One week old!!

It's hard to believe, but puppies are one week old already! Here's the one week weigh-in:

Purple girl: 1 pound 11.7 ounces
Black boy: 1 pound 9.3 oounces
Blue boy: 1 pound 11 ounces
Green boy: 1 pound 13.5 ounces
Red boy: 1 pound 13.6 ounces
Orange boy: 1 pound 10.8 ounces
Yellow boy: 14.1 ounces

As you can see Yellow boy still has some catching up to do. I started supplementing him yesterday to try and help him out.

Everyone is doing very well, pigment continues to get darker. They are starting to make some more dog-like noises. Everyone has had their nails clipped.

On to photos!

Purple girl

Orange, Blue, and Black boys

Green, Yellow, and Red boys

More Day Six

A few more photos from Tuesday...

Red boy on the left and blue boy on the right cuddle up for a nap.

Red boy thinks this is the life...

Day Six

Yesterday we went in and had dew claws removed which everyone seemed to tolerate pretty easily. Pigment also started coming in yesterday! You can see it in some of the following pictures I took this morning if you look closely at their noses. Everyone continues to gain weight and do very well. It amazes me how well they manage to move around the whelping box. They are spreading out after nursing to sleep. Mama is doing fine too. On to some day six photos:

Day Four

Today is day four and everyone continues to do well! Little yellow man is up to 10.9 ounces and everyone else is well over a pound. Tomorrow we go in to have dew claws removed.

Some photos from today:

Birth Info

It's been a long week! We had a false alarm on Monday night where we thought Eve was going into labor. A progesterone test told us she wasn't quite ready yet though. She started stage 1 labor for real on Wednesday night, but after 24 hours she hadn't progressed into active labor. We decided to just go in for a C-section since it was approaching closing time for the vet's office. She actually passed her mucous plug in the car, and by the time she was on the table puppy #1 was on the way. So she might have managed a natural birth, but she was tired after 24 hours of labor and no sleep. We decided we'd rather do the c-section instead of risking having to do an emergency c-section at 3 in the morning with tired, minimal vet staff. It's also far better to do a c-section BEFORE the bitch is completely exhausted and stressed out. That's when bad things happen during surgery. I'm glad we ended up doing the c-section since there was an extra puppy we didn't know about which could have caused complications. C-sections are also easier on dogs than on people - they don't have the same kind of muscle layer down there that we do. Pretty quick recovery for dogs!

Here are the birth weights:

Purple girl: 1 lb
Black boy: 14.1 oz
Blue boy: 1 lb
Green boy: 1 lb
Red boy: 1 lb 2 oz
Orange boy: 15.8 oz
Yellow boy: 10.1 oz

As you can see, these are some BIG puppies for such a large litter. So she very well might have had trouble with the delivery.

Everyone is doing well today, someone is with them all the time to make sure Eve recovers well from the anaesthesia and bonds with the puppies. Luckily, she took to them immediately and we're only having to save them from some over-zealous licking :) A much better problem than if she wasn't interested in them at all! We're making an effort to get the smaller puppies, especially yellow boy, nursing as much as possible. He's a plucky little guy, but can't muscle his way through the other puppies as well as the others can.

Coincidentally, Loki was also born to a litter that had 6 boys and 1 girl.

Here's a photo of Eve with her pups today

Day two

Puppies are here!

Six boys and one girl arrived Thursday night around 8pm by C-section. Mama and pups are all doing well. More info to come when things settle down!

The puppies immediately after birth.

Eve nursing her pups at the vet's office before leaving.