Five Days

 

On Monday the pups took their first road trip, visiting the Vet to have their dew claws removed and get a little checkup.  One of the pups had a small scab and a bruise on his back, probably thanks to his Fern's insistence on carrying her pups around the first few days. He's on antibiotics as a precaution.  You can see the little scab on the boy with the Green color.

 

Pups are growing like crazy, and are all strong and active.  Tonight I nee to nip off the ends of their pointy little toenails to keep them from scratching Fern and each other as they scrabble for nipples.  Trim is excellent on all, with most of the blacks showing complete rims and noses already.  The livers are not far behind.  Almost all the pups have spotted faces like their sire Duncan, and I'd say most have his shorter ears as well.  Fern had Dumbo ears as a puppy, although they turned out to be very attractive when she grew into them.

 

Fern had to be coaxed to eat for the first couple of days, as she was making milk but not eating very well.  Suddenly yesterday she was ravenous.  It takes a lot of food to make enough milk to feed 8 hungry pups. She's really settled in to this Motherhood thing now, and seems to have resigned herself to keeping them in the whelping box rather than constantly looking for someplace to move her new family.