Pasha's pups 4 weeks 3 days

Some videos today. Above is one of the pups playing together and with their toys after their supper last night. The pups are now at an age where they are inquisitive and fairly psychologically resilient, so now is the time to begin introducing them to experiences that are slightly scary in controlled situations where they feel safe. So I jumped on some bubblewrap and packing materials to make loud noises, and below shows the pups' reactions!

Pups at 4 weeks

Pasha's puppies are 4 weeks old today. The pen has been extended (and you can see in the video above one of the boys, Dubh, using the loo area for what it's intended!) to give them more room to run around, and different toys are being added. Some of the pups are starting to grow teeth, and Lavender escaped this morning while I was cleaning, and was at large in the house!

It is also now that the pups are old enough to have visitors, and some people have already come to visit and see their pup, with others coming soon. Inevitably, some of the people who initially had reserved puppies have unfortunately had to drop out because of changes of mind or circumstances, and I currently have the brown (café au lait) boy 'Cacophonix' and one of the three black (blue) girls who have become reavailable.

Loki and Pups

Today Loki decided to visit his puppies, and seemed to quite enjoy them. As you may notice, he is unfortunately now missing most of his fluffy coat. He is still in coat change and needs brushing regularly to keep his fur from matting, and because of the horrible cold I have on top of looking after the puppies, something had to give. Although his long coat was beautiful just after it had been washed, it doesn't really have the texture to stand up properly yet, and tended to flop apart down the back, and stopping his legs getting mucky in the current weather was a constant battle. His pompadour also kept falling down over his eyes, and the other day he ran into a fence that he didn't see, so hopefully now his vision will be better!

Pasha is still in a Continental trim, and her coat is holding up pretty well so far.

Moving on

The puppies have today moved into a more 'open-plan' living environment, with the whelping box inside a pen, in a room that adjoins the sitting room. At the moment the pen area outside the box is just a small space of newspaper-filled tray to encourage them to use this part as a loo. Once they are accustomed to this and more active, the area can be extended to give them a separate playing and eating space also.

The pen has a gate blocked off with a piece of cardboard so Pasha can come and go as she likes, and the puppies can see into the living room and the other dogs. The doorway to the room also has a gate on it so it's possible to shut Pasha in there and the other dogs out.

Pups playing

Pasha's pups are now three weeks old and are playing together and weeing on newspaper, and have also begun to eat dilute porridge made with goats' milk. Today I clipped their faces with a small battery-powered clipper. Afterwards, the puppies were introduced to the vacuum cleaner!

I apologise as I have not updated the blog and website recently. I was feeling run-down over the weekend, and this eventually developed into the Dreaded Lurgy. I spent most of Monday asleep, having to get up every few hours to make sure Pasha fed the pups. On top of this, the ceiling in the study (where the pups are) started to leak, and we had to repair the roof.

Weaning headstart

The pups aren't quite 3 weeks old yet, but today I have started to give them a small volume of goats' milk in the weaning bowl to get them used to lapping up stuff, as I would like to start weaning as soon as possible since I'm a bit concerned Pasha is still not taking enough interest in feeding them, and their weight gain is starting to plateau. All of the pups have had some, although some seem to like it more than others (Midge drank some before I started filming, but seems pretty disgusted with it here!).

Kikker is Blij

For the first time since the pups were born, I slept in my own bed. Cally, who usually sleeps on the end of the bed, and who has been sulking since I deserted it to kip on the floor in the study, was delighted. The title of this post 'Kikker is Blij' is Dutch and it means 'Frog is Happy'. My mother used to go to Holland to visit my aunt when she lived there, and would bring back with her drinking glasses with a cartoon of a happy frog on them with this phrase. Cally reminded me of them. I still had to set an alarm clock and get up twice in the night to make Pasha sure Pasha fed her pups.

Pup apartheid? (No, I didn't arrange them like this, they did it themselves!)

