Appalachian Mountains Litter

Waiting for puppies is an art

And the day count restarts to track puppy age!

I knew there was a chance for cream but I was not expecting this many! Ten beautiful puppies: five cream girls, one cream boy, and four black boys. Yes, all the girls are cream, wild. Up until Yellow boy was born (9th), I thought I was getting a perfect 4/4 cream girl and black boy liter. Yellow boy had to be a trend breaker!

Our smallest black boy required some extra TLC to get him going. He was born 2oz less than the next smallest puppy. I credit his survival to this point to the Puppywarmer incubator and oxygen concentrator paired with tube fed supplementation to maximize calorie gain. Nursing is a lot of work and sometimes the weaker puppies end up in a deficit even when they are strong enough to suckle. Happy to report he was strong enough to nurse independently as of Day 3.

I forgot the days start at 0 on whelp day vs 1 so we are on track with ENS- hehe.

Puppies had nails trimmed and group photos on a new surface.

Puppies are separated into two groups for nursing and swapped roughly every 2 hours. They nap in the Puppywarmer incubator while they wait their turn. The littlest is supplemented with some extra CC’s every ~4 hours to help him keep weight.