Purple goes home

Miss Purple headed off to her new home in Vancouver, WA today. She will get to live with another pretty Dal who is black spotted and about 8 years old. Hopefully she is welcomed into their pack with open arms. Purple was the quietest pup of this litter and should be pretty easy to get along with. We'll be looking forward to getting photos and updates from Purple and Jim as she grows up.

Final Week

This is a big week, all of the 'girl homes' have made their picks except the very last person who is still trying to decide. Friday the 30th the first puppy will be going to their new home, and then most of the others will be leaving over the weekend and following week. Everyone will be greatly missed, but the pups are ready... they need their own people so they can start learning like little sponges!

BLACK DIAMOND HEAVENLY OASIS (Orange/M) - 7wks

BLACK DIAMOND DESERT SAND (Yellow/M) - 7wks

BLACK DIAMOND WALKS ON WATER (Green/F) - 7wks

BLACK DIAMOND WHEN YOU BELIEVE (Pink/F) - 7wks

BLACK DIAMOND THROUGH HEAVEN'S EYES (Blue/F) - 7wks

BLACK DIAMOND LEAP OF FAITH (Purple/F) - 7wks

BLACK DIAMOND CHARIOT OF FIRE (Red/F) - 7wks

BAER Hearing Results

It's been so busy around here I haven't had a chance to make the big announcement.... all the babies have bi-lateral hearing accept little Red girl who is a uni (deaf in one ear). Red will make a great pet for someone and they will likely never notice that she's deaf in the one ear; you sure can't tell right now, she's full of herself!

Sunshine!

Today it was finally sunny and warm enough for the babies to get to make a trip outside. For their first trip they only got their x-pen in the front yard, but we are hoping this week we will have more days were they will get to try out the big pen out back (20x20 grassed dog kennel). Today they got to be out front seeing that's where I was working on painting the outside of our house ~ I wanted to keep an eye on them. They had several visitors, as nothing attracts the neighbors like spotted babies playing in the front yard!

Orange, Liver Boy

Yellow, Liver Boy

Today is a big day, everyone will be getting their BAER hearing tests - I'll send out the results as soon as we know (keep your fingers crossed).

Purple, Liver Girl

Purple has been the smallest girl since birth, although she's within an ounce or two of the others now.

Red, Liver Girl

Red is our wild and wooly one! She has slightly longer hair then the rest of the pups (just like her daddy) and is so adorable. :)

Pink, Liver Girl

Green, Liver Girl

After playing out in the living room, green couldn't stay awake any longer - the rest of the babies were playing around her, but she was catching some Zzz's.

Blue, Liver Girl

Adrian and the babies

Once again today, it's sunny outside but only about 40 degrees outside, so the babies have to play indoors again. Adrian loves getting to sit and play with them at this stage.

Wild babies

The babies are SOOO ready to be out of their whelping box to explore the world that we couldn't resist them any longer. Normally at this stage we start putting them outside in our grass kennel, but it's been too cold for them to go outside so far. This was the next best thing, getting to run wild in our house. All the pups had a lot of fun and some even discovered you can't take corners full speed if your running on hard wood floors!

Meal time

The babies are now getting Purina Pro Chicken and Rice Puppy Chow twice a day and they are loving it. They are also looking very good now that they are getting solid food along with Jazz's milk. Jazz is still nursing them frequently but they were starting to look a little thin, so we knew it was time to supplement their diets. They'll need to be on Puppy Chow from here on out until they are 1 year old.

Chew pillow

The babies really love having chew toys now, they even play right up until they fall asleep - then dream about playing with their toys.

Growing pains

For some odd reason, all the puppies seem to go through this stage where they insist on sleeping OUTSIDE of their pool instead of inside. There is just enough room around the outside edge of the pool to squeeze between the x-pen and the pool. Soon they will be too big for this little trick, but meanwhile they spend as much time in this space as possible. Our four month old pups love this as well, it gives them a chance to lick the little pups through the fencing because they cannot get away from their wet tongues.

2nd Cousins

Hunter and Soggy are completely in love with the little puppies. Anytime they are allowed to, they are right in the puppy room, cleaning faces and even trying to play through the x-pen with the little ones. The little one's have chewed on each other's collars enough that we've had to remove them. We will put collars on them when we do their stacked photos or individual photos, but they will be living without from here on out. Thanks to their spots it's fairly easy for Adrian and I to tell who is who without their collars anyhow.

Cool clean water

Here's blue getting a drink (and washing her toes). Right now we just use a pie plate for their water, which works well seeing they like to walk in the water as much as drinking it.

Full bellies and a nice nap

The pups have been just a little bit on the thin side, so today they received their first solid meal. They dug right in as soon as we sat the bowel in their pen, as if they've been eating puppy chow for days. After their meal they were all very happy to take a nice long nap.

Once the pups woke up they had the full treatment: weighed, examined, nails clipped, hearing checked and wormed. I'm happy to report that all pups have brown eyes (no blues), all have complete eye trim, only a couple are missing a bit of nose trim, and all showed signs that they hear in both ears. This was also the first time I've got to see them in the daylight since they developed their spots ~ I was able to confirm this litter is 100% liver spotted babies. Although this is statistically not likely, it can happen (and has). We've been going back and forth on a few of them, hoping they were black spotted as I originally thought when born, but today in the daylight it was clear that they are all livers.

Visitors

The puppies have had lots of visitors lately, but today "Auntie Jordan" came for the day and got to have some puppy time while here. She helped us work on registration names for the babies and we had a fun day. The babies were all very excited to play, then suddenly they all fell asleep - just like babies, play hard, then sleep hard!

Prison Break!

Four weeks is apparently the age that Dalmatians can crawl out of a kiddy pool! Each time we walk by the whelping box lately there is a puppy on the outside of the pen. We're going to have to have to start keeping the door locked from here on out.

In this photo Ti is trying to help give Blue a boost back into the whelping box. The four pups from Izza's litter that we still have, all love Jazz's puppies. Since they were born they lick them and want to be in the whelping box with them (