Worms

The puppies are now 2 weeks old, which means they (and Pasha) need to be wormed. Hopefully the pups all managed to swallow at least some of the wormer! This is Pink, who seemed to find the whole thing thoroughly objectionable.

Pups day 14

Pasha's puppies are now on day 14, and all of them have now started to squint. A vet has been to the house to microchip the puppies. While I would have preferred to wait until the pups were older, it is an unfortunate sign of the times that mix-breed puppies that do not come with any paperwork from a registry that requires proof of ownership of the parents are a lucrative sideline today, and sadly there is a thriving black market for stolen puppies. The risk of theft is of great concern as poodles are a common target of such practices. Having the pups microchipped gives me peace of mind that they at least stand a chance of being identified should the unthinkable happen and they end up in the hands of a puppy farmer or a gullible pet buyer who thinks they have something else.

The pups all coped well with the procedure and settled down immediately afterwards, with the slight exception of poor little Midge, who squealed several times, but who has now recovered and settled down to feed.

Midge in her favourite spot

Midge and Cacophonix (Cacophonix is a dark mahogany brown and Pasha is raven-black, and Midge does not have an unpleasant orange stain on her face. I have no idea why my photographs turn such peculiar colours when I upload them on my blog)

There was a problem with one of the microchips, so I asked to keep it as something to show to people who might have questions about them. This is what the microchip looks like.

Pasha's pups day 13

Pups are on day 13 and their eyes are starting to open.

Pups day 12

The last couple of days have been a bit wearing, because Pasha has been extremely fidgety and kept getting up and leaving the whelping box, sometimes before the pups had even finished feeding, and lying on the floor outside of it, and was not too hot on getting back in when the pups needed her again. It's not much fun getting up every two hours at night to make her get in and make sure she stays there long enough for them to get a decent meal inside them (and then being trodden on by a 3 1/2 stone poodle while trying to sleep, when she decides she wants to come out again). I'm not sure what the reason for it is, other than basic lack of mothering experience and perhaps stress. I trimmed the pups' claws a few days after they were born so they did not scratch her, and I do not think she is sore. She seems to be getting better now and managed to spend most of last night with them, and went in of her own volition to sort them out. I am not happy with some of the pups' more recent weight gain, but hopefully that should improve if Pasha continues to be more attentive.

The puppies have not started to open their eyes yet, but since they were born four days early, some delay is probably to be expected. The paler two pups seem to have more obvious expressions and muscular movement around their eyes, so perhaps they are thinking about it. They seem to be starting to look more like poodles rather than generic dogthings, although it may just be my imagination.

Cacophonix the café

Cacophonix is a café au lait ('coffee with milk') poodle. This is a brown colour that is accompanied by a 'clearing' gene, and is the equivalent of blue on a brown base (blue is the same gene acting on a black base). If you have one copy of the gene, you are a café or blue. If you have no copies, you are brown or black, and if you have two copies, you are silver or silver beige.

When this boy is a year old, he will start to clear to his true colour, just like his father Loki. Loki has not finished clearing yet, so the longer parts of his coat are a mahogany colour, and the shorter parts on his rump and tail are more representative of the colour he should eventually be all over.

This is not the same as a coat that grizzles: the whole coat lightens and the effect is not caused by a buildup of streaky white hairs. Below is a picture of an 8-year-old holding brown with grizzle in her coat for comparison. Most blacks and browns will grizzle to a certain degree when they reach this age.

Café isn't an easy colour to photograph accurately or describe. 'Mink' I think comes the closest. It is a silvery colour, but it has a hint of almost lilac to it remaining from the brown.

Pasha's pups 1 week old

Pasha's puppies are 1 week old today. Most of the pups have by now doubled their weight since they were born (with the two biggest ones being not quite double).



My sister came to visit yesterday, and we photographed some of the puppies (unfortunately there was not time to do all the pups, so I apologise if you are on the waiting list and don't see the puppy you have reserved here!):

Rex

Lavender

Midge

Dubh (formerly Buxton)