Puppy Development Week 3 and maybe Names?

Before I begin with the antics of week 3, we have one addendum to make: according to the random puppy development timeline I pulled off of the internet, the puppies' eyes should begin to open around days 8-10. This didn't happen with our pups and it was only chance that I came across a paragraph in my Shiba Inu book that read that by the end of the second week (days 15-17) their eyes will begin to open. For some reason, Shiba Inus are behind other breeds in this trait and our puppies have been no exception. Female #1's eyes began to open on Saturday, and this evening, everyones eyes are open to some degree or another.

Look Ma! I have eyes!

All that aside, this past Saturday marked the beginning of Week 3 for the pups! Here's what the Shiba book said: " . . . the fat chubby heads are only surpassed by their fat chubby bodies." And as you will see in the pictures, this is so true! Here is what else (we think) should be happening this week:

• Teeth begin to erupt (that sounds painful!)
• Puppies stand up and start walking
• Begin to lap liquids
• Defecate/urinate without stimulation (huh, I see a lot more laundry in our future)
• Start becoming aware of environment
• Start playing with littermates (ah, how cute!)
• Develop sense of smell
• They should start to discriminate as to where to relieve themselves

It is also recommended that we start giving the pups toys and other stimuli, and that we should start giving them specific stresses when handling them, such as lightly squeezing a paw or pinching an ear.

Before we move on to the pictures (the best part!) I thought I would mention we are finally toying around with some names (thanks to the help from our friends!). So instead of calling them Female #1 or puppy #4, here are some names we are considering: Female #1 could be Ichiban (which means "number one" in Japanese , or so I am told), Female #2 (the runt) could be Mushu (after the tiny dragon in Mulan), Female #3 could be Mishka (which I am told means "Little bear" in Russian) and the male could be Manny (yes, after my favorite Red Sox player). Okay, on to the pictures! (And we'll happily take more suggestions for names!)

Ichiban (the puppy formerly known as Female #1)


Mushu (the puppy formerly known as Female #2, the runt)


Mishka (the puppy formerly known as Female #3)


Manny (the puppy formerly known as Male)


Other Cute Pics!
Mushu

Ichiban

Matt is crazy busy studying for his Ph.D orals (May 5th is the test!) and I am hoping to get an MRI tomorrow because I may have destroyed my ACL playing soccer over the weekend, so this is just a quick puppy update, with hopefully a full 'weekly puppy development' update to follow soon.

One of the females eyes are open but they are still small and squinty. It looks likes the males eyes are starting to open. The other two females eyes are still closed. Everyone is doing well and still growing! We might start giving the runt an extra meal of puppy formula to try and get her to catch up to her brother and sisters in weight however.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Matt took this photo and swears it wasn't staged. Apparently being attracted to squeaky fish is a heritable trait!

Puppies are getting bigger


Eyes aren't open yet





Still look like little slugs

Week 2 Puppy Development

Today I (Matt) get to take a break from BACI designs and bicarbonate ions to mess with the blog while Heidie is in MN. A quick update: Mia has finally gotten the hang of the whole puppy thing, and now feeds them, cleans them, and lets them sleep quite nicely. Nights are still a little tough as the puppies cry and Mia seems less concerned about them and more worried about keeping FGC far away from the puppies. Everyone but the runt has grown to expectations (doubled mass by the end of week one), and even she is close (Fig. 1 – just couldn’t resist graphing something…note the inaccurate way Excel charted the date/time of weighing – not to scale). [Technical note - Figure 1 seems to be that big mess of html text up there...I'll fix it when I can...] They keep getting cuter, and now we (I) have started letting friends poke and prod them (after careful hand washing, of course). Not a whole lot exciting going on this week…

Week 2 Developments (from our handy-dandy reference thing, we make no claims of accuracy)
Eyes open around days 8–10 (Sunday to Tuesday)
Ears open around days 13-17
Bitch (Mia) gets about 3 times her normal food

I will tack on some pictures if I head in to school tomorrow...

