Week 2 - 5/18/2014

Week 2 is the first real fun week with the puppies. They graduate from baby seals that sleep all the time to little puppies with their eyes open and romping around! We have 7 little drunk puppies stumbling around the whelping box and attempting to play and 'chew' on each other and their toys. They are getting more vocal (it's still adorable when a little wobbly pup is barking and doesn't know where the noise came from them) and are able to see and hear better. They are starting to acknowledge us, especially when we get down to puppy level, so that makes both Jon and I feel extra warm and fuzzy inside when they see us and come over to us for some loving. :) When they are awake (that whole 10 minutes before they crash again), Jon and I love to run over to the box and get down to their level. They come over to us, licking our arms, hands, and face while snuggling up to us or staring us into our eyes... It truly makes all this puppy raising worth it.

Simba had an adventure last night. About 2:30am a puppy crying woke me up from my deep slumber (I sleep with a noise maker and earplugs so that's hard to do) and I just thought that Kyra was in there getting them all riled up and wanting to eat. A few minutes later after I gained full consciousness, I realized it was only one puppy's cry. It was sounding pretty urgent, so my mama instinct kicked in and I jumped out of bed to go check it out.

Simba, the little bugger, who is still wobbly with walking, had somehow got himself up and over the whelping box wall and was sitting outside of it! Of course when he accomplished his feat he was not enjoying being outside of his familiar spot and thus was crying for return. Kyra was a good mom sitting next to him when I arrived on the scene, but she didn't know what he wanted besides milk or poop cleanup so she was a tad confused at his distress. I scooped Simba up in my arms and he instantly quieted knowing that grandma was here to save the day. In the dark, his siblings didn't know it was me and 3 of them started barking and growling at me! Once I started speaking and petting them, they realized it was just me, but man it was cute to see little puppies trying to scare away a bad guy. :) Whelping box gate is now up for the night. I would've thought that Kovu would have been the first to escape since he seems to be our little explorer, but Simba was the one!

It is so much fun to see the pups personalities start to show. Zazu and Simba seem to be our cuddlers right now, the first to come up and sit next to us for some love. Kiara is our mellow gal, usually avoiding the other puppies' ruckus. Shenzi and Rafiki are truly sweeties. Kovu is our adventurer. Askari our "little dog with a big attitude" likes to bark the most.

As they grow and learn new things their personalities will continute to develop. It's cute seeing baby puppies doing big dog things like scratching, wagging their tails when they see us, bark and growl, backup, sit and poop on their own (it's funny how a puppy can learn to squat to poop before fully learning how to walk ore really even stand on that stably). :)

Later this week we'll feed the puppies some puppy food mush and goat's milk so they can start being weaned from mom (great timing now that little teeth are starting to show!). They'll be introduce to different noises to get them to startle and then realize that nothing bad happens from the noise. They will get exposed to more surfaces, especially when they are out eating, and I'm sure Spyro will start to join them during meal time. We'll just keep on socializing them and having visitors come and love on them. Keep tuning into our Puppy Cam since you'll start to see more action now than just sleeping. ;)

The Lion King litter (as always in order of appearance):