Look what the Easter Bunny left us! Puppies!
- Posted on 20th April 2014
- in Featured, Jory Banner 2014
- by jvfairbanks
Yesterday afternoon Jory (pet name Daisy) started her second litter delivery. The first born was a girl, followed by another girl and then a boy.
The whelp was a long slow one with Jory delivering on her back. She is the only one of our dogs that lies on her back for the final pushes. The first girl took the longest to come and that seemed to kick everything else off. She is a wonderful mom, very attentive and constantly cleaning and waking up the puppies to have them eat. Everyone is doing well this morning with Jeff and I taking turns sleeping next to the whelp box set up in our dining room, with our couch next to the box for our comfort during the actual whelp and the settling in afterward. Jory is use to sleeping with humans so the pull for a human verses caring for her newborns is something we expected with this her second litter. Sleeping on the couch next to the litter keeps her from wanting to move the puppies into our bedroom.
We have a heat lamp on the puppies for the first 8-9 days while they plump up and although we have in the past had the puppies in our bedroom we find the heat lamp makes it hard to sleep well. 🙂
During the first few days it is critical the whelp (which is newborn in dog speak) stay warm as they need heat to process food. If they are not warm they can not process their food and they will not eliminate without mom cleaning them. We have learned that this is something true of canines, taking them back to the time of the wild where puppies would be in a den and their mother would go out to find food. If predators smelled puppies while no mother is there to protect them it would make them easy prey. Daisy also knows to naturally clean her “nest” and cover her puppies (yet another thing of nature) so we keep some layers of thin cloth and watch that the puppies don’t get too wrapped up.
She will get us if the puppy is hard for her to unwrap. 🙂 When Jeff came to take the couch shift, he notices that Daisy has left him his first ever Easter puppy nest. I grin as he says look what the Easter Bunny left! 🙂
Happy Easter! The litter will be named shortly.
