Sunday, February 27, 2011

Updates on 3 week old puppies.


Basya's litter is 3 weeks old today. And Jasmine's babies older for 4 days.
We never stop to be amazed , watching them grow at these early weeks of their life.
and observe such a rapid neurological growth and development.
Puppies are born totally depended of their mother. They are very temperature sensitive ,
their eyes and ears closed, can't walk and wriggle to get to the Mom's milk ,and can't even eliminate without stimulation.
Mom will feed them, clean them, and clean up after them.
And originally -they have tails! :-)



Now at 3 weeks the eyes and ears open ( well, eyes are still squinty ,




and this is a main reason why you don't see much of individual pictures of puppies - bright light in photoshoot isn't good for their eyes now :-) ) ,dew claws are removed, tails are cropped. Puppies can stand on their legs and start walking. They don't need stimulation for elimination anymore.


Every day the pups are becoming more and more mobile ,moving all around nestle.We have good heavy blankets with non-slippery structure in the puppy boxes, what given puppies good support when they start to try their legs,but still are wobbly and unsteady .

Social behavior start to develop -puppies interact with each other , we can see very beginning of play movements, touches with front paws, licking each other faces ,sometimes try to fallow each other.
They start to be more aware of the world , and even they don't pay much attention on the dogs and humans outside of box, but they start to react on humane voice while we are holding them, and concentrating more on movement around them.

Some of them found their voices , and we hear funny growling or squeaking noises from Jasmine's box and something remaining best of all a cat's purring sound - from Basya's .

What we have done and observed during these weeks ( not counting feeding the Moms- which are eating as crocodiles , and washing puppy's blankets every day) :


1. Right after birth and at first two weeks we weight puppies every day to see if they gain. After two weeks we still weight them, but not so often, just enough to see the line of each of them growing.



Pups double or almost triple their birth weight at first week and kept gaining. Interesting to see different dynamics of growing between two litters. Weighted at two weeks old, Jasmine's puppies were from 15 to 19 oz , and Basya's were from 20 to 25 oz. Both Jasmine and Basya had pups before , so we know how they grows and also can compare the weight chart from previous litters. Basya's pups always grow rapidly and look big and chubby, when Jasmine's pups always look smaller compare to them. However, when we see grown up dogs from both those litters, they all are about the same size.

 In a period from two to three weeks also a picture of bigger/smaller puppies changed among Jasmine's puppies. Now two girls are the champions and about the same size with each other, despair the fact black girl was smaller then black/silver at birth , and smaller then two boys for two weeks. Now all boys are behind!
One black and black/silver boys smallest from the group, but gaining well for their own.

2. Early neurological stimulation exercises for each puppy ( from third to sixteen day ) .
ENS , other way known as Bio Sensor , is great program of stimulation of puppies by putting them through five exercises :Tactile stimulation ,Head held erect ,Head pointed down ,Supine position ,Thermal stimulation . Better development, stronger heart and immune system, higher trainability was noticed as a result of this program, started as a special program for service and working dogs. We have a good result with ENS as well, using it for the last 12 years, and during the exercises we also can observe a personality of each puppy.







3. Dew claws are removed, Tails are cropped.

4.Worming the puppies! Worming started at 2 weeks,repeated at 3. It will be continued till pups ready to go home, and every new family will have a record of worming ( and shots).



5. Trimming nails. Puppy's nails at this age growing very quickly , and they are sharp. Trimming puppy's nails every 5 days prevent Mom from being scratched while pups are nursing,and keep pup's legs on correct position when they start walking.
By the time we are done to trim nails in both litter, each time we had trimmed 176 little nails. :-) Every 5 dais. You do the math for 3 these three weeks. :-)

6. Handling , holding, talking and spoiling every one of them daily.

7. Charting weight gain, activity level , specific behavior and like/dislike of each puppy , making notes what later will play a role in the temperament classification and will help us to give new families better recommendations about training and living with their pup, or help them to choose the right one.



8. Started supplementary feeding of Jasmine's litter at 3 weeks. Basya's litter of 4 doesn't need it to be started till later,perhaps, at 4-4,5 weeks. Jasmine's babies can benefit from trying some food earlier.
First food is always mix of concentrated or whole goat milk with plain yogurt.
At 3 weeks old puppies are able to lap liquid food. Doesn't mean they do it too good. :-)




9. As puppies start to walk more and more, we are getting ready to expand their nestle box . Next update of puppy home will include potty area . This is a last picture of two side by side nestle boxes without extension yet.



Monday, February 21, 2011

Puppies are growing (2 weeks old).

Jasmin's Litter.

Two girls. They were cooperative and stayed for me at the same place long enough, 
so I can take pictures of them just laying on a blanket.
Stephen's black girl and Paula's B/S girl.
Paula already has two of our schnauzers and this baby will be another family member. 
Two boys. Not cooperative at all and very unhappy with us and our photoshoot.
They were having lunch and here we are with our camera.
Jim and Jackie, one of them is yours and Susan will be spoiling another one. 

Two other black boys.
One is going to live with Elena in NYC.
B/S boy will go to Gregory. He doesn't know about it yet 
and only looking where is his Mom and her milk!
Basya's Litter

Two B/S girls from Basya
One is our baby and another one goes to Nancy
(who was so patient to wait for a right puppy for a year!).

 Two Basya's boys.

Friday, February 18, 2011

S/P and B/S puppies.


We often getting the same question time after time: how you can tell the difference between Black/Silver and  Salt/Pepper puppies in newborns?
It is not hard if you will look behind of puppy's ears.  S/P puppy always will have some "Salt" at that area and B/S puppy always will have it black.
Out of this 4 puppies on a photo above  only one is S/P. 

It is a dinner time! And Jasmine is a dinner....




Sunday, February 6, 2011

... and Basya's litter is here too!...


I feel so much better after Basya also had her pups and everybody is OK.
Now it is my favorite feeding/cleaning/spoiling time.
Sorry to disappoint everyone waiting for S/P puppies, she again had B/S litter. Just how it goes: one S/P boy and the rest all are Black/Silver. But what are nice pups!
It will be last litter for Basya, she goes at well deserved retirement after she is done with feeding.


Thursday, February 3, 2011

Jasmine's babies are here!


Jasmine just had another "Jasmine's typical litter" of 9. I call them "Seven Dwarfs and Two Princesses", because naturally they are 7 boys and 2 girls. And don't think they are small! All pups are over 5oz and doing really great. Jasmine is exceptional mother, so happy to deal with delivery and Mom like this one.

Why did we start this blog ?...

I was thinking fr a while to start blog about our schnauzers, but I only have so much time to do it all.... therefore I was putting this project for later time after time.Finally I came to conclusion that it takes significantly more time to repeat the same information to every person who is interested about "how-to" we raise, feed, groom etc our dogs. And then (most disappointing part) after you explain it all, people have tendency to forget it. So, I have to put it in writing what will allow you to go back and refresh it Or even better ask some questions, if you have any.

I will try to put all our posts on different pages, too keep topics separately and easier to access. Hopefully something good will come out of this new project.
Let the blogging begins!