Pup Date

I have been terribly remiss in my posting pupdates! Right now I should be posting pictures on the blog (like I promised almost two weeks ago) but the camera is somewhere outside in my car. Somewhere is the operative word. I had it at a show this weekend but since then have half unpacked the car only to repack it again with my office boxes in preparation for moving tomorrow. We've had at least six inches of snow today and yesterday and the garage isn't yet cleaned out enough to bring my car in.

The puppies are growing very fast and are now eating several times a day in addition to nursing. Korbel wants to nurse them standing up and they are almost tall enough on their hind legs to reach the faucets. Usually I wait until they are four weeks old to introduce food, but they seemed hungry and quite impatient with their mom, so I broke down and started feeding a mix of baby cereal, milk and yogurt. Gradually that will become mixed with puppy food over the next week. They know when the food is about to be served and are quite vocal in their demands. Food goes everywhere but they do smack down quite a bit before wandering off to find a corner to sleep in.

Over the weekend I had to travel to East Lansing for some shows, Mike worked three days and had his 25th high school class reunion Saturday night. Fortunately I am blessed to have about the best in-laws in the world who live across the street and they came over numerous times to tend to the puppies. Korbel does most of the heavy feeding and the clean up, but she does appreciate the extra support.

A winter snowstorm moved in on Sunday and I left the show and came home early. It was the right move...I found two of the puppies outside the box! Never have I had one go over the door this early. They are amazingly healthy and active pups.

The pups are just three weeks old and beginning to be aware of the world. By the end of the week we will replace the sides to make the box bigger, add the litter box and begin to enhance their world with toys, sounds and a variety of things to explore.

In the mean time, my office is moving to a new building and I am cleaning out 23 years of files while at the same time getting things ready for my replacement who will cover for me while I am on leave this winter. My advisory committee has decided I will defend my dissertation this coming March and I'll need full time to finish writing the last three chapters. Of course with all this going on, I'd much rather spend my time in the whelping box with puppies crawling all over me 24/7. Wouldn't it be nice?