Puppy Development Week 1

The pups are now over 48 hours old and seem to be doing very well. Here is what should be going on the first week of their lives:

• 90% of their time is spent sleeping
• 10% of their time is spent eating
• They are very susceptible to heat and cold
• They only have instinctive reflexes: crawl, seek warmth, nurse
• They can right themselves if placed upside down
• They need stimulation for urination/defecation
• Rapid development of their central nervous system is occurring
• They need constant care from Mia (hopefully not us!)
• Pups may lose 10% of their weight after birth, but should start gaining again
• Their weight should double by the end of the week

Here are some pics of the pups at 24 hours old, and a picture of our now super-skinny Mia

Female #1; 0.24 kg


Male, 0.25 kg


Female #2, 0.18 kg


Female #3, 0.25 kg


Skinny Mia!

The Whelping Story

Well, here it finally is, the full whelping story, in all its crazy (and sometimes gory) detail:

Around 5:30PM yesterday evening (Saturday, April 12th), I was becoming convinced that Mia's waters had broke. She was constantly licking her vulva and acting uncomfortable. Shortly after this, she appeared to be having contractions. She would arch her back and her tail would go up and she would strain briefly, then relax. Around 6:00PM a water sac started to appear, much to Mia's concern. At 6:04 this water sac broke (much to our dismay as she didn't want to lay in the whelping box, but insisted on staying on her large, stuffing-filled, dog bed: it was starting to get messy). At 6:05PM a second water sac appeared and broke at 6:10PM. Next came puppy #1!

At 6:14PM Puppy #1 was out, but still in its membranous sac. At this point it is supposed to be Mia's job to free the puppy from the sac and clean all the mucous off of its face (this should get the puppy breathing, very important!). She should then start licking it vigorously to clean and dry it, further stimulating it to breath, and all should be well. HOWEVER, this was not the case. First off, Puppy #1 came feet first, which means Mia was cleaning its feet, not its face. We weren't sure how long the puppy would last with its face covered, and we were eager to hear that first squeak that indicates the puppy's lungs are working, so Matt put on some gloves, jumped in and helped remove the puppy from the sac (note: scroll quickly past the next photos if you are bothered by blood). The first photo is Matt removing the sac from the pup and the second is the breathing puppy, before being cleaned up.

Mia was too concerned with cleaning herself and more contractions to worry about the pup, so Matt proceeded to tie off the umbilical cord with sterile suture and cut the cord from the rest of the sac. Then he gave the pup to me to dry off with a towel. Once the puppy started squeaking, Mia got a little freaked and moved to the fleece in the whelping box. We had read that 30-60 minutes could elapse before the next puppy would come, so we thought we had a bit of time to get situated and work with the first puppy. Boy were we wrong!

Puppy #2 arrived at 6:26PM, also feet first. Once again Mia was more concerned with herself then the moving thing that just came out of her, so while I toweled down Puppy #1, Matt assisted with Puppy #2. We were glad to hear its first squeak!

At this point, we had two puppies, alive and squeaking, one large soiled dog bed and now a soiled whelping box. Mia was beginning to freak out more and was moving from the closet to the bedroom (with light carpet). I managed to get her to settle on a towel in the bedroom, and just in time because Puppy #3 came at 6:34PM (less than 10 minutes!!!). This was just too much for Mia, and while Matt was trying to tie off the 3rd puppy's umbilical cord, Mia decided she needed to move again. She actually dragged this puppy a foot or two before we could get her settled long enough to detach the pup. Despite that, puppy #3 soon was squeaking as well and appeared to be okay, but was definitely the runt of the litter!

Based on the ultrasound, we were pretty sure we were done. Mia had settled back onto her dirty dog bed and was very agitated. We weren't ready to introduce the pups to her yet, but would need to do it soon because it is important they get the colustrum (first-milk) early on. So we tried to get some laundry done (we had a lot of dirty towels already) and worked on keeping the pups warm and dry.

We managed to get a clean towel under Mia and then we finally started introducing the pups. Mia was not very happy and didn't want to sit still. She was clearly still freaked out and agitated. Matt made a comment on how she still looked kind of big, he was expecting her to get smaller. I figured she was just retaining a lot of fluids, boy was I wrong! At 7:30PM Mia started yelping (or the shiba scream as some would call it). We weren't sure what was happening until 30 seconds later the 4th and final puppy appeared. We quickly got the clean pups off of her and back in the whelping box and onto the heating pad. Matt prepped himself to help out with the pup, but this one had come head-first and Mia didn't actually run away. It seemed her instincts were finally kicking in (or she was too weak and tired to move). She immediately cleaned off the face of Puppy #4 and took care of the umbilical cord. The pup squeaked and managed to move around enough to start nursing. Once it seemed all was calm, we slowly started introducing the first 3 pups back to her. Again she wasn't pleased, but seemed too tired to get away.

