These puppies are on the heating pad when they are only hours old.
As they get more hair and the days get warmer they only use it sometime.
As they grow they get away from the heat pad.
I decided to keep a daily log on raising a litter of puppies. This is my way of having well socialized puppies when they go home with their buyers. This is not the only way to do it, it’s just my way.
On the 17th of June I went to the kennel to let Blaze out of the shed. The shed is air conditioned and I lock her in each evening so she can’t have the puppies outside, under a rock. I have a whelping box, with food and water inside, for her to have the puppies in. I let her out during the day because I’m around to keep an eye on her. I checked her out and there was no signs of impending delivery. Usually about 2 or 3 hours before they deliver they pant real hard.
About 10:00 am a gunsmith friend, Don Hansen, called and said he had my gun fixed. He’s about an hours drive from me. I went back to check on Blaze and she seemed fine. No panting. So I went to Don’s and got my gun. All told I was gone about 2 1/2 hours. When I got back I went to check on Blaze. I wasn’t too worried, she wasn’t due until the next day. Blaze reared up on the kennel gate and still wasn’t panting. I petted her through the chain link. I started to go back to the house but something looked different about her teats. I looked inside her house and saw 4 puppies!
I wasn’t sure she was done. I carried all 4 puppies to the shed and she followed. They were all still really wet like she had had all 4 within minutes of each other. Although it was a warm day, and the air conditioner was on, I plugged the heat pad in. I had a towel in the shed in anticipation of the birth so I dried the puppies off and placed them on the heat pad. The air temperature was about 80 degrees outside but cooler in the air conditioned shed. For just born, wet puppies that is too cold. I put Blaze in the whelping box with the puppies. I sat with them for about 2 hours to make sure that was all she was going to have.
I started notifying my grand kids that I had some new puppies. I like to have the puppies handled by as many people as possible if the mother is not stressed by it. Sometimes the mother is afraid that you are going to run off with her babies but after a few days it’s like they are saying “get those pups away from me.” For the first 2 weeks I make sure I pick the pups up at least twice a day and pet them.
The busiest day the puppies had in their first 2 weeks a friend, Robin Barrows, came by in the morning, my daughter Dana Charpie, brought my grand son, Isaac, a friend and her 2 boys over about 1:00 pm. Later on, Dennis Garrison, a friend and a owner of 2 pups out of my kennel came by to pet puppies. Dennis called back later and said he wanted to buy one of the females.
At 2 days old, I took them to get their dew claws removed and have the vet, Dr. Becker owner of Independence Animal Hospital, look them over. Without the wisdom and friendship of Dr. Becker it would be hard for me to have dogs. Just knowing that a good vet is there relieves a lot of the stress of owning dogs.
I weigh the puppies at birth and each week until they go home with their new owners. I do this to make sure they are gaining weight but also to know how much worm medicine to give. At 3 or 4 weeks I worm the puppies for the first time. This litter I didn’t worm until they were 4 weeks old.
Dr. Becker gave me a recipe for replacement milk for puppies a long time ago and I still use it. I start feeding this to the puppies with some puppy food that I let soak in the milk. I start this at 3 weeks. The recipe is:
*1 can evaporated milk
*1 can of water
*1 egg yolk (yolk only, egg white isn’t good for dogs)
*1 table spoon of plain yogurt
*1 table spoon of karo syrup
At the time I start feeding the pups, 3 weeks, I start playing a cd from Master’s Voice that conditions the puppies to gun fire. Puppies are born being able to smell but with no eye sight and no hearing. They open their eyes at 10 days to 2 weeks but they can’t hear until about 3 weeks old. At 3 weeks, I turn the cd on then set the milk with soggy dog food in front of them. The puppies may not even hear it the first time or two but one of their earliest memories will be gun shots. I feed the pups twice a day and I let the cd play from the start to finish each time. I’ve had some of the people who buy my pups say they seem to like the sound of guns and others say if their dogs get out too far they can call them back with a gun shot.
When I feed the puppies, I throw a pie pan down on the concrete run. The pan makes a loud sound then I pour the milk into it. I clap my hands real loud and say “here puppy” over and over. They hear this twice a day. Soon when the pie pan hits the concrete they start toward me. When I turn them out into my yard I, also, call them to me by clapping real loud and saying, “here puppy’. I want the pups to know that when I’m around there is going to be noise.
A lot of things start happening at 3 weeks old. I have some small puppy collars that I slip on each pup. I attach a cord about 15 inches long to the collar that the pups drag around. A pup will see a cord moving in front of them and grab it. The other pup will pull back. They will teach each other to lead and a human is not involved.
A few days before the pups were 4 weeks old I moved them to the kennel. The whelping box has indoor-outdoor carpet and Blaze could no longer keep the puppies clean. Here the pups have more room and I can help Blaze keep the run clean and that will keep the pups cleaner.
I bought a kids wading pool and put it in the big pen that surrounds my kennels. On a day with the temperature in the 90’s I filled it with water. I let it warm for about 4 hours then took the puppies one at a time to the wading pool for a bath. The way the ground slopes I had a shallow side and a deep side. I soaped the puppy on the shallow side then led them across to the deep side to rinse them off. They had to swim on the deep side and none of them panicked. They just swam as I rubbed their fur to get the soap off.
Once or more often, a day I let the puppies out into my yard next to the kennel. My pigeon pens are next to the kennel so as I sit and watch the pups play, I sometimes grab a pigeon for them to play with. The first few times I lock the wings of the pigeon so it can’t flop around and scare the puppies. When I let the pigeon fly away, I hold it above the ground, so it’s wings don’t hit and make a lot of noise. The puppies usually move toward the pigeon as it flies away. When they become too aggressive for a lock wing I will start hiding a pigeon in the grass for them to find.
This is not really a daily log. A daily log would have started on day one and then been written each day. I thought about this before the pups were born but life happened. I didn’t have time each day so I’m trying to remember all the things I did to or with the puppies. They are a little over 4 weeks old now and I will try to do better over the next few weeks.
2 of the puppies playing with a lock wing pigeon.
Another pup playing with the lock wing pigeon.