Lots of new freedom!

These guys are 4 weeks old now! And, I am in love with every single one of them!!!!! We had a great family come yesterday, they wanted to buy a puppy to surprise their 6 year old for his birthday. These puppies are so dang cute, they bought 2!!!
When I go into their pen, I call "Puppies! Puppies!" and they come running! We introduced them to puppy food mush today, what a treat!! It is hysterical to watch 10 puppies eat frantically, like the food is going to run out, so hurry!


Too bad all 10 of them weren't trying to escape at the same time! ha, ha!
That board can't hold them in anymore!
Hi Dad!!

The dog house

Oh boy! We have a massive dog house now. Lee and the girls worked so hard on it and even painted it. They are very proud. We put a 1x12 board across the front to keep the puppies in. Then, we put on a flap with hinges so that we can raise it up and be able to get to the puppies, clean, feed, etc. In the next week or 2, we will pull all that off and they will be able to come and go. The dog house is sitting in the middle of a 10x10 pen that we used to use for Bentley at the other house. This way, the puppies can't escape. Our yard is fenced with wrought iron, so they could slip through.
Here's the dog house!


The neighbor boy is helping paint.

Who knew we had an artist in the family?

Lee let the girls paint green and pink polka dots on the side with the leftover paint from their room.

Here they are getting ready for bed the other night with the heat lamp on. THAT IS A LOT OF PUPPIES!!!!

Plenty of room.

Gorgeous specimen!!!

Puppies - 3 weeks old

The puppies are 3 weeks old now! They have all found their little voices. All the growling and barking is precious during the day....but not so cute at 3am! We still have them in the little swimming pool, which is now in the living room! Kinsley doesn't like to lie and nurse the puppies if I am not sitting with her or near her! UGH! Some nights, I literally sit next to her on the floor, and bribe her with Fruit Loops or peanut butter sandwiches. Crazy! She is constantly starving and hangs out in the kitchen waiting for something to fall, or looking at you with those sad Springer eyes, waiting for you to hand her something. But, I guess I would be hungry too burning all those calories to feed 10 puppies!

Last week, she developed a horrible mastitis in one of her tits. It was grotesque! I took her in to the vet and he started her on some antibiotics. But the catch was: she can't nurse the puppies from that tit and to watch for the other tits to develop mastitis, the puppies could die from the infection! Ok, so first of all, you are telling me that they can't nurse from one of her only 7 tits and there are 10 puppies? or secondly, that I might have to bottle feed 10 puppies? You have got to be kidding me!!!! I cried and cried over the ordeal. I tried wrapping her up with coban to cover up the tit. Well, that only worked for a few hours. Then, Lee came to the rescue with duct tape! We taped that thing off and now no one can use it!! Well, by the next night, she was as engorged as a dairy cow! I pulled the tape off, sat with her on the floor for an hour and every puppy was able to get a full belly. She did great and the swelling went way down.

My tactic for a full belly: There are 5 sleepers and 5 feeders.....only 7 tits, remember? I pull 5 out and put them in the box, so they are called the sleepers, cause that is all they do! I leave 5 "feeders" in the pool to nurse. After 15-20 minutes, we rotate the feeders and the sleepers! Works great! Corinne and Claire are huge helpers! They have the routine down pat!

Look how they filled the box!
This is from the day they were born. I move them into here to change out the bedding.

Here they are at 2 weeks old.
Here they are at 3 weeks old, no more room and climbing out!
The puppies did NOT like the cold tile! This is the first time that Kinsley has let Bentley near the puppies without biting his face off!

Look! There are puppies everywhere!



Bentley getting in a little love!
Stay tuned for pictures of the new dog house that Lee and the girls built! Very soon, the puppies will be outside!!!!! I get my house back!

The Puppies are here!!!!

Well, it lasted 6 1/2 hours! We have 10 puppies! 9 boys and 1 girl! They were born January 26, 2011!

I included several pictures from the eventful evening. Susan came and
helped me out. Lee held out as long as he could. I am exhausted, so is
Kinsley! Everything went really well. I only had to cut one cord and I
only called the emergency number once! On the ninth one, she was so
busy trying to clean herself, that she wouldn't bite through the cord.
So, being the handy nurse that I am, at 0300, used dental floss to tie
it off. Then I wasn't sure if I should cut the puppy loose or not,
because if I did, there wasn't going to be any cord hanging out. Ok,
so that is more detail than you ever wanted. The ER told me to cut it.
So, when that all came out, so did another pup! Total shock! I was
ready to get things cleaned up and oops, there's another. Being that
many, I kept counting and counting to make sure everyone was accounted
for! I also included a pciture of the "nursery" complete with Baby
Daddy standing by. Ignore the trash. I had read to use
newspaper.....bad idea! It is just a mess. My ceilings are so high and
Kinsley is deathly afraid of the laundry room, so Susan and I made a
MASH unit by hanging a sheet to hold the heat in from the two heaters
that were on. Ideally, the room temp should be 85 degrees. It worked
really well! I can't thank Susan enough for helping me out and getting
through the hardest parts, i.e. waiting 1 hr 45 min for the second
pup. I was sure they had all died!


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