fujisailordiary

Diary of the Fuji and Sailor Litter

Born April 12, 2009, Easter Sunday: 1 Black Female, 3 Black Males, 2 Chocolate Females,

2 Chocolate Males. All weighed between 14 and 16.5 oz, and are doing well! Now for some much needed rest!!!

April 15: All of the pups are gaining weight nicely, with a few already standing to nurse yesterday! I took the crew into the vet this morning for dew claw removal (and a few snuggles by the vet and staff!). They were no worse for the wear afterward, happily resuming where they left off nursing once home with mom again. Fuji is being a great mom, but is still not really ready to share her babies with Grandma Gala, or the others... who are getting a little impatient with her!

April 16: Aunt Mata got her lucky break today. The pups are now sleeping more, nursing less (or more efficiently), so Fuji left the box for a bit. Mata promptly snuck in, met the nieces and nephews, and cleaned butts! That made her so happy! I started the Early Neurological Stimulation program today (aka Super Puppy).

April 19: One week old! The pups are becoming more mobile and vocal these days, eating much more at each feeding! Fuji remains a very good mom, watching closely when the others come to check on her babies.

April 25: The pups will be 2 weeks old tomorrow. Eyes are just beginning to open, weight gain continues to be great with everyone weighing over 2 lbs now-- they still sleep a lot but are becoming playful now. Young Envy can't wait until her little cousins can come out and play with her too!

May 1: Pups are 19 days old, definitely finding their "wheels" and voices! The box is all abuzz with energy now (in between "power snoozes"!)... and 5 mo old Envy is SO happy as you'll see below! I noticed some obvious tooth buds last night; it will not be long! Phase 1 of potty training was intro'd yesterday (stinky newspaper in the corner), and by golly, several seem to "get it" already and are using that area. We'll continue with that for a couple days and when it appears all are consistently hitting the target, the newspaper will be replaced by a tray w/ more paper topping some woody pellets, the "potty material" which will be used in their ex pen set up in a week or so.

May 9: What a busy week! My work took me away from home on Weds so "Aunt Kim" came to puppy sit-- not that the puppies really needed much as they sleep alot but Fuji needed someone to feed her and let her out to potty! Sounds like Fuji enjoyed the extra attention too.

This week the pups worked on their potty training and started getting 2 meals of gruel a day, which they dove right into. It was time! Milk only goes so far to satisfy a growing Labby pup! As of yesterday, they are up to 3 meals a day. Since it's getting crowded at the one saucer dish, I'll be feeding in 2 dishes now. They will go to their new digs today-- the puppy pen in the garage!! They will like that. They will also start to go outside to enjoy a little sunshine beginning today.

In their new "digs" (and loving it!):

May 14: Just a quick update. The pups are doing great on potty training to the pool, and are ready for some expansion to their pen. I have been clipping toenails all along as needed, but yesterday, used the dremel tool-- all went well. I am now feeding them 4x per day as Fuji is finding those razor sharp teeth pretty unbearable the past couple days! I added in a puppy "tunnel" today and they took to it right away. But really, this week was all about getting out and getting some fresh air and "social time" with the big dogs when time allowed!

May 18: The pups turned 5 wks old yesterday and were introduced to the baby swimming pool which I'm sure felt good considering how warm the weather has become the past couple days! This morning, I gave them all Neopar parvo vaccines. Neopar is a high titer parvo vaccine that overrides the maternal antibodies. This will offer them early protection from the deadly parvo virus common to our area.

I also introduced birds (frozen pigeon and quail) this week!

May 24: Six weeks old already!!! This week the puppies had several visitors and with that comes a lot of fun! Their personalities are emerging, and it would appear we have several "gardeners" in the group (ahem-- prepare ye future owners!). Suffice to say my tulip greens are looking a bit trampled now. The best fun of all was getting to meet "Mr. Pigeon" in groups of 4 out in the big dogs' kennel. I took a few short video clips but haven't had a chance to download them yet. Will do more pigeon work this week and hopefully get some regular photos. They also now have a much bigger puppy pen as they are very well potty trained to their pool now. Weights range from 6.5 to 8.0# with most right at 7.0# currently.

