Ch-ch-ch-changes

Yes lots of changes....

The pups are no longer on bedding... they started tearing it up yesterday afternoon so it's gone.

They are now eating dry food instead of mush.

They are spending most of their days (if it's not raining) outside on the deck.

Tomorrow the whelping box will be diassembled and they'll be in an ex-pen. Although they are not climbing out of the box at all (such good puppies!!) it will be easier for me to clean the ex-pen, I can just open it up and sweep/mop it out.

And last but not least... we have one puppy with an ear up!



This is not like Yellow the other day... with an ear that was up momentatorily, this ear on Red is up and staying up!

5 Weeks Old!

Already. I can't believe it.

A Big Day - A Long Post

I woke up this morning and discovered the pups had gone on a rampage during the night. Without going into the rather messy details, suffice it to say that it was again time for a change in the whelping box. Also time for baths.

I headed out to the local pet supply store and purchased some Second Nature puppy litter. Brought it home, put it in the litter box, and put the litter box in the whelping box. Amazingly enough within a few hours each of the pups had successfully used the litter!! How can they KNOW this stuff?? Other than that I can't stand the overly strong air freshener fragrance, the litter seems to be a success.

Meanwhile the puppies were expecting a visitor and were in no condition to be greeting guests. So...they had their first bath! They were all exceptionally good and by the time Mike from Colorado Springs arrived to meet them, they were once again looking and smelling fresh.

Unfortunately the bath had tired them out and all but Yellow (who had been bathed first and had time to rest up) were pretty sleepy when Mike arrived. And of course after he left they all woke up and rampaged around the deck terrorizing the big dogs for awhile. In particular Purple took a liking to Kelly, who is still not sure what these little critters are. Purple proceeded to chase Kelly all over the deck until my husband and I were laughing so hard we were almost in tears. Poor Kelly.

After all that activity the pups were once again tired out....



Red uses Yellow for pillow.




Black has the face of an Angel



Purple dreams about chasing Aunt Kelly

Grammy Kachina

I thought it would be appropriate to tell you all a little about the puppies grandmother Abakan WhiteStar of Tundra Winds WSXM HIC, bred by Darlu Littledeer of Abakan Samoyeds and co-owned by me and Donna Dannen of Tundra Winds Samoyeds.



For a number of years Kachina was the lead dog on the WhiteStar sled team. She was also an amazing weight pull dog, earning awards in weight pull at two different Samoyed Club of America National Specialties including Top Novice Puller in 1998. Kachina is also trained in agility, although she has never competed. She loves obedience work and one day I do hope to get her CD title.

Aside from producing a beautiful litter of puppies 4 years ago, the accomplishment of Kachina's of which I am most proud is that she earned her Master Working Samoyed title at the age of 4 years. At the time she was the second youngest Samoyed to ever earn the title. She was also only the 10th dog to receive a WSXM.

Read more about Kachina on her web page.

The Last Time....

This may just be the last time we see Aliy nursing the puppies....



For the last week she has been less than enthusiastic about letting them nurse. I dont' blame her, their teeth are incredibly sharp now! Up until a few day ago I was encouraging Aliy to get in the box at least once a day but pretty much have stopped that now that he pups are eating large quantities of the puppy mush several times day. This afternoon they managed to "catch" Aliy out on the deck and she allowed them to nurse for about ten minutes. I'm not sure that will happen again. Look how HUGE they are compared to a picture from the first day.

Birthday portraits tomorrow!

Growing Up Part II

Look who has an ear up!!



It's Yellow!

Twice today I noticed Yellow sound asleep with her ears flipped up. Upon waking both times her right ear stayed up briefly. The second time I had time to grab the camera and get this picture. Her mother Aliy had her ears up at a very young age as well, but not quite this young. We'll see how long it takes for the ear to stay up more than a minute or two.



The pups now regularly watch the goings on in the rest of the house from the edge of their whelping box. Interestingly enough, unlike their mom and her littermates, they rarely seem to feel the need to hop out of the box and go exploring.

