Two week old babies are up on YouTube this morning for your viewing pleasure.  They really do not do anything but sleep and demand MILK NOW.  Still, they are incredibly cute in person.  This video is mostly training you all to recognize the pups collar colors.  I know I don’t have them memorized yet, but the more we talk about it the quicker we can start quickly identifying who is who on the fly.

I’m really thrilled with how the pups are growing, and I managed to get 4 hours sleep in a row last night while in the puppy room!  I can’t tell you how happy that makes me!  People, this is way I have so few litters.  When the girls have 10 plus per litter, it takes it out of you!!  The last litter I whelped here was Billie’s and she had 10.  The litter before that was Jazz’s first litter, so I raised 11 after she whelped 13.  It is exhausting.  It seems like all the smaller litters are whelped and raised by my friends.  Cadence and Ziva both had ‘normal’ litters.  Ahh well, I will survive.

I will be taking some cute photos of the babies once they all have eyes.  This weekend will probably be the time.  Currently, only half the litter have their eyes open, so we must practice patience.  Puppy eyes open between 10 and 16 days.  Why is there such a big delay?  Well, the mom can release eggs up to one week after ovulation.  That is why you have different size pups at birth.  The smaller pups are often fertilized later in the week, making them slightly younger than their litter mates.  The ‘runt’ of the litter can grow up to be the biggest adult.  It isn’t that they are genetically smaller.  It is only that they were a week younger when born.  I specifically bred Jazz only 1 time in hopes to cutting down on the number of eggs that could be fertilized.  Tag’s swimmers were dedicated, long lasting little guys and thwarted my efforts!!

~Becky