Litter 6 - Week Two

Week Two

Sunday the 18th of April
Well today is the last day I'll be taking pictures with any additional non-natural lighting for awhile. Normally puppies start opening their eyes around day ten but these guy have been ahead of the curve from day one so it doesn't surprise us that little pink girl is starting to show very slight changes around the corners or her eyes. So until they have opened and adjusted, it's lights off which means no images of these guys at night on the puppy cam. In honor of the occasion of this being the beginning of their second week, I hauled out the studio equipment and set everything up in the living room. We took the carpet out last spring and this is the first time I've had a chance to set everything up in the house because the cushy carpet would have torn or creased the white paper backdrop when you walked on it. I've always admired the shots I've seen like these and have long wanted to make some of my own. I found it wasn't as hard as I thought to get newborn puppies to stay in position. They had been napping anyway and once I taught them that there was an edge that they could fall off of, they stayed put and just went to sleep. It took about fifteen minutes of sitting there looking like the "good hands guy" from Allstate ready to catch them if they tumbled and that was it. Then it was just a matter of getting blue boy to stop using the others as a pillow! Sheesh, what a character!

Everyone is thriving and doing great. They got past the dewclaw removal with only the normal amount of fussing. They had to go back the next day to have the wounds stitched because the surgical glue used didn't hold. No more of the glue malarkey in any future litters. This is the second litter that we have not been satisfied with the results using glue. We've had to start monitoring Dixie's access to the whelping box because the puppies are gaining weight at an alarming rate. They gained between 3 and 5 ounces in one day recently. No more unrestricted access to the milk bar for these hooligans. I'll try to take some pictures in low light throughout the week if any good opportunities come up.

Return to Dixie / Steeler Page
Return to Week One
Go To Week Three

Click on any of the pictures below to see larger versions