I went to bed Sunday night, April 15th, with the sure knowledge that I wouldn't sleep until morning. Sophie was already panting and restless, signs that labor would be coming soon. Her temperature had dropped below 98 degrees, another telling signal. Her due date, which I had calculated to be April 17th, was close at hand despite the fact that I had added on another day to account for "leap year." I left the hall light on to make sure that whatever sleep I managed to get would be minimal. At midnight I heard Sophie make her way out from under the bed and go into the hallway. When I opened the door for her, she ran to her whelping box and jumped in. I guess she was telling me she was ready! The rest of the night was spent in the baby nursery (aka the dining room) awaiting the arrival of the first pup - which always takes much longer than expected. After hours of panting and shaking, finally around 10:30am, Sophie's waterbag broke and the first puppy - purple girl - arrived a half hour later. Half an hour after that, baby blue boy arrived, followed every half hour or so by another puppy. Boy after boy arrived - orange, green, yellow and blue until finally little pink-and little she was--arrived at 1:35pm. People often ask whether the delivery was easy. Not knowing what Ms. Sophie would say I can't say for sure, but what I can say is that there were no surprises. With each delivery I checked to make sure the sac was off the puppy's head and if it wasn't, I removed it. Each pup was rubbed down in a towel until she or he began to squeak, cord cut, and then presented to mom, who thoroughly, meticulously, and sometimes vigorously, licked each puppy from head to tail. Soon enough every one was settled in and seven new lives begun.
As I write this post today, the pups are nearly a week old and have more or less doubled their birth weights from a starting point ranging from 5oz (little pink) to the blue and orange boys who were more than 7oz at birth. During the first few days, we made sure to position little pink strategically so that she didn't have to struggle to find her food and as she finally began to gain weight, we were able to relax. As I did last year, I slept next to mom and pups for the first few nights and again I will describe that experience as "intimate" since I can't think of another way to talk about those moments in the middle of the night when I rolled over to see mom and pups in the whelping box. The sole focus of mom is pups and the sole focus of pups is mom.
At six days old, the puppies' eyes and ears are both closed. They locate their mom by scent, and increasingly over the first few days, they have become more coordinated and purposeful in their wobbly crawls from one end of the whelping box to wherever mom decides to be. They let mom know when they need her with a unique series of sighs, squeaks, and trills. And Sophie instinctively knows when it is OK to leave the box and join the family in the other room and when she needs to be nearby.
On their third day of life, the puppies had their first "big world" outing, traveling to the vet to have their dew claws removed. Every breeder would like to believe that this experience is harder on them than it is on the pups. The vet carefully takes his time tending to each pup and tells me that he no longer docks tails; he just doesn't feel comfortable doing so. The vet tech comments that she can't believe these are wheaten puppies and it's true--with their dark brown coloring, closed eyes, and ears pressed tightly to the sides of their heads, their identity to the uninformed, would be a complete mystery.
We've begun our early neurological stimulation exercises, exposing the pups to a slightly stressful series of handling exercises known as the "bio sensor" or "super dog" program. These exercises, recommended for pups between three days and sixteen days old, are believed to encourage greater tolerance to stress and improve the pups' health. We will also be able to observe how each puppy responds to this stimulation and begin to have a sense of their individual temperaments.
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