Saturday, May 24, 2008
Visitors
Friday, May 23, 2008
more May 22 pics
Frankly, this is how Tom ALWAYS ends up with his nose bitten when the pups have teeth! He just loves holding and cuddling with the puppies. Their ears are open and the I can see little peepers emerging, as their eyes open. From all the talking we do with them, they will soon discover who the voices belong to!
The boy on the right is #6. He is a big 'un, and you can see that he is a different shade than the pup next to him. He is noticeably more chestnut than liver.
roan and plated pups
The puppies did get their nails trimmed after this photo, so forgive the long nails. At this age, I can just prop them in my lap and trim using a human toenail clipper. I'm sure that soon enough I will long for these days! The wigglier ones Tom holds while I trim. The puppy who complained the most was the almost all-white male puppy.
In these photos, you can see the differences in the changing colors of the plated and roan puppies. Here is a plated puppy and his pink, pink pads:
and here is a roan puppy:
A closer view of the pink feet:
and closer view of the roan feet:
Before these guys were born, we had only had plated puppies and I wondered how and how soon the differences would develop. Now I know and have photographic evidence should anyone ask what to look for in the future!
New location and new surface on May 22
It's getting hard to have the pups hold still for photos; they are moving around quite abit now and either crawl out of the container or remove themselves from the frame entirely! Several days after birth, we place rugs in the puppy box so that they can get traction and this really seems to speed up the process of motor development. These guys are already practicing a wobbly walk, not just pulling themselves around. It is rather like watching a baby rock itself into forward motion, with a little stagger and there it goes!
The pups all had a trip to a new location last night-- our living room! I thought they might appreciate sharing the season finale of "Grey's Anatomy" with me, and they also needed a nail trim, so in 3's and 4's they experienced their first new location, and a new surface, as well. I placed a sheet on the hardwood floor, so they could move more easily and I could clean up any little accidents. They were also recently fed and ready for a nap, so I could snap a few pictures.
This is Kia, one of our Siamese cats. She kept laying down next to the pups, and one crawled over and started searching for a nipple. I wasn't convinced that would end well, so I tried to shoo Kia away. Apparently she thought the puppies needed to be introduced to a kitty, though.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Over Easy?
On our near-40 acre property we are blessed to have an assortment of wildlife. Since moving here, I have added books on wild plants, birds and mammals to the library. There are some who are annual guests, such as the killdeer.
The killdeer lays its eggs in gravel, and every year we spend a number of weeks avoiding the road to the kennel or flagging off the area of nests so visitors don't drive over them. This year, I discovered a nest when a client was loading up his dog and we watched the momma bird put on a tremendous display to distract us before we stepped on the eggs!
But I was lucky enough to see another nest, one I've never seen before! During turkey season, my brother in law told about a sandhill crane approaching his decoys in a territorial manner, extending it's wings and tossing pieces of grass at the decoy. Sure enough, there is a nest near the pond, with a single egg. So cool!
