is a picture of mom and puppy taking a snooze.

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Here are some current pictures of April.

   

April and Tink are doing fine. I relocated the webcam because April has tried to climb out of the whelping box. The webcam view of mom and daughter was blocked when I close the front door. The current view is unaffected and give a different perspective. April started opening her eyes on day 10. They are not completely opened yet, just little deep blue slits. I changed the bedding in the whelping box to the Sterilon pad and placed newspaper underneath. Aprils is having BM on her own now, so this should make clean up easier. I have to mention that I’ve been following Melody’s Whelping notes. I also purchased several books with similar information, but her note are very concise and thorough. Thanks M! April broke past 3 lbs today, See Chart Below. Her current weight is 3.15 lbs (1.43 kg). She’s gaining an average of 3.1 oz/day or 11% body weight per day. The normal range is 1.7-5.5 oz/day or 5-10%. I’ve cut her nails twice by now, but they seem to grow very fast. Like Tink, this is not her favorite activity.

Also, I’ve had an ISP problem in the last couple of days, that affected my web site and webcam. It has been temporarily resolved. A more permanent fix is coming soon which may put the webcam offline a few hours one day this week.

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This morning April weighed 37.5 oz (1063 g). Eyes and ear are still closed. The little munchkin sleeps and eats, in that order. A few more tenative steps this evening and a couple of barks while sleeping. I know she’s not dreaming, so it must be reflex or just copying mom, hope not the later.

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It is unbelievable to me, but today April took her first steps on all four legs! Her eyes are still closed, but she managed to take a couple of steps towards mom. I didn’t imagine it, even my daughter Jessica saw her when she repeated it again a few seconds later. Also, she almost managed to climb onto the rail just a minute later. This morning she weighed 35 oz (992 g) as she continues a steady weight increase.

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April’s weight is 31.3 oz this morning. I reluctantly went back to work today. It’s hard leaving the puppy, but I know Tink will take good care of her. With the webcam, I can keep an eye on the whelping box. Both mom and puppy spent most of the day sleeping, not unexpected. I also have another PC recording the webcam at regular intervals, so I can always go back and view the days activities in Fast Forward. Someday I will post a short clip for fun.

I’ve also been trying to stimulate April by using Carmen Battaglia’s technique called “Developing High Achievers”. Information on the technique can be found at www.breedingbetterdogs.com. Thanks to Linda C. for passing this information on to me.

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Here are a couple of current photos of April.

 

April is steadily increasing in weight and activity each day. This morning she weighed 29 oz (822 g) an increase of 4.5 oz from yesterday. She is becoming more active and definitely has a favorite corner of the whelping box, away from the heat lamp. I ran a small test to see how quickily she would crawl over to her corner while penned in by two towel rolls and her Snuggleme Puppy. See for yourself in the attached video below.

Pen Breakout