Wonder pups 1 week old!

Hard to believe that our Wonder litter is now over a week old! The time has flown by and we have not had time to make our usual daily blog updates.  Jam is a fantastic mother, careful around the pups and attentive to cleaning and feeding them.  She is quite relaxed and as you can see from the photo above, still very much a clown!  I am still sleeping next to the whelping box, which I do for the first two weeks to keep a close eye on the young pups.  We also have incorporated a puppycam so we can see them from wherever we may be. Our puppy people love to be able to view their future pups and be part of their growth and development.  

The puppies have already outgrown their first set of "infant" collars and we put the next size of velcro collars on them.  The puppies spend the day nursing, sleeping and peeing or pooping, which at this stage, Jam stimulates them to do, although some are doing it on their own, and she is cleaning this up.  The pups get weighed daily and they have all gained and are impressive with their weights, no worries here about the goal of them doubling their birth weights by two weeks of age.  Tails were docked and dewclaws removed at three days of age and they also had their nails clipped for the first time, something we will be doing weekly and we will introduce the dremel.  We also started Early Neurological Stimulation and Early Scent Introduction (ESI), both of which we will continue until day 16. We started doing ESI at the recommendation of our friend, Gayle Watkins, of Avidog, and Gaylan's Golden Retrievers, a few years ago and we believe it makes a difference in the puppies development and translates into adulthood.  We introduce the puppies to a new scent each day for a 3-5 seconds, anything from different birds, such as chukkar or pheasant wings, as these are hunting dogs, to rubber toys, natural materials such as leather and spices.  It is impressive to feel how the puppies inhale deeply or try to eat a bird wing at such a young age!

 When the puppies nurse, they use their paws to kneed the area around the nipple to help stimulate milk flow. Their tongues are curved to perfectly fit a nipple. We carefully check Jam daily to make sure the she stays healthy, her temperature is normal and does not develop mastitis, which could be painful.

 The pups are amazingly active and mobile for this age and have no problem finding a feeding station at the milk bar or a comfortable place to nap in the whelping box. The whelping box has pig rails, those white boards, that protect the pups from accidentally getting rolled on by Jam.  We also have a heat lamp in one corner of the box to keep the pups warm and the box at an optimal temperature as the puppies are too young to regulate their own body temperature.  A puppy getting too cold can be deadly.

 Jam enjoys many meals throughout the day and plenty of water to help make an adequate supply of milk for these ever hungry pups.