October 21st -- Two Weeks Old!
The changes within the last few days have been some of the most dramatic in puppy development phases and the next week will bring even more.  It's as if a switch has been turned on.  As soon as the pups eyes start opening, you see them start trying to get their bellies off the ground and begin the very first few very shaky steps.  One or two successful steps before collapsing into a lump is a roaring success.  Their swaying and staggering is much like a few drunks I've met over the years.  At the same time I see the beginning of first attempts at play.  One pup will grab the foot of another, almost always falling over in the process, and the other pup will reciprocate.  I've read all sorts of scholarly texts that say pups brains don't really turn on until Day 21 but I think Chinooks are ahead of the curve on this count.  Having eyes open also means that the pups are starting to see me when I pick them up for their daily exercises.  When I enter the room and bend over the whelping box, they know I'm there and will toddle over to that side of the box.  When Taga enters the room and sticks his big snout into the box, they react even faster.  They are starting to recognize that they are part of a bigger pack than just that of the whelping box.

To ensure the pups have regular stimulation and changes to their environment, they have toys in the whelping box now.  They aren't playing with them yet but it gives them different things to bump into as they explore.  They have a small pillow now that they are learning to climb so that even baby muscles are getting a work out.  When it's time to change their bedding, the pups come out of the box onto the linoleum so they are already beginning to be exposed to different surfaces.  Today the whelping box itself will be rearranged so that they have one small area of newspaper.  Taaku still spend a lot of time cleaning up after them but with seven pups and her no longer spending every minute in the box with them, they are learning to defecate on their own.

The load on Taaku is increasing as they are still getting all their nutrition from her and growing like crazy too.  A typical day's menu for Taaku will include:

• a can of dog food and homemade "dog stew" for breakfast;
• a few chicken wings or a turkey neck for lunch;
• a beef knuckle bone or marrow bone mid afternoon;
• a "milkshake" of goat's milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, and sometimes vanilla ice cream for dinner;
• and about six cups or more of kibble throughout the day and overnight..

If she's anything like she was with her first litter, she'll be quite disappointed when they are weaned because her food intake will be cut back.  The babies will get their first taste of food towards the end of this week, usually when they are about twenty-one days old.  It takes a good week for them to all learn to eat from a bowl but once they do, their intake will shoot sky high and their growth rate will increase too.  However, they will keep nursing a few times a day for weeks to come and most will continue to try and sneak a taste up until the time they leave for homes of their own.  In fact Taga was quite tempted to give it a shot himself when he discovered that his mom once again had milk available.  He only got as far as a few quick licks before she nipped his nose and reminded him that he was a mature adult of sixteen months old now.

The babies are getting out of the "potato" stage and starting to look like real dogs and they are almost past the critical stage where I worry constantly that something will happen to them.  So it's time to allow a few carefully screened visitors to stop by and begin to handle them.  Sure, some of the regulars in my life like Carie and Scott have already been by for a visit but now the doors are opened to my great nieces and nephews, some of the local folks that are getting a pup, and friends in general.  As they grow, I'll make sure that they are handled by all different sorts of people (remember our Rules of Seven) including men with big voices, elderly folks with shakier hands, and small children with sticky fingers and faces.

Well, time to get back to work cleaning up the pups' room.  And if I'm lucky, I'll have time to do some of my regular house and yard chores too.

The ingredients vary with every batch but there are some items that form the base.

• Meat:  This can be a piece of freezer burned chicken or a pork chop, inexpensive stew meat, or even a roast.  More meat is added as the stew cooks and as I have leftovers.  When I have a mom dog that's pregnant or has nursing pups, I frequently use organ meats like chicken gizzards or beef liver.  The dogs also love fish and here in the Northwest we eat a lot of salmon, which they are happy to share with me.
  
• Broth:  Sometimes the meat I'm using is rich enough to make it's own broth but if it's a lean cut like a chicken breast, I'll use either a can of broth.  If I have a beef soup bone, I'll make the broth first then add the other ingredients.
• Vegetables:  Canned tomatoes add a lot of vitamins and the dogs love them.  Canned pumpkin adds fiber to their diet and is good if a dog is either constipated or has loose stools.  Celery that is getting limp and carrots are favorites and freezer burned frozen veggies like green beans are another common ingredient.
• Seasonings:  I figure dogs deserve food that tastes good too so a touch of garlic might be added and frequently sage or other herbs that have proven value in boosting health along with adding good flavors.  I don't add any salt since there is more than enough in the canned vegetables I add.
  
• Fruit:  Dogs LOVE fruit.  There are some like grapes that need to be avoided but I often add chunks of apple or pear and maybe leftover fruit juice.
  

Everything is added to a crock pot, covered with water, and the pot turned on to cook.  Depending on how fast I want to be able to use it, I may start it on high and turn it down to low after the first twelve hours.  Anytime I walk past the pot, I'll give it a stir.  Usually I start adding a scoop to the dogs' kibble after the first twelve to twenty-four hours.  Dogs that are on a limited diet (I can't stand fat dogs and watch their weight carefully) usually just get broth and a dog that needs to put on weight or has had a health problem will get more of the meat.  I figure about a half cup of broth per two cups of kibble for the average daily feeding.

