They've grown so much!

They most certainly know how to eat! 

The International Candies are all proficient eaters. It might sound weird but this isn't always how things go. We've had litters where there are one or two who don't know how to get enough food from Mom to put on the desired amount of weight. The danger in not eating is called a "failure to thrive". It happens every once in a while so we have strategies and tools to put the weight on when we see this and get everyone healthy if needed. Right now it's not needed.This bunch is a whole lot of milk sacks.

There are other concerns about eating too much that we watch for as well. Heavy puppies can have "Swimmer Syndrome" and need remedial training when learning to walk. This lot likely won't have any of that to worry about.  They will all be runners by four weeks and we are already seeing a lot of pushing each other around as they learn to use their legs.

We will weigh everyone on Saturday, at one week old. We expect them all to have doubled their birth weights and continue doubling every week. until weening at four weeks. We expect to see eyes and ears opening at the end of the second week, give or take a few days. This is when pictures start being taken.  This is about the time when we take the whelping pool out of the puppy pen and they will start running around. Four weeks is when Mom can't possibly keep up, so we start putting mushy puppy chow into the mix. From that point on it is a smelly pandemonium around here and people visitors begin to handle them.

Summer is the best time for puppies. they get a lot of outdoor time and start interacting wth our pack of hounds. This is going to be fun.

Dewclaw Day

Not a Basset Foot

 Very early in every litter we remove the "Dewclaw" to make everyone's life easier. Ann does most the work. Though I am a tough, I simply have a hard time watching. My job is to hold each puppy with my eyes closed and that's enough involvment for me.

The dewclaw is a thumb on the foreleg and it can be something of a problem. It performs no function for pets and can get caught on things and injured.And it makes makes trimming the nail more difficult, so the nail is often neglected since the other nails wear down through use and this one doesn't. Bassets are huggers and wrap their fore-legs around you in different ways, the dewclaws can make this less fun. So taking them off is a good idea and best done when the babies are only a few days old.  Ann does the deed and before you can carry them back to the Whelping Pen the momentary bleeding is stopped and the puppy feels just a second or two of pain the entire time. 

Today, while I went for supplies (mostly the junk food we eat during the long hours when the babies are very young) Ann called my brother in to hold babies and I came home to a peaceful, and Dewclaw free, house. Hurray for me!

Morning for our International Candies

Click for a bigger picture

 The Candies are doing very well. Eight beautiful Basset Babies have their cute little tails on the ground. Lilly is eating well, as are the Candies.  There's enough of everything, sleep schedules are being maintained, and nobody needs to run into town for anything. Even the weather is in sync. The days are lovely and the nights are cool with a light Summer breeze. I could go on and on. All is well.

We will be posting new pictures and weights pretty soon. Right now there isn't enough change to make our first pictures different than what we see today. But things progress pretty fast and the first six weeks go by quickly.  We weigh them weekly to make sure they are thriving. If someone doesn't eat well we find a way to get them growing. The milestones for growth are pretty well known. At six weeks we do a final evaluation and can say pretty definitively what each puppy will become. They have personalities right now and characteristics show up early on. But everything else is in flux and nothing is certain until about six weeks. The only thing that doesn't change is the boy/girl question, but even that can be read wrong at first. Laffee  Taffee's first Bubblegum girl (Bubbalicious), is the best boy Basset (Bubba / Stanley) we have seen so far. . . 

We've had a few people coming out to meet our family in hopes of finding a new baby for theirs. We really encourage people to come meet the hounds prior to committing themselves to spending money on their project. It is hard to keep the scammers out of your pockets and the most certain way to protect everyone involved is to do things old school. Visit your breeder, read the contract, and trust your gut. We will certainly earn your trust and deliver on the promises we make.

One family has chosen a puppy (not out of the ordinary to have early adopters). Pending my sending them a deposit invoice Toblerone will no longer be available. We don't encourage such quick decisions but we do things on a first come and first served basis and deposits are never returned if minds change. Take your time deciding as best you can, that is the best way. If you have preferences as to who or how many of what, we will try to accomodate your desires if it is possible. 

So far this entire year has gone along as if we planned it. This is strange because we've been doing this for twenty years and so far nothing has gone along as if we planned anything. Who and when we paired Lilly and Rocky was planned years ago. The pregnancy went very well and Lilly was very happy right up until the final act played out. The babies took their sweet time finding a way into the world, but we had everything in place to handle a seige of any length. In truth, we made it look easy this time. I suppose experience counts after all, but it might be that we didn't have crops to plant so time was on our side. However occurring, even the food we did plant went easier and is doing better. So life is better than good here and even the fruit tress are cooperating. Would that the length of our long lives had always gone so smoothly during the difficult bits.