Now that all was more or less calm, we had to entice Mia into the whelping box. This was no easy task! It seems we shouldn't have let her sleep so much on her bed, because she really wanted to stay there. We moved the pups to the whelping box and tried to get her in there. It took quite a while and she really wanted to move the puppies back to her bed. We finally took the bed away to wash it and put a smaller, different bed of hers in the whelping box. This finally got her to settle down a small bit. Then it was time to check out the pups. She still wasn't sure about all these little brown furry things and was not excited about nursing. She was also still agitated (it was likely that she was still having contractions, to push out the last placenta). But we did finally get everyone feeding and got some quiet time.

Mia was still trying to figure out how to be a mom, and we learned very quickly the importance of the railing inside the whelping box. She was determine to lay on the puppies! Matt and I were concerned about her and the pups, so we took shifts staying up with her in the bedroom while the other person slept in the guest room. I took the evening to 3am shift, Matt had the 3am until . . . well . . . when I finally got up (he had had a lot of coffee!). But by this morning Mia seems to be getting the hang of it. (She did have one bout of trying to carry a pup to the guest room, she's convinced it would make a better nest under the guest bed, we quickly curbed THAT behavior). So now all is well, everyone seems healthy, the pups spend most of their time sleeping and Mia is getting better about not laying on them. Hopefully tonight we will ALL get more sleep!

Puppy Pics

It's been a crazy past 20 hours . . . and people are asking for pics. Here are a few . . . full-story to come soon! Mia and 4 pups are doing well.

Puppy 1, Female

Puppy 2, Male, with a white sock!

Puppy 3, Female, the runt!

All 4 pups, number 4 was also female.

Day 63

Today Mia is full-term and her behaviors today seem to indicate that the puppies should be arriving in the next 24 hours. Her nesting behavior has increased, as you can see by the amount of toys she has amassed in her bed. In fact, as I type this she came an got another ball out of her toybox and took it back to her bed. She's been sleeping/resting almost all day, and often only gets up to dig at her bed or find a more comfortable position. We also haven't seen her eat all day, which is another sign that the puppies should be coming soon. We're guessing sometime late tonight or early tomorrow morning (probably when the vet clinic is closed and we should be sleeping). But we're excited! Hopefully the next post will contain pictures of healthy, newborn pups!

Week 9 and The Squeaky Fish

Starting today we have about 1 week left to go! The puppies could be born as early as tomorrow or as late as the 14th (depending on when the eggs were actually fertilized, and if the puppies come early). This week Matt and I will keep an eye out for:

• Nesting behavior (which she is already doing, see below concerning the 'squeaky fish')
  
• Mia may become distressed (panting, pacing, acting uncomfortable). I think she is already uncomfortable, when she is resting, you can often see the puppies moving. I don't think she is getting much sleep these days!
• Her temperature should be around 100.2-100.8 deg. F
• When her temperature drops to around 98-99.4 deg. F, the puppies should be born within 24 hours
• Mia's appetite may disappear as whelping approaches

Matt and I are going to take turns working at home this week, in case she goes into labor during the work week. We'll be taking her temperature 3x a day, and hopefully we'll catch it when it drops and have some idea that the puppies are coming. In the meantime, we've noticed a funny behavior concerning one of her toys (the 'squeaky fish'). It's a rubber fish that makes dog-toy noises when squeezed (or chewed on) and she takes it EVERYWHERE! (Seriously, I did not pose the fish in any of the pictures below).

As you can see, she has it when she's roaming around the house, taking a nap in a sunbeam, or just resting in one of her beds. Our only concern is that Mia's attitude towards squeaky toys has always been: 'kill the squeaky'. This is typically accomplished by breaking/crushing the plastic mechanism inside of the toy or by pulling out the little plastic whistle piece. We just hope that when the puppies come and make their first 'squeak' in this world, that she doesn't think of them as a toy and that her doggy-mothering instincts kick in instead.

I think so far it is a good sign that she is somewhat 'mothering' this toy . . . although she does chew on it a lot still. She hasn't managed to break the squeaking mechanism yet, which is almost sad because at night she is often so loud with the toy that we have to take it away from her because we can't sleep. Then in the morning, the first thing she usually wants from us is her squeaky back. Hopefully soon she will have puppies to tend to instead of the squeaky fish!