After 24 hrs of restlessness Baby finally started having pups at 11:30 last night, she had the last one at 4:30 this morning. We have 3females and 5 males. For a first time mother and the first time I have every gone through this I could not have ask for a better turn out. Baby knew just what to do and I only had to help her a time or two with getting the puppies out of the sack. I will post some pictures on here and others can be seen at www.hillockkennels.com It might take me a little while to get them on my site. 5 are all ready spoken for.

a close up picture of one of the pups asleep on mom.

Absolutley beautiful. Same here I mentioned over on UBT, copy the URL and add them to the yellow postage image tool window.....you know. I helped you out by editing your threads with the pics, I hope you didn't mind. You can click the edit button on your posts to see the addresses.

poor ol mommy needs a nap, lol.......thats a nice looking litter.

They are growing like crazy. Most have already put on 6 oz and some a little more. Eat,sleep,eat,sleep,eat,sleep.A fewhave already started pushing themselves up on their front legs before flopping back to the ground.. They are a noisy bunch. We have one we have nicknamed fussbucket becasue it does not matter if she is sleeping, moving around or nursing she is fussing. These 2 pictures are at day 5.

It's amazing how fast they do grow. I swear Axel grows every 4 hours.

Great pictures, keep us updated...

What a great looking litter! And it sounds like you have a really good mom there.

As to "fussbucket", if my wife and I have 1 puppy in a litter that's always fussing, we keep a little closer eye on that one. If I understood you correctly, this is your first litter? Forgive me if I say something you already know.

We always weigh our puppies every day to be sure everyone is gaining; rule of thumb for our breed is they should double their birth weight in 7 to 10 days. If we have one that isn't doing as well as the others, we spend a little time with that one being sure it gets on the best nipple, doesn't get pushed off, etc. The other thing we do with a fussy puppy is pee and poop them ourselves. Once in a great while we find the mom has somehow missed peeing or pooping one of the puppies and that makes the puppy very fussy.

Good luck with your litter. Hoping they all grow up healthy and get good homes.

Bruce, I appreciate the information. We pretty much have been making sure the pups get plenty to eat and thatBbay cleans them regularly. Fussbucket has doubled in size along with most of the rest. The ones that have not will be doubled by tonight or tommorow. Your suggestion about peeing and pooping them helped out some. All we did was hold them forBaby to do her thing. Some of them would get so worked up when she tried to roll them over it was getting her upset. We found if we will put them in our hands and roll them on their backs that Baby cleans them and everyone stays very calm. We do not do this all the time but when we catch her starting to get worked up because the pups are not cooperating we step in.

Thanks

Sounds like you have everything under control. I always breathe a sigh of relief when all the puppies have doubled their birth weight; I truly think that is THE major hurdle when breeding dogs. The next hurdle is a fun one: waiting for the eyes to open. The shortly after that the ears open and then they start noticing each other and playing.

Can you tell I love breeding?? I envy you having a litter on the ground now. We bred one of our girls a few weeks ago and are now in the waiting mode. Sure hope it took. All the signs are there that it did.

As to peeing and pooping the pups, you can do that yourself without the mom. Just wet a wash cloth with warm water and stroke the puppies just like the mom would do. Works like a charm by mimicing what the mom does. Also good to know if you ever have a problem in the future where the mom has to be away for a period of time.

Hope you have continuing good luck with your litter.

Bruce