The puppies hosted guests again today. My friends Nancy and Kris came to see them and pronounced that they are indeed cute! cute! cute! But we already knew that :)

Change of Venue

These are exciting days for Aliy's little Angels! Those of you checking in on the Aliy-Cam may notice that on occasion you see not Puppies in a Whelping box but instead Deck Dogs. Unless of course they have hidden out of view of the camera...

The Inspection

Grandma Kachina makes sure her grandaughters are being cared for properly.




She approves!

4 Weeks Old

People keep asking me which one I like best... I don't know.. it changes every day! I think they are all pretty cute but then, I think I'm a little biased :)

Growing Up.

Tomorrow the puppies will be 4 weeks old. It's hard to believe that three of them have already spent nearly half the time they will ever spend with me.

This has been a week of exciting happenings... they are now eating puppy mush three times a day although Aliy is still their primary food source. They are drinking water from a bowl. They are reasonably steady on their feet most of the time. They play with their toys and each other. They spend more time awake doing stuff besides just eating. And they are meeting the other dogs.



Red spends a little time getting to know Grandma Kachina.

But their primary activity is still sleeping...



Red, Yellow and Purple nap together



Black naps alone

Birthday portraits tomorrow!

Wood Chip Hell

Yes I am in Wood Chip hell. The pups were just becoming too messy on the blankets. So I filled the whelping box with woodchips. Now I have wood chips everywhere. Really. Everywhere. I even found one in the refrigerator. And it's only been 24 hours.

And do you have any idea what happens when you put the ice paks with their FLANNEL covers into a box of woodchips. I discovered that wood chips take to flannel like Velcro.

I need a better solution.

In the meantime here is an adorable picture of Black taking a nap with her toy moose.

Body Art

Leave a "mature" adult male alone with a litter of puppies and some watercolor markers and what happens?



In case you can't tell, Red is sporting flames, Black is zebra striped, Yellow has a stripe down her back and Purple (it's hard to see) has race car numbers on her sides.

sigh.....

The View From the Other Side

I am in a class today for work. I have internet access in the class and can access the Aliy-Cam as a spectator for a change. It's a little surreal but kind of fun. And I'm glad I marked the puppies with the colored markers... I can tell them apart on camera! I think it would "bother" me a bit if I could not tell who is who.

Spotted Sammies

Those of you watching the Aliy-Cam may notice the puppies are sporting colored marks on their backs near their tails. Although on the one hand I don't like that my "pretty white puppies" have colored spots, it's nice to be able to identify them at a glance!

3 Weeks Old!!

Happy 3 week birthday little Angels!!

To celebrate, the girls polished off a whole plate of puppy mush...

Popular Pups

Not even three weeks old yet and the puppies have had two sets of visitors come all the way from out of state just to see them! Last week my friend Bobbie and her mother-in-law came up from New Mexico and stopped to see the girls on their way to Denver. Today, Mildred and Dave from Phoenix stopped by on their way to Sasketchewan. Mildred and Dave are hoping one of Aliy's little Angels will be joining their family in about 6 weeks.

Aliy's been feeling a little under the weather the past few days (tummy problems) but she is still being a great mama dog.



Mama Aliy and her babies all take a nap together.

This evening I saw one of the pups actually playing with the stuffed moose that is in the whelping box. She had grabbed the toy (which is almost as big as she is) and was shaking it as hard as she could, just like the big dogs do. I was too slow getting the camera, but I'm sure I'll have lots of opportunities over the next few weeks to catch them playing with their toys.

Stay tuned for birthday pictures tomorrow evening!!

They Look Like Puppies!!!

Finally! Pictures in which the puppies resemble puppies more than hamsters!



Hopefully we'll have lots of cute pictures over the next few weeks. This is when it starts to get really fun with these little girls.

A New Way to Cool Off

Yellow goes UNDER her ice pack!

Just pictures today....

Red uses her sister as a pillow.



