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Nemo's Story
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Wherein we take in one extra dog and wind up with many more.
We brought Nemo home on November 26th, 2006. She belonged to another family and I had only spent time with her on 11/11, when we took her to get her shots. She's a 44 pound Shepherd Mix and as sweet as can be.
The idea was shots first, wait 2-3 weeks and then spay.
We were getting Nemo and Bella used to each other and things were going fine. On Sunday, December 3rd, Nemo started to act sick and was whimpering and pacing throughout the night, so Monday morning, we took her straight to the vet.
The vet informed us that Nemo was pregnant and we would have to make a decision about spaying her right away. We took her home and as we were getting ready to go to a meeting, we were talking about what we wanted to do. Bill's chair squeeked in a strange way. Or he was fooling me by playing kitty sounds on his computer. He couldn't get his chair to squeek like that strange squeek we heard, no matter how he tried.
He looked down under his desk, where Nemo was hanging out, and there was a puppy! A puppy? What do you mean a puppy?!? The vet thought she had a couple weeks to go!
12/04/06
What do we do now!?! We needed a whelping box! Bill ran to the basement and brought up the giant crate, which we lined with cardboard and towels. We led Nemo into the box and she was ok with our bringing the two puppies over to her.
Within two hours, Nemo had given birth to six puppies!
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12/05/06
Unfortunately, one of the puppies died today.
I think she had some neurological problems, but I'm sorry that she didn't make it.
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12/06/06
On Day 3, the puppies lost their umbilical cords!
We started doing Bio Sensor or Super Puppy program.
The U.S. Military developed a program in the 1970ís called "Bio Sensor." (Known and is often referred to as the "Super Dog" Program.) The program was developed to improve the performance of dogs used for military purposes.
Based on years of research, the military learned that early neurological stimulation exercises could have important and lasting effects. Their studies confirmed that there are specific time periods early in life when neurological stimulation has optimum results. The first period involves a window of time that begins at the third day of life and lasts until the sixteenth day. It is believed that because this interval of time is a period of rapid neurological growth and development, and therefore is of great importance to the individual.
Five benefits have been observed in canines that were exposed to the Bio Sensor stimulation exercises.
The benefits noted were:
- Improved cardio vascular performance (heart rate)
- Stronger heart beats
- Stronger adrenal glands
- More tolerance to stress
- Greater resistance to disease
So, what the heck - we'll give the pups a "boost."
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12/07/06
4 day old puppies have puppy dreams!
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12/08/06
The puppies are beginning to move their tails, are trying to walk and can eliminate without Mom's help. They are beginning to develop personalities.
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12/09/06
The pups are eating well (thanks, mom) and growing fast. Tails can wag and puppies make Pac-man noises.
The image today is the "runt" boy and the "giant" girl. He is not siignificantly smaller than the other puppies, but she is significantly bigger!
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12/10/06
Puppies are eight days old!
Somebody is occasionally attempting to bark! Pups are growing. They spend 90% of their time sleeping. Growing is tiring business.
On the right, Nemo models a favorite fashion item, the puppy hat.
Below is the ever popular drunken puppy.
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12/13/06
This is (yet) another picture of Giant Girl. She remains pretty still after she eats! I hoped to show her lips in this image, because along with her growing whiskers, her lips are soft and wrinkled.
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I also got a picture of "Dancer," the other boy puppy. He and "Comet" or Diamondback (the runt) are the two boys.
We planned to name the puppies after Santa's reindeer. Dancer seemed like a natural, because the gentleman is wearing a tie.
He also has some beautiful grey/brown coloration that I have been unable to capture.
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12/16/06
For the last 5-6 years, I have been involved with online newsgroups about dogs. The Mac Daddy is rec.pets.dogs.behavior. I statred there, because when I was dating my Dear Husband, he had three dogs. And when we all moved in together, I adjusted to life with him far more easily than with the troika.
When Nemo began to have her puppies, three things happened. I sent DH to get the giant crate, cardboard and towels, I called the vet and I got online. There were several posters there who helped hold our hands in a cyber kind of way.
One of the poster, a quilter named Julia, sent us strips of fabric to use as identifiers for the puppies. Their first collars. In all of the excitement of putting the "ribbons" on the puppies, I managed to put the same ribbon on two puppies. So much for organization and identification!
The image on the far right shows Diamondback and Giant Girl with one of the No-Name Girls. Diamondback is still small, but he's gaining!
  
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12/17/06
Day 13!
Eyes and ears are still not open!
Big thing today was that most of the puppies had most of their nails trimmed. I can see that I have a lot of work to do with getting puppies ready for grooming.
I wouldn't expect that such little puppies could be such masters of evasion. They can wiggle and jerk every body part they have to avoid being held gently for a trim. But it was a mostly successful effort, even though I'm concerned about cutting too much.
I have a new picture of one of the no-name girls with a CD case next to her to show her size. She's big! They're all big!
Sharon puppy sat so we could go to my brother and SIL vow renewal ceremony and we forgot to warn her about rubbing puppy bellies when you hold puppies in your arms. This action stimulates puppy elimination. Good thing she was wearing her special puppy sitting sweats!
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12/18/06
The puppies are two weeks old today. It's hard to believe!
Eyes and ears are still not open, but we do have some "Popeye" action and open eyes are not far away.
The pups are really getting their puppy fuzz, which is a terrible point as far as I'm concerned. Fuzzy, blue-eyed puppies are hard to resist.
Today's picture is grainy, but I wanted to have another puppy suckling picture to show how much they've grown. They are HUGE!
They really are cute.
 
12/20/06
The puppies are really big and their coats are getting more color and more fluff. I know, I have to work on getting a fluffier shot, but this morning they were spelling out a message to the mothership when I came back into the office after a break.
Nemo is still an amazing mom and last night something was bothering her. Maybe it was the fact that Bill was out at a party for the evening and she was nervous when he came back in (for unknown reasons). He came into the office and I took Nemo outside, fed her a night meal, and back outside again. When she came in after food and potty, she went flying up the stairs like she was on fire and (carefully) leapt into the whelping box like SUPER MOM!
She carefully counted her pups and gathered them close.
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12/22/06
Puppies had a big development spurt yesterday. Their ears flopped down and they can move them, they seem to have some control over their little tails, they have become aware of each other, their eyes are really open, and they are really trying to walk.
Walking on those short little legs with those ginormous bodies isn't easy. A couple of the puppies have discovered that if they climb over each other and stretch up, they can get their little claws into the top of the cardboard barrier at the door of the giant crate. We're grateful that they can't pull themselves up and over the barrier yet.
We don't think Giant Girl is the largest anymore, and we're changing her name to Gigi.
The puppies' heads are getting bigger and more coloration is coming in. I have another picture of Comet (or Comma) today because he's showing some interesting diamond shapes around his eyes.
We noticed that if we scratch behind ears, little puppy legs pump!
There may be more photos later and more to blog, because it seems like every day there's a huge leap in development. It's an amazing journey watching these little pups grow.
They are also making an amazing variety of noises - per-barking, Chewbacca cooing noises, pre-howling, monkey noises, etc. And they are VERY noisy.
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