New Puppies!

This has been an amazing week. Eleven beautiful little (getting big fast) puppies. I'm SO sleep deprived, as it's an around the clock job to watch babies, let mom out to potty, which she does a lot because she eats and drinks A TON! However, every minute is worth it. 

Greta started signs of labor on Friday afternoon. The pups were all born on Saturday, February 27th, between 11:00 a.m.-7:00 p.m. All pups are healthy and off to a great start. Greta is such an attentive mom. She handles the pups so well and watches them closely. 

At this stage, their eyes and ears are still closed. They scoot around the whelping box, going by smell, to get to where they want.... whether it be to snuggle or nurse from mom, lay on top of siblings or get to a cooler spot. They can't regulate their own body temp until about 3 weeks of age, so it is kept quite warm in the whelping room, something adult Berners do not really like. 

They are all gaining weight nicely, a little each day and they have almost doubled their weight this past week. At birth, the smallest one was 14.5 ounces at birth, the biggest was 1 pound, 4.8 ounces. Last night the smallest weighed in at 1 pound, 7.5 ounces, the biggest at 2 pound, 7 ounces.

This week their developmental program includes holding the pups in certain positions for a short amount of time, stimulating the bottoms of their feet and in between their toes. These short sessions just slightly stress the pup, but not too much. They learn to adapt to different situations and recover quickly, thus making them stronger, healthier and more adept in the long run.