Begbie x Lupine Puppies Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10
Week One Portraits Click Here
Week One
After a rocky start and a nightmarish and stressful night at the vet clinic, we came home at 5am with Lupine and her 3 daughters. They were born via a c-section and there were several complications. Lupine was barely conscious when we got home, could not walk and was still on an IV drip. We are very very lucky that she survived as she lost an enormous amount of blood. Her three puppies are vigorous and thriving. Thank-you to Bruce and Aleisha for all of your hard work in the early hours of the morning.

Days 2 & 3

Lupine has perked up incredibly. She is eating small amounts and taking wonderful care of her puppies. The puppies all gained 1-3 oz in the first day, which is good. Lupine does not want to leave the pups and we practially have to drag her out of the whelping box a few times each day to go out and pee. She won't eat anywhere except in the box with her puppies. After the surgery, she is covered in dried blood, which we are trying to gradually brush out of her.

The 3 puppies are:

#1 liver female (clipped at the back of her neck), day 1 weight was 16oz

#2 liver female (clipped in the centre of her back), day 1 weight was 14oz. We think puppy 2 has a small cowlick/zipper on her face.

#3 liver female (clipped near the base of the tail) , day 1 weight was 13oz

They seem to be very content, quiet puppies, but that is not too surprising since they do not have to compete for food.

We can already see some differences in behaviour in the puppies. Puppy 1 likes to climb up on Lupine or anywhere else where she can get up high. She is very determined - while trying to get up on Lupine, she slides back down again, but gets right back up and keeps trying until she finally gets where she wants to be. Shades of her grandmother, Tally and her determined nature, perhaps. Puppies 2 and 3 like be under Lupine, with Puppy 3 preferring to be under Lupine's back legs and Puppy 2 wanting to be near Lupine's head, usually between her front legs. Lupine prefers it if they are all huddled together somewhere where she can see them all at once!  We are starting to think that Lupine is able to count to 3. She gets quite upset when she can only see where 2 of the puppies are and she starts to whine and search around for the 3rd puppy. We've never seen this in our larger litters, so I guess they can't count as high as 9!

Days 4 & 5

Everyone continues to do very well. The girls are gaining weight very quickly, which is not too surprising. Today they are already 28 oz (puppy 1), 25 oz (puppy 2) and 25 oz (puppy 3). Our vet was worried that the trauma from the surgery and blood loss would cause Lupine to stop producing milk, but that certainly does not seem to be a problem. We noticed on Saturday that her rear mammary glands were very hard, so we have had to milk those down a bit so that the puppies would use them. Everything seems to be back to normal today, which is a relief.

The biggest challenge is dealing with the MUD, as we have had several warm days and the piles of snow and ice have been melting rapidly. Everytime Lupine comes in from outside, she is wet and muddy, so we try to clean her up as much as possible before going back in with her puppies.

The never-ending chore of nail-cutting started today...
All you can eat, 24 hours.....
Sleepy Sunday morning
Day 5