Tuesday, December 25, 2007
11 Days old,
some of the pups are starting to open their eyes, most of them try the walking, and I am seeing a lot of calming signals - yawning. They have done that for several days, mostly when they get picked up, but also in other situations, today it was getting very obvious that they are practicing canine communication. I also saw yellow girl sitting and scratching her head with her back paw just like a big dog. They have all been gaining well, but I have started offering a bottle with a little goat milk after they stop nursing, some of them seemed quite interested in lapping a little extra milk, just wanting to make sure that nobody ends up hungry. I am assuming that if they miss a meal at this age it could affect them, so in between when I catch them nursing during the day I am going to offer the bottle and I am hoping that gets them started soon on eating a little "real food" on their own to give their momma a break.
pink girl found herself a pillow, I did not set this up for this shot, she just happened to do this 
after much wiggling around she ended up in the middle of the two toys
yellow dot girl walking, they start looking like "toddler puppies" already, compared to the newborn puppies that were just crawling around
orange girl walking
orange girl sitting
yellow girl
white girl and purple girl
blue boy walking under mom
purple girl
yellow girl's nose gets more black spots every day
black boy yawning
Blackie or maybe I should call him Grizzly because he is really fluffy like a bear
green boy
pink girl yawning
I think this is also green boy yawning again
Not quite sure but I think this is green boy yawning also while in a situation being near the other puppies and moving around
pink girl yawning, she was just bumbling around and I noticed she yawned repeatedly during her ventures in this area in the middle of all the other pups. Why all these pictures of yawing puppies? For once I would really like for everybody who is interested in dogs to read up on calming signals, dogs use them all the time, even these 10 day old puppies who can't even see yet are using them. Turid Rugaas has made a wonderful documentary of this and once you watch this and incorporate observing these signals in your daily observations of your dog you will find that you have a much better understanding of how your dog feels and what he is communicating to you or to other dogs.
orange girl gave this toy a really good sniffing and she yawned repeatedly during this time, so the way I interpret this is that she recognized the toy as something strange and she used a calming signal to indicate she was no threat, but she was also probably a little "stressed" by bumping into something unknown and was trying to calm herself, she wasn't stressed as in scared, she was quite intrigued and sniffed this toy for quite a while, even gave it a lick
here is little red girl sleeping in the same position her mommy likes to sleep in, she is no longer the smallest in the litter, she weighed more than pink girl today
look at the roly poly orange girl
some of the pups are starting to open their eyes, most of them try the walking, and I am seeing a lot of calming signals - yawning. They have done that for several days, mostly when they get picked up, but also in other situations, today it was getting very obvious that they are practicing canine communication. I also saw yellow girl sitting and scratching her head with her back paw just like a big dog. They have all been gaining well, but I have started offering a bottle with a little goat milk after they stop nursing, some of them seemed quite interested in lapping a little extra milk, just wanting to make sure that nobody ends up hungry. I am assuming that if they miss a meal at this age it could affect them, so in between when I catch them nursing during the day I am going to offer the bottle and I am hoping that gets them started soon on eating a little "real food" on their own to give their momma a break.
pink girl found herself a pillow, I did not set this up for this shot, she just happened to do this after much wiggling around she ended up in the middle of the two toys
yellow dot girl walking, they start looking like "toddler puppies" already, compared to the newborn puppies that were just crawling around
orange girl walking
orange girl sitting
yellow girl
white girl and purple girl
blue boy walking under mom
purple girl
yellow girl's nose gets more black spots every day
black boy yawning
Blackie or maybe I should call him Grizzly because he is really fluffy like a bear
green boy
pink girl yawning
I think this is also green boy yawning again
Not quite sure but I think this is green boy yawning also while in a situation being near the other puppies and moving around
pink girl yawning, she was just bumbling around and I noticed she yawned repeatedly during her ventures in this area in the middle of all the other pups. Why all these pictures of yawing puppies? For once I would really like for everybody who is interested in dogs to read up on calming signals, dogs use them all the time, even these 10 day old puppies who can't even see yet are using them. Turid Rugaas has made a wonderful documentary of this and once you watch this and incorporate observing these signals in your daily observations of your dog you will find that you have a much better understanding of how your dog feels and what he is communicating to you or to other dogs.
orange girl gave this toy a really good sniffing and she yawned repeatedly during this time, so the way I interpret this is that she recognized the toy as something strange and she used a calming signal to indicate she was no threat, but she was also probably a little "stressed" by bumping into something unknown and was trying to calm herself, she wasn't stressed as in scared, she was quite intrigued and sniffed this toy for quite a while, even gave it a lick
here is little red girl sleeping in the same position her mommy likes to sleep in, she is no longer the smallest in the litter, she weighed more than pink girl today
look at the roly poly orange girl // posted by ZaltanaAnatolians @ 6:39 PM 
