I Love Them!

So the puppies are 5 days old now and they are growing so fast! Elsie is our big girl, Clyde is the little guy and Olive is right in between, but it seems like she is growing very fast - almost caught up to Elsie.

Here are some before and after pictures, with them being 1 day old (if even that old - I think they were just a few hours old) on top and 5 days old on the bottom.

Clyde

Elsie

Olive

Okay, okay - so I messed up and have since switched Olive and Elsie around. (You probably wouldn't have even noticed if I hadn't said anything, huh?) I had the sneaking suspicion I had done that, but it hadn't been confirmed until I had put the pictures side by side. I put a very small dab of yellow nail polish on the back of Olive's neck so that we can tell the two girls apart. So this is where they stay - oops... LOL 

We had the owner of their daddy come over on Saturday to see them, and then Kelly's parents came over right after. We wouldn't let anyone touch them because we were pretty sure Maggie wouldn't like that. She doesn't particularly like us picking them up, but will tolerate it. Kind of like this:

We were trying to take a picture of all three, but we had to move fast and this is the best one we got. (because my camera sucks - it wont take pictures in rapid succession -  and Maggie was in the way..lol) As you can see, Maggie is making sure that they are okay. 

You can see their size difference here, from left to right is Olive, Clyde and Elsie.

Our schedule during my time off has been pretty crazy - I usually take two different four hour naps while Kelly watches them during the day and then Kelly will sleep for about 6 or 7 hours in the early morning while I watch them. It's all going to change when I have to go back to work tonight. :( It's going to be so hard! First, just to be away for that long, and second because I will probably be so tired! (good thing it's Memorial Day - my hotel is a business hotel, so we don't get many families on vacation, so we shouldn't be too busy tonight)

When they sleep, they are supposed to twitch to stimulate their muscles, and sometimes their whole bodies jump and they let out a little bark - we love it!

By next weekend, they should be opening their eyes and then during the week after that, their ears will open, and then the fun really starts! I can't wait! :)

Four New Additions!

Maggie had her puppies! She actually had six puppies, but sadly, we lost two. It would have been four girls and two boys, but two girls died. So, now we're even - Two boys and two girls!

Dogs have three stages of labor, and the first one is the longest - it went for 24 hours before she started pushing! Yesterday (Wednesday) around 5pm she started pushing and by midnight Maggie had five puppies. We thought she was done, so we let her out to go potty, I finally ate something and hung out for two hours, but while I was eating, she looked like she had some contractions. We went back to the "nursery" and an hour later, she had another girl! This last girl was the biggest of the litter, too.

We named them already... I know we probably shouldn't have, but we did anyway. :) We plan on keeping one girl and selling the rest.

Elsie

Clyde

Owen

Olive (she was the last one)

I'm sitting in an 80 degree room while the puppies nurse and Maggie sleeps, and I'm dying from the heat! (Maggie doesn't like it much, either) But, the puppies need it to be very warm, so I'll do that for them.I haven't gotten any good sleep since Tuesday during the day (from when I got home from working Monday night), so hopefully I can get some sleep soon.

We're going to take them into the vet when Kelly goes in for work this morning and I'm looking forward to leaving the house and seeing what Dr. Hunt or Dr. Andrews says. (Whoever is in)

I figure I'm a Grandma now... We'll see how this goes... :) I'm way excited to see what the next 8 weeks bring!

UPDATE: Well, we took them to the vet, and unfortunately Owen has a really bad cleft palate. Dr. Andrews taught me how to tube feed him and said that it might close the hole up a little, but it might not and then we would have to get him surgery. but to go talk to Kelly and see what we wanted to do. So, this afternoon after Kelly got home, we talked about it and he called Dr. Andrews back and got some more information. We decided it would probably be best if we put him down. It was a really hard decision, but we thought it would be for the best. Kelly's brother Dan was nice enough to take Owen in, but it was hard for him too. Kelly and I just held each other and cried for a long time. This was harder for me than the stillborn puppies. :(

A little while later, I noticed I had a voice mail from the hospital, so we listened to it, and Dr. Andrews said he looked again and thought he might be able to save him, so he was going to take him home for the night and see what he could do. But, a couple hours later, he called and said the feeding wasn't working, so he was going to put him down in the morning.

I feel especially bad for Kelly because he has to go into work at the hospital  tomorrow. I'm sorry for putting you through this roller coaster story, but it feels good to write it out.

Maggie is being an okay mom, she doesn't notice one is missing and occupies herself with cleaning her three. She's very attentive to their cries, but she is kind of careless in not paying attention to where they are and will sit or step on them. We are only leaving her with the pups under our supervision. The puppies are growing, and even after I took a three hour nap, they looked bigger, and cuter. :) I'm staying up all night watching them, since that's what I'm used to anyway, and then when Kelly gets home, I'll get some sleep. Tomorrow will be a better day. :)

I just took this picture of her feeding her puppies.