May 28: 6.5 weeks old. Weights are now jumping by ~1 lb every 3-4 days. I scheduled well checks today w/ my vet for next Weds. Thurs are eye (CERF) exams in Pasco so they will hopefully have a chance to acclimate to the car crate on Wed! Time is flying by... and personalities are continuing to emerge. If you were hoping for a really mellow puppy, perhaps a stuffed one is in order, lol!!! This is a fun little group, no.. no one is too wild, but they sure have their moments. Here are some photos from this week:

And a few more:

June 2: The pups were 7 weeks old on Sunday. It was our annual dog show weekend, so I crossed my fingers and held my breath they'd behave the 6 hrs or so I had to be away for club treasurer's duties! Fortunately, no one tried to escape though part of the show matting (the grey mat) was chewed on. I had meant to remove it but forgot! By 4am Monday, I had trouble with the lime green choc boy--- he was vomiting and not very spunky. He had no temperature at the time but by 8am, he was running a temp and had very watery diarrhea. :( Off to the vet we went to check for blockage, viral/bacterial issue, etc.. He stayed the day there, and nothing showed on any tests. The good news was that he didn't vomit or have a bowel movement while there, and was responding well to fluids. Nothing showed on xray so we opted for some antibiotics and good old fashioned mothering. Oh-- and by noon that day, I had several others following suit, w/ the green black boy almost as punky as the choc boy, followed by red boy! It looked like a real ward in my house though light green was very spunky and hungry (I cooked a bland meal for pups of boiled chicken and rice) by 6pm, so he returned to the pen w/ the others. By 11 pm, dk green boy was much better and playful, and by 2am, red boy was a happy camper again too. I still have some loose stools but given that I had something similar 2 years ago (also a spring litter), I think it should be passed thru within a day or so total. I sure HOPE SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Will keep you posted but I think we are on the mend here!

June 3: Yea--- All is fine with the puppers!!!! Whatever we had, passed thru the pups in ~48 hrs total, and I am doing the happy dance here after seeing well formed stools and happy, obnoxious little puppies again. I was able to give them their combo vaccine by noon that I had planned to give them on Monday. We had our vet well checks at 230 pm this afternoon and everyone passed w/ flying colors and were microchipped at the same time. The ride was a bit noisy (not unusual!) but hopefully they got used to it as we have to drive 90 miles one way tomorrow for eye (CERF) exams.

June 4: We cleared the final health hurdle today with all 8 puppies clearing their CERF (eye) exams in Pasco, WA (the first 50 miles were pretty noisy though)!!! Dr. Collier was impressed that I had worn them out to the perfect stage (not quite to the point of falling asleep on the table which is a problem, of course, when doing eye exams!). A fellow Lab breeder/friend's place on the way has become my "puppy poopy stop" before CERFs the past few years as I know it's as safe as places come for parvo, etc. concerns. While we were there, Julie also evaluated the litter and gave me her input on structure, etc.. I will hopefully have a couple more breeder folks in tomorrow to help evaluate and help me get some more structural/stacked photos.

June 6: See above photos taken 2 days shy of 8 weeks. Two of the boys left today for their homes, and a couple more will leave tomorrow. It sure has been a long, tiring week-- time for all of us to take a puppy nap!

June 7: Due to a change in one buyer's circumstances, the red collared Black boy has become available! Red boy is very birdy (loves pigeons, chukar, quail and duck so far!), has an athetic build and shorter coat, and nice amount of leg underneath him. He is on the calmer end of the spectrum, and is very loving. I think he'd be great for a pet/hunting home. Photos below:

June 8: Lime green Choc boy (see photos below) is also looking for an active hunting or performance home! I would also entertain a performance home to co-own my (purple) Choc Girl with --but she'd need to stay intact.

More candid shots:

At 4 days old: First 5 are boys, last 3 are girls

Fuji with brood less than 24 hrs old.

Back to Nursery Page

1. Envy eyes her baby cousins' fun!

2. Security Breach! I'm in! I'm in!!!

3. "Nanny Anne" had moved the pups to a smaller box to do the daily cleaning of the big box, and look who plopped down (tail wagging the whole time!) and got right to work!!! Envy had just turned 5 mos old the day before! She is being VERY good with the babies.