It takes about four or five days to go through a whole batch since I'll add extra water or other ingredients as the level drops.  Just about all leftovers from my dinners go into the pot though I'm careful to only add small amounts of rough items like corn, barley, or dried beans.  I also limit the starches such as potatoes, rice, and pastas.  Potatoes can be hard for some dogs to handle and rice or noodles just turn to mush.  I will give them rice and noodles when I have cooked too much for myself or if one has an upset stomach but they are cooked separately and added to food dishes without a stop in the crock pot.

The variety of foods that comprise Dog Stew add the occasional ingredient that the dogs' regular diet may be lacking.  The variety of tastes they get keep them interested in meals and the warmth the stew adds makes it a more natural meal I think since a canine in the wild would be eating warm, freshly killed meals.  I also think the variety of foods they get (I change kibbles frequently along with the changes to their stews) makes them better able to tolerate changes to their diet.  If a dog food company suddenly changes the formula of a food, my dogs barely notice since they're used to changes at every meal.  A dog who has only been fed one kind of kibble its whole life could have trouble with small changes like this.  Even the babies get a variety in their diet while they are nursing since the variety of foods that Taaku eats affects the make-up and taste of her milk.  When they are old enough to start on real food, they will get small variations in their diet as well.  All this variety has produced Rain Mountain pups with digestions of cast iron who can and will eat anything.

November 5th - The First Food Fight

The goal is to get the pups first able to lap out of a pan, then gradually introduced to foods that don't come from Mom, moving from liquid to solids a little at a time.

Step 1 is simply a shallow pan with barely a quarter inch of formula in the bottom.  If the pups are hesitant to try, I will set their front feet into the pan which typically will get their noses working and the realization that this could be something good.  Most of the time I start with Esbilac here since that's what they got when I bottle fed them and they remember the taste and scent.

Step 2 involves adding goats' milk to the Esbilac.  They don't recognize the scent of goats milk so mixing it first half and half with Esbilac is a good way to provide them with a familiar scent and taste while still introducing the new ingredient.  Goats' milk is lower fat than mom dog milk or Esbilac so I add some plain yogurt.  The yogurt also helps circumvent upset tummies since the lactobacillus provides the essential microorganisms they need for easy digestion.  The Big Dogs are such piggy puppies that we progressed to this step with their second pan of formula.

Step 3 starts adding some semi solids to the mixture.  By now I'm using three parts goats' milk to one part of formula along with the yogurt.  But I also add a jar of baby meat, whipping all the ingredients in the blender, then mixing the liquid with baby rice cereal.  And yes, the Big Dogs got to this point by their third pan of food, again progressing faster than my other litters in the past.

Step 4 starts adding a bit of kibble to the whole mess.  I make up the liquid as I do in Step 3 but then use that liquid to soak a small amount of puppy kibble.  At first it will be two parts of my liquid concoction to one part of puppy kibble but that will gradually shift as the pups' teeth come in and they are able to actually chew.  They stay with this mush mixture until they are about five weeks old when I back off the goats' milk, replacing it with water.  Since puppies can eat the most obnoxious things, I keep the yogurt in their diets virtually forever.

Step 5 is the final stage of the pups eating kibble with just a bit of warm water and yogurt to soften it.  I keep them on puppy formula kibble until they are at least eight weeks old but if I'm keeping a pup from the litter, I shift them off the puppy formula onto adult kibble when they are roughly ten to twelve weeks old.  I want my pups to grow slowly so that they have the best chance to develop strong joints, bones, and musculature  Overfeeding pups in terms of either quantity or overly rich foods can have an impact on adult soundness.  A recent study by Purina found that dogs who were thin their whole lives lived substantially longer than those who were overweight.  The individual pup's adult size is genetically predetermined and over feeding will just make the dog grow too fast along with being fat; in no way will it make the pup bigger (unless you count fat as part of the concept of "bigger").

Feeding in General:  As far as what brands of kibble I use, I'm not a dog food snob.  My one requirement is that the first ingredient on the list of all ingredients, should be meat.  Depending on the exact type, I want to see "chicken" rather than "chicken meal" as the first (and hence, largest component of the food) ingredient.  Likewise it should say "lamb" and not "lamb meal."  Most of the time I feed Purina Pro Plan or the newer Pro Plan Select Natural but I've also had great success with Eagle Pack and many of the newer brands.  At least here in the Northwest, these foods are available at pet stores but not in the grocery store where the lower priced kibbles are sold.  There are foods that are less expensive than Pro Plan but the ingredients are not up to my standards.  There are also a lot of kibbles that are more expensive as well.  Part of the reason I use Pro Plan is that it is a mid-priced (I pay about $27 for a thirty-seven pound bag not counting any coupons or rebate checks I have) brand and I can find it at any of roughly five pet stores within five miles of my home.  This can be important at 8:00 in the evening when it's time to feed the dogs and I discover that I'm almost out of kibble.  It has to be a food that is easy to find at times like this rather than having to drive thirty miles to the ONE store that sells   Pro Plan also offers a great support program for breeders that provides us with rebate checks to use on food, kits for new puppy owners, and an excellent quarterly magazine.  Overall, I figure they subsidize about fifteen to twenty percent of my dog food budget.

I also rotate the various formulas of kibble I feed the dogs.  For example, one bag will be lamb and rice but the next might be turkey and barley though all are Pro Plan brand.  As I've mentioned before, giving the dogs some variety in their diet seems to encourage them to have strong digestion systems that can easily cope with variations.  They can and do eat just about anything without getting any stomach upset.

Enough of my rattling on about dog foods.  The babies are sounding like a flock of angry seagulls, calling me to get busy and feed them again.

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