She blinked... lol

Puppymoon

I really want to update with a lot of pictures, but I just can't seem to get used to Linux! I don't have a lot of time right now to try and figure it out. I started a post and went to put some pictures on it, but I can't get the folder to open with decent enough thumbnails so I can see which picture I'm looking for.  I could, however find the last picture I took, which was Maggie's latest "pregnancy picture"

 She is 60 days through her 63 day pregnancy in this shot!

I took this about an hour before I went to work tonight - can you see how miserable the poor girl looks? She should have those puppies by the end of the week!

We did go on a "Puppymoon" this weekend. (Y'know - like couples do before the baby comes?) One last trip to the park. We bought Brodie a new frisbee and wanted to try it out. We had gone to check out Northwest Pets in Eagle and ended up buying a $13 frisbee! (Good thing Kelly's Brother, Dan went halfsies with us!) 

Maggie and I like to hang out and be lazy when we go. :)

We were in a baseball field, and whenever Brodie's frisbee would go in the dirt, he couldn't pick it up, he would scratch at it, and move it all around - at points it looked like he was doing the moonwalk! You probably had to be there, but here's some pictures...

After trying to pick it up with his mouth - he wound up looking like this - the little guy doesn't even care he has dirt in his mouth - he just wants to play! (He has been hurt so many times playing, but doesn't notice until we get home!)

I'll admit - most of the weekend was spent playing Red Dead Redemption together on the Playstation 3... but we did go see Shutter Island in the dollar theatre during the heavy rainstorm that I guess brought snow to Mtn Home! 

I'm working tonight, but I took the rest of the week off for Maggie's labor. (Did I ever mention that I work as a Night Auditor at Homewood Suites in Boise? I work 9 hour shifts, four nights a week and get Friday, Saturday and Sunday off - It's pretty nice!) I'll definitely post pictures when the puppies come! I can't wait! :)

Edit: I did put up with searching for the pictures - I guess if you want to do something enough, you'll figure out a way! LOL

Virus!

This past Friday, my laptop got a major virus! I was out shopping (two new shirts that I love - that's rare for me! :) ) and Kelly was watching some videos on Live Leak and he thinks that somehow something was downloaded through watching a video. He said the computer started beeping, so he unplugged the internet right away and told his brother, Dan, who is good at computer stuff. So he ran AVG and it found 5 infected files. He tried to get rid of them, but couldn't. Later, we tried to turn the computer back on, and these weird messages kept popping up, I took pictures of them, but obviously haven't been able to load them, but I found some screen shots online.

If you really read the bubble, it's written kind of poorly. That was the first hint that it wasn't Windows. There's also another window that pops up asking for your Windows key code. Yeah, not going to type that in...  

This is another thing that opens, when this comes up, we would just shut the laptop off. Dan did some research and tried to get it off, but ended up just reformatting my laptop. The problem with that was we can find my windows disc... So, he put Linux on it. I played around with it a little the other day, and it's different than Windows, so we're hoping that we can find the Windows disc.

About Maggie-

We took her to the vet (where Kelly works) on Friday to get an X-ray to see how many puppies she was having. Silly me, I got a little too anxious and ended up going to early. The bones weren't developed enough to really tell. They were able to eventually tell that she was going to have at least three puppies. She is due next week, and I'm only working Monday and will take the rest of the week off - 6 days off! I have the "nursery" ready, (good thing we have an extra bedroom in the house!) and have been gathering all sorts of supplies. I have done so much research, I think you can see it coming out of my ears! I'll definitely take and post pictures when they are born! Yay! :)

Maggie's Update

Just a quick update to let you know how Maggie is doing, She is getting bigger and bigger everyday and I can tell she is uncomfortable at times. Dogs are pregnant for an average of 63 days - she is due around May 26th, and I can't wait! I just want to post a before and after picture for you to see.

This was a month or so ago, she was just barely pregnant.

This was her last night, at 44 days.

I tried to recreate the picture I took last month, and I'm going to do the same for the next few weeks. :) We will get the x-ray that tells us how many puppies she will have the week of the May 17th (Happy Birthday that day, Mom!). They can tell after 50 days, but it's best to try and wait for 55 days so they can get the best picture.

I am trying to take her for a walk every day to make sure she can build up her stamina and have the strength for labor. It's pretty funny because Brodie runs ahead, stops and waits, then once we catch up, he runs again. Maggie is the complete opposite, she walks very slowly, but on Friday, we got down the street, and she just stopped. She was like, "No, I don't want to walk - it's too hard with this extra weight." I have . I tried to take a picture of her on my phone, so it's not the greatest quality.

                        

               Yes - it's still cold enough for a sweater in the morning.. goodness, it's May!

Kelly's birthday is on Monday (May 10th) and so we are celebrating this weekend, and I have Monday night off! Yay! I haven't taken an extra day off since New Years Day. (Not that my regular 3 day weekend is really tough...lol) Of course, I will take a couple days off when the puppies come, too. Wahooz, which is a "fun center" (It used to be called Boondocks) gives you a free unlimited pass on your birthday and doesn't matter how old you are! So we are going there on Monday and we will go out to eat, also. It will be fun!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mommies! (Especially mine!)  :)