October 31st - Day 16

The puppies are growing so fast! We have been weighing them daily, and they each doubled their weight sometime between day 12 and day 14. Here are the weights for today:

Rastus (yellow with brown collar): 148.1 g
Shadow (black with gray collar): 116 g
M.J (yellow with purple collar): 135.1 g
Brownie (chocolate with green collar): 116.1 g
Mocha (chocolate with red collar): 114.2 g
Snuggler (chocolate with black collar): 106.9
Shorty (black with no collar): 80.8
Duke (yellow with no collar): 122.1
Lady (yellow with blue collar): 128.3

In other news, Shorty now has his name, since we're keeping him. He is Ezekiel Malcolm. Ezekiel for something from the Bible, and Malcolm after my favorite character in my favorite book. "Zeke" for short. He appears to be a very affectionate little guy. All of the dogs in this litter have great qualities. We hope the owners agree once they're trained.

Snuggler and Shadow

Mocha

Rastus

Duke

Napping!

October 24th - Day 9!

I have to say that piles of puppies is about the most adorable thing ever!

The cardboard box is their temporary home when the whelping box is being cleaned.

Day 4 - Weighing starts

After the sad event of losing a puppy, more research was done, and the conclusion was reached that the puppies need to be weighed daily, just to make sure they are growing, so today we started. It is a challenge to distinguish some of the puppies. The firstborn, who most resembles his sire, Benelli, is easy to distinguish, as he is the largest. The 2 black males are easy to identify, as "Shadow" (that's his puppy name - his owners can pick a name for him when he comes home) is bigger and has a bit longer body, similar to Cocoa's sire, Commander Cody. The other black, "Shorty" (again - his puppy name) is quite a bit smaller, much like Cocoa's mother, Sparky. The girls are obvious, and since there is only one chocolate and one yellow, it would be hard to confuse them. However - the other two yellow males are less easy to separate. The main difference between those two is that the one that we christened "Wiggler" is quite a bit more active than any of the others. He has the personality that is most like Cocoa. The two chocolate males are the most difficult to tell apart. They both have calm personalities like their sire, and there is only a few grams difference in weight. Both will probably be about Cocoa's size when full-grown, but have builds more like Benelli.

Here are the starting weights, in birth order, with associated puppy names:

Yellow male - "Big Guy" (also sometimes referred to as "Benelli, Jr"): 61 g
Black male - "Shadow": 52.5 g
Yellow male - "Wiggler" 61 g
Chocolate male - "Brownie" 49.6 g
Chocolate female - "Mocha" 54 g
Chocolate male - "Snuggler" 44.5 g
Black male - "Shorty" 36.9 g
Yellow male - "Duke" 54 g
Yellow female - "Lady" 52.2 g

Surprise!

After a good nights sleep, Norm went downstairs to take care of Cocoa and the puppies. Then back upstairs to report that all was well and headed off to work. Then, Donna goes downstairs. Whaa?????? Counting puppies: 1,2,3 Chocolates - 1,2 Blacks - 1,2,3,4,5 Yellows!!! And surprise of surprises - that last yellow male made his appearance after we went to bed last night. He looked a bit thin, but Cocoa had taken care of him, and he was nursing, so we were happily surprised.

Delivery!

At 6:00 am on October 15, 2017 Norm left Cocoa in the kitchen to take care of stuff.  At about 6:30 in the morning, Norm returned to the kitchen to discover that Cocoa had company, in the form of a new puppy - a yellow male who is the spitting image of Benelli. We don't know exactly what time he was born, but by the time Norm walked into the kitchen, Cocoa already had him cleaned up. We quickly moved Cocoa from the kitchen to the whelping box that had been prepared for her and her puppies. At 6:52 am, a second puppy was born. It was black, but sadly, it was stillborn. At 7:36 am puppy number three made his appearance. This was another black, and it was a male. Just 4 minutes later, at 7:40 am puppy #4 came zipping into the world. This little guy earned the puppy name of "Wiggler", and he is the most active of the bunch. At first he was so dark, we thought he was a chocolate, but after he was cleaned up it became apparent that it was another yellow male. At 8:39 am the first chocolate showed up - another male! Four live births and four boys! At 9:14 am our first girl was born - and this one was a chocolate! At 10:50 am another chocolate boy arrived. Then at 11:37 another much smaller black male put in an appearance. We started to think that things were slowing down and maybe Cocoa was done, but at 12:35 pm another yellow male was born. This was the ninth puppy, and given that this was Cocoa's first (and probably only) litter, it was reasonable to think that the job was done. We were busy taking care of Cocoa - making sure she had water and food when she needed it and that she was nursing the puppies. Most of the information we had read indicated that there could be as much as 2 to 4 hours between puppies, so as 3:00 pm rolled around, we expected that all of the puppies were born. Seven minutes later, we were proved wrong when puppy number 10 arrived. This one was a yellow, and just the second female of the bunch. Again, we were taking care of Cocoa; making sure she had food and water, made a trip outside to take care of business, and as we rolled past the 7:00 pm, we thought the job was done. In exhaustion, we headed upstairs to call it a night, and leave Cocoa to take care of her puppies.

Cocoa and her babies