4-25-20
DAY 29
Puppy of the Day
Taurus is a very sweet boy that has the perfect happy-go-lucky attitude. He is a very cuddly puppy with playful spirits. He is often found plowing through the other puppies to get to the food dish. Speaking of food, this little piglet is the biggest puppy in the litter weighing in at a whopping FIVE pounds, two and a half ounces.
Our main objective today was to trim nails and take some stacked pictures of the puppies. Trim nails…that’s the easy part now that the pups are a bit older. The hard part was encouraging 10 puppies to stand still for long enough to snap a quick picture. Since we will not do any formal stack training for another week or so, this took a sense of humor and a lot of patience. For those of you who are not familiar with with what stacking is, I wanted to talk about it a little. Stacking is a show stance that all breeds use in the same way to see the structure of the dog and how well it matches the breed standard. Every breed except German Shepherd Dogs and english Bulldogs are stacked in the same way.
Today’s new change was introducing something crinkly for them to walk on. Well, I sure am glad that we saved the vacuum seals from the snoozer beds that the dogs got as a present a while back. Some people use a tarp when doing puppy culture and some people use tinfoil. In our last litter we used tinfoil, but this seemed to be the perfect thing for the job. I wish that I would have been able to get a better clip, but Smith was the first to walk on it, followed by Colt.
Here is a fun game to keep us all occupied while on quarantine…
Who is Who?
We have been working on manding inside the play pen with the puppies and outside of the play pen with the puppies still inside. We have be more successful with us on the outside and it shows. Here are 9 of the 10 pups manding. When I am on the inside, I can get 3 – 4 to mand.
This was new for us…Colt decided to climb up and through the basketball hoop on the side of the slide. What a character he is!
4-26-20
DAY 30
Puppy of the Day
Smith is always the first puppy to try anything new that we add to the play pen. He is happy to provide hugs and kisses to anyone in need, any time of the day. He is very friendly and sits patiently, waiting for someone to pick him up. He is overall a very sweet puppy that is eager to please.
Here is a cheat sheet to “Who is Who?”
It still amazes me how much they could love such a simple toy. The slide is a favorite for these pups.
Our dogs enjoy running Coursing Ability Tests (CAT Trials). One of the ways that we can see who might have the potential to run them when they are older is playing with them with a toy like this. Remi takes the cake in this activity!
We are often adding new obstacles and toys for the puppies and wanted to videotape it.
4-27-20
DAY 31
Puppy of the Day
Glock is a very sweet and spunky boy. Although he was s bit smaller at birth, he is just about the same size as the rest of the litter. He is a very fun and energetic boy who loves to nibble on Payton’s nose and play with his siblings.
We didn’t do many changes today other than starting to play national geographic on the TV, which is used to create a natural atmosphere for the puppies. It was interesting to see them notice a difference in sound from the classical music to the natural rain forrest sounds, but it didn’t phase them much.
Kimber does still occasionally nurse although it is about every 15 hours at this point because she does fill up with milk but we are in the weaning process, so it is becoming less and less. This was the first time that we had ever seem her stand to nurse. Usually she is laying down, but she decided to stand today.
They nap anywhere!
Taurus 
Tula Perched and Ruger Napping
4-28-20
DAY 32
Puppy of the Day
Astra is by far one of the most energetic puppies that we have. To be completely honest, I am not sure who has the most spunk as about half to the puppies come to mind, but she is definitely one of them. She is a very sweet and loving girl who will cuddle up with you, but she wants to play first.
I did have the barrier challenge planned for today, but when I was ready the puppies were sleepy, so we will have to reschedule that for Thursday when I will write a little more about that.
Although the barrier challenge didn’t happen, we did swap out the large crate for a smaller one and change the gating. Since the pups heads were small enough to fit through before when we had planned to use this gating, we had to use an ex-pen that didn’t allow for them to escape. Now that no one can fit through, we are good to go and can not step over and use the door’s much easier. We also added a mirror which Smith really enjoyed.
I also saw him sitting on this wobble thing and thought it was pretty funny that he was just looking around at everyone watching them.
Remi enjoys playing with the baby hedgehog and ruger was cheering out the toy collection.
We went on another field trip this evening around the kitchen. Need less to say, the pups had a blast and weren’t ready to go back in for a nap.
4-29-20
DAY 33
Puppy of the Day
Wesson is a very sweet boy who is often found chewing on his siblings and curling up with the other puppies for a well deserved nap. He is structured very well for a puppy this age, so we are hoping to get him into the show ring.
So we didn’t have a major long term change today but instead a change that was short term. We went outside for the first time and had a snack. Although no-one was having any issues and they certainly were not scared, food makes every experience better. They had their toys, their siblings, and their mom and they all really loved the experience.
4-30-20
DAY 34
Puppy of the Day
Colt is one of the more independent boys. He does enjoy his cuddle time, but he is often found doing his own thing and living life to the fullest. He loves to play with toys and is often found shaking them. He takes after Kimber, as she is quite the huntress.
We did the barrier challenge today with the pups. It didn’t go exactly as expected as some of them didn’t seem to get it right away. it will be interesting to see how it goes when we do it again in a few days and if there is any improvement.
We have also graduated to individual bowls. This will make sure that they are getting the same amount, and shows us how fast they are eating. Sometimes when they eat too fast they can bloat. This has an easy fix of putting a ball in the food dish to slow the eating. Luckily we haven’t seen ay of the with this litter yet.
5-1-20
DAY 35
Happy Five Week Birthday Puppies!
Puppy of the Day
Tula is a spunky girl! From her looks to her up and at ’em attitude, she reminds me of Kimber when she was a puppy. She loves to be with her people and is often ready for the next meal and loves to explore the kitchen every chance she gets.
They love this thing!
Curtesy of Fred Gerstacker for being so kind to make it and Chris Aranowski to share it with us!
See video posted to youtube! I am still trying to figure out why it won’t post here like normal.
We have received the LUA results and much to our surprise, we have two puppies that are HUA. Jasper, the sire, was retested and as it turns out, he only carries one copy of the LUA gene, which makes for this to be possible. The result is 10 beautiful puppies!
Here are the results:
Taurus – N/N
Smith – N/hu
Glock – N/N
Astra – N/hu
Wesson – N/N
Colt – N/hu
Tula – N/hu
Ruger – HUA
Raven – HUA
Remi – N/hu
Since they only need to have one copy of the LUA gene to be protected from urate stone, 8/10 pups won’t form uric acid stones like the typical Dal. Ruger and Raven will have to avoid foods that are high in purines and drink lots of water. That shouldn’t be a problem because they all love to hang around the water bowl.
chaletdalmatians.com 