Black uses the pig rail as a pillow.

OUCH!!!

Guess what the pups have?

Teeth. All of them have a full mouthful of TEETH.

Poor Aliy.

I've never had puppies get teeth so quickly. Now that their eyes are finally open and they are walking I figured it would be time to start looking to see if there were any signs of teeth. When I checked the first puppy I was shocked. ALL the teeth were there including very sharp little canines!

So... even though I said yesterday I was not going to start them on mush yet I decided if they had teeth they were ready. So tonight I mixed up a small batch, put it in a tupperware container lid and let them smell it. Each puppy got a finger full and Black and Red actually came up to the lid and licked at the food a little. I'll try it again tomorrow and see what happens. I'm not in a hurry to wean them or anything, but these guys are big puppies and they are wearing poor Aliy out with their nourishment demands... I figure she can use some help!



Purple finally let me take a picture!!




How cute is little Black??


No, I did not pose them like this... they look like some weird circus balancing act!

Polar Pups II

Red and Yellow look like they are enjoying their ice packs, don't they?

2 Weeks Old

And here they are at two weeks old....





What did Aliy do today?



This picture looks a lot like the one I posted this morning right? But in between that one and this one, Aliy got a bath!!

Bor-ing Puppies

Actually they are anything but boring. I could watch them for hours. But they aren't doing anything EXCITING. I was sure by now eyes would be open. They have all had the corners open for days... I think that first started way back last Thursday, now you can see their eyes at every corner on all 4 girls. But they are not really "open" yet.



And a few days ago I reported they were "walking" Okay maybe I exaggerated a little bit. They were standing up, taking a few steps and falling over. Then they'd go back to their belly crawl which would get them where they were going much faster. So I changed the chart to have a category for waling and another one for standing. Some pups walk as soon as they stand, Kachina's Kids did that. But Boom'rs had to go thru a standing phase first just like these guys are.

They are starting to interact a bit with each other which is really neat to watch.

The reason why Red is usually the biggest at the morning weigh in....



Stay tuned for birthday pictures tonight!!

The Box

Each evening when I change the bedding in the whelping box I have to put the pups somewhere else safe while the box is being cleaned. For the first few days they went into the box I had used during whelping. They also took their first trip to the vet in that box.

Then we moved to a slightly larger box. But it looks to me like we need another new box now....



To the left is the original box. Hard to imagine all four of them ever fit in there!

We are starting to have some really warm days now. Yesterday I had to break out the ice packs. I wrapped them in towels and left them in the whelping box. At one point Black had climbed on top of one and was sound asleep. I grabbed the camera but just as I clicked the shutter she rolled off.

Doesn't Yellow look relaxed here? More and more they are starting to take on little dog characteristics instead of just being hamsters.



I was out for several hours yesterday afternoon. When I got back Black and Red were walking!! Not very steadily, and they have to be really excited to do it, but they were definitely UP ON THEIR FEET! Hopefully I can get a picture of that today. In the meantime we have a new feature.... Look What We Can Do!...with a link over on the sidebar over there >>>>>>

Still no eyes have opened... I really thought Red would have hers open by now.

The HeavyWeight

We have our first 3 pound puppy! Who else but Red Girl?

A Visitor!

The puppies had their first visitor today! My friend Bobbie came up to Denver with her four adorable puppies and she stoppped by my place so I could see her pups and she could see mine. The pups didn't do much (surprise!) except sleep eat and make noise.

The excitement really wore Yellow out...





It looks to me like we may have eyes open within the next 24 - 48 hours... Red is very close. Stay tuned right here for the news when it happens!

So I'm wondering... I know there are people out there watching the Aliy-Cam at all hours of the day and night... my friend Susan spotted me feeding the pups yogurt early this afternoon, and Clu watched Aliy nursing someone late last night.... has anyone caught me changing the bedding in the whelping box? It usually happens around 7 PM MT... I have the box propped up on cans of green chiles and tomatoes...