The puppies turned 2 weeks old and we had a very sad day here at Blazingstar as we had to say goodbye to their grandsire, Huxley. We knew he was not well for several weeks, but had hoped to have more time with him. Ouur house just doesn't seem the same without following us around. The puppies are doing their best to distract us from our sadness with their open eyes and various attempts to escape from the whelping box.

Here are their 2 week old portraits:

At this time there seem to be new developments every day. They are now peeing and pooping without Teva's help and are getting pretty good at using the pee pads, although often times it's only their front feet that reach the pee pad before they start to go, which is quite funny. They had some diarrhea for a couple of days, nothing serious, just enough to cause our washing machine to be very busy. We have been giving them some acidophilus and today things are looking (and smelling) much better.

They are getting quite adept at walking and can make it quite far on their little legs. They now respond to noises, so they must be able to hear and their vision improves every day. We have moved back to sleeping in our own bedroom, which means we are finally getting more sleep! On Day 16 we found that Puppy 3 had escaped from the whelping box and was exploring the room, so we have to keep the door on the whelping box to keep everyone in!  The whelping box is getting rather crowded with 8 busy puppies, so Teva mostly feeds them outside of the box now. I think it is time to start thinking about moving them into a pen in the next few days.

The puppies are starting to interact with eachother now - licking eachother and grabbing on to tails and legs. They also interact more with Teva - they check out her mouth and she now washes their ears and faces, not just their rears!  They love to snuggle up with us as well. Nail cutting continues and we have been needing to do it every other day to keep things comfortable for Teva. Teva continues to do very well. Her incision has healed and she is producing lots of milk and being a very attentive mother, although she spends more time away from her puppies and hanging out with us and the other dogs. This is the week where energy demands are at their greatest for Teva, as the puppies are big, but still relying completely on her for their food. Teva now gets four big meals a day to meet these demands.

We've moved!  Yesterday we moved the puppies into a pen in the kitchen. This way they can experience our everyday household hussle and bussle and they have more room to play.  Teva was not too impressed with the move and has tried to make a "better" den outside, but she is getting used to it. She can easily hop over the sides of the pen to feed and visit her puppies.

The other major event was trying some solid food (well, mushy food - a mixture of ground chicken, goatsmilk and goatsmilk yoghurt). Everyone gave the food two paws up! The first time we fed them all individually, so that we could see that everyone had the hang of it, but today we fed them as a group. Their eating technique consists of covering themselves in food and then licking it off eachother.... very messy!! They needed a bit of cleaning after that.

We had more visitors yesterday and they brought the puppies some gorgeous toys - lucky puppies!

We have started to notice their teeth when they chew on our fingers - they are not erupted yet, but very soon.... poor Teva.