A Continuing Adventure in Puppying

Mother Nature just keeps me hopping. I've never had a pup who came out small and stayed that way. He's not a dwarf and he is as active as everybody else, but he's just plain little! Black boy with yellow collar.

Yesterday morning Garbo raced out to do her morning eliminations and she had something in her mouth. Nothing unusual--Garbo ALWAYS has something in her mouth, a toy, a shoe, you name it. I didn't think much about it until I went back to the whelping box and as is my habit, I counted: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10....again:1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10....huh? After the third count to 10, it came to me....what was in Garbo's mouth was Number 11, and of course it was the little black boy.

Outside I flew, Garbo leading the way to the muddy corner by the ginger plants to show me her idea of the newest way to house a pup. There he was, covered in red Georgia clay and mad as a hornet. At first I thought she was telling me something I refused to admit--something's really the matter with this tyke. Nope, a few minutes later, Garbo tried to take a yellow girl on a trip. Only problem is that the other pups are too big to carry handily. The black boy fits inside her mouth and the rest dangle and wriggle and don't like it, period. Certainly says something about this boy's obliging temperament--he just goes with the flow! Big problem is he's not getting enough of one particular flow, methinks.

So I HOPE this means it's just part of Garbo's working her way thru post partum somethingorother. Since that time, she's not tried any other Mayflower Moving experience. Guess she got it that only gets her into trouble of the first order.

Meantime, I've come to see that the little black boy just can't make it to a nipple easily b/c his cohorts bump him out of the way. Could also be that Garbo refuses to nurse laying down....she prefers to do it sitting up so the pups make a double vertical helix trying to eat. Leave it to the Garbs to do it her way (see picture on Facebook if you don't believe me.)

I've been supplementing him several times a day but am worried that he's not getting the passive immunity he needs from his mother's colostrum. So this morning four of the biggest are napping in the warmth of a puppy box while the little black boy has a better chance for a faucet on his mom. Guess I'd better start calling him Mighty Man, huh? He never gives up, looks exactly like the rest only in miniature, and just doesn't know he's so tiny. I won't give up.

This morning at four, the frantic sounds of a pup awakened me. In I went to find it wasn't the little black boy (who doesn't complain about ANYTHING) but a yellow girl who was wedged nose first and firmly stuck in a corner. She just couldn't figure out how to turn around. Do blondes really have more fun???? At ten this morning, there she was again, but this time she seems to have accepted her fate and calmly awaited her mom (or ME??) to come retrieve her.

Off to clean the whelping box covers, an every day need. Yesterday I gave up and got some fleece for three new ones so as to have a full washing machine every three days instead of doing it constantly with a small load. Got some awesome fleece with dog biscuits and pawprints on it, then some with MONKEY FACES....'cause that's their daddy's name, of course. I haven't sat at the sewing machine since May, so hope I remember how to do it!

Meantime, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzp