Allerzeit

Awwwww!

And, ultimately, ain't that the truth! We still have to be careful to not throw the baby out with the bathwater :) Picking? Picking?? You mean I have to pick one??? :laugh: I'm trying to not pick too much at the moment, until they're a little more mature, but they are all still very nice pups. I still gravitate towards the three bigger girls, but at the same time the 4 smaller ones are pretty darn yummy too! Time will tell in the coming weeks as personalities start to show and I can get a better idea of body structure as they get more stable on their feet :D

Now the fun starts, hey TeamSnag? :) Once those eyes open....

Yeah, that's White having the bed head :) I thought it was black in the second one, but it's white. Poor love - her hair is just not behaving today! Rotty's ideally should have a totally black mouth, but it's something we struggle with - we tend to have mottled black and pink mouth pigment. Puppies often start out light and then darken, and these guys are still doing that - yellow probably has the best mouth pigment at the moment :)

Some 2 week old photos :) Oh dear..... Bad ear day Bad hair day! STILL a bad hair day!

Ok, why don't my videos embed?

That's one of the best history pieces around, VM - always a great reference :) Also, a bit more just on the herding side : http://www.nationalrottweilercouncil.com/herding.html Starkehre, you have every right to burst with pride at Seven - she's the complete package! Stunning, versatile and a true ambassador for the breed :D

So I'm standing next to the chair at my desk, leaning against the desk, watching the puppies in their box. There's not much room between my desk and the box, it's right behind me, so the chair is effectively blocking the walkway. Doesn't stop Nova! What chair?? No problem - you weren't sitting there, were you?

She's hilarious! In every photo she looks like she's saying "whose idea was this exactly?" :laugh: I'm not sure if she's saying that, or more likely "What? The camera again, woman? Seriously?" :p

Yep, we're actually restricting her access at the moment - she's with them for about 30 minutes every 3 hours. Trying to give the pups tums a rest between feeds and just cut back on their food volume a tad - they're gaining great amounts, and I think their tummies having a bit of a reduced load is more important than keeping up really big weight gains :)

They are finding the milkbar very fast now - and then it's a case of "Stacks On!"

More bear cub development to come - wait until they hit 4 weeks :D I think they normally pick an identity from the get go :laugh: Brown has been the explorer since he popped out. Orange the one who tells the world off when things don't go her way. They're probably the only real personality traits I'm picking up so far, but we'll see a lot more develop over the next week to 10 days :) Lots of little half eyes this morning, and talk about fast on their feet! They've got their balance pretty well sorted now and boy, can they move!

:laugh:

Maybe these will help then - blue and brown :D

Oh bel, I'm so sorry That's just heartbreaking!

Now if I could make him scratch and sniff, you would all be under my control!! Puppy smell, mmmmmmmm!

Just you wait! They're getting eyes - 5 of them have started opening eyes today :D The really cute photos are yet to come....

Especially when they have just today reached the "I can poo on my own" stage - so rather than there only being the squirts when they're toileted, it's squirts everytime you turn around! The silver lining is that the long break off of mum (around 5 hours) seems to have given their tummies a break, and they're much better tonight - very loose still, but not watery.

You did great! And your accent is gorgeous!

More little blackberry paws, anyone? :) We've been through a bit of a torrid time lately, and still working through it. All the pups have very bad diarrhea and some are also vomiting milk after eating. Started a couple of days ago with red, and spread them them all so that by last night they were all down with it. Strangely, they are still happy, eating vigorously, sleeping comfortably, gaining good weight and doing everything that normal healthy puppies do - not obviously unwell at all. So, off to the vet today, who confirmed no fever, not dehydrated, and perfectly well apart from the dreadful digestive problems. We raised the possibility of it being "too much of a good thing", given that Nova is nothing if not a dairy cow at the moment, but the vet thinks it's more likely to be E-coli that is the culprit. All pups are now on antibiotics and Nova is as well, just in case she's passing on something in her milk. We also have a fecal sample being cultured, but it will be Monday before we get the results of that. Hopefully the pups digestive problems will start to resolve now and we can relax and start looking forward to the next stage of eyes and ears opening! Over the past few days we've been operating on very little sleep and very high stress levels, but hopefully the worst is behind us now!

Hahah! I'd never thought of it like that, but now that you mention it - they do!!

Black is big - she's quite broad across the body and strong boned, which caught my eye almost while she was still wet :) Not that the other girls are lacking either, but black is very chunky. Also favouring white at the moment, as she's very similar to black :) Black is also all stretched out in that photo, and the other two girls are more curled up, which makes her look bigger. She actually weighs the least of the three by almost 100 grams :)