Day 18

First of all I will mention that "Little Angel" now known as "Annabelle" has been sold. She will be living with a Veterinary Technician in Southern California. I could not have picked a better home for her to go to. She will have two other dogs to play with and will be able to be with her owner all day since she can go to the Vet Clinic with her. Since she is spending so much time with people now I really don't think she would do very well in a home that she would have to be alone for any amount of time. Plus I can rest easy knowing that she will be getting the best possible Veterinary care whenever she may need it.

Well I really want to start singing "I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I can see all the obstacles in my way." Yes her eyes are finally open. Normally they open between 10-12 days. So she is almost exactly one week behind other puppies. You can also see in the picture that she is just starting to get a little bit of black on her nose. My kids thought she had a nasty bugger. I had to explain that it is just her nose turning black. She still needs to be kept warmer than just room temperature. Last night it did get cold here in Utah too. With eyes just opening I did not want to have the heat lamp on above the box and the heating pad was just not keeping her warm enough so she slept with me under the covers on the floor right next to the box. I am very stiff this morning since I was so paranoid about moving in my sleep. She wanted to be cuddled right up in my neck with her face right in my ear. So I pretty much just listened to her breath and make little sucking sounds in her sleep all night. She is eating a lot more now and for some reason she seems to think that she needs it more often as well. She has been eating every three hours again for the last two days. Most times you can start trying to feed "puppy mash" to help take some of the load off of the mother at 3-4 weeks. However she is no where near ready for that. I am thinking she will not be ready for that for probably 2 more weeks. She is still gaining weight and getting stronger every day though. I am not weighing her every day anymore but every couple days. I am going to be switching over to ounces now and eventually pounds. She is currently weighing 318 grams which is 11.2 ounces. She has made a lot of progress considering she started out only weighing 3.6 ounces. She has more than tripled her birth weight. I really need to get a bigger tupperware to weigh her in.



So I guess that is it for today. I will update again in a few days.