Willow’s puppies (left) and Ellie’sPuppies(right) two weeks old
LOOKING BACK
We have had another busy week and the puppies have made so much progress. Our puppies are now two weeks old and growing more adorable with each passing day! We reached a couple milestones this week: (1) All our puppies have doubled their birth-weight and then some. (2) The puppies opened their eyes. Their sight will improve as the days and weeks pass.
Ellie and Willow continue to be loving attentive mamas who take wonderful care of their babies. The puppies are gaining weight daily and continue to do what healthy puppies do – Eat, Sleep, and Grow! Besides feeding and cuddling, it is important for our mamas to lick their puppies. The licking interactions between a mama and her pup have been shown to be essential to the physical and emotional health of both mama and baby. Newborn puppies need to be stimulated by their mother to eliminate. This is why the mama’s spend time cleaning each pup before and after feeding.
See How They Have Grown
Although their mama’s take care of cleaning the puppies, cleaning of the whelping boxes is my responsibility. Our whelping boxes are disinfected and a clean vet bed liner is replaced daily. We line the whelping box with a “vet bed fleece”. This is a financial investment on our part but, we feel it is well worth the money. It not only keeps our puppies warm and dry, it also provides excellent footing for the puppies as they learn to walk and stops their legs from slipping as they nurse. When it is time to clean the whelping boxes, I put the puppies into a laundry basket to keep them contained. I am going to have to find bigger containers because some of the puppies are starting to climb out. We have also had to add a panel to the whelping box entrance to keep them safe inside.
With Ellie locked out of the room, I took the opportunity to take a quick video to show the the puppies progress. Soon Ellie came back … She wasn’t too happy as you will hear in the video 😂 The below video shows the progress the puppies have made. Their hind legs have become stronger and they are moving more quickly around their whelping box. The puppies are starting to vocalize. Now that their eyes have opened they will start to interact with each other.
LOOKING AHEAD TO WEEK THREE
- Puppies will still eat and sleep most of their day
- Puppies will continue growing
- Sight will slowly become clearer
- Puppies Ears will start to open and they will begin to hear.
- Puppies hind legs will become stronger and they will practice walking on all fours
- Puppies will become more aware and start to play with their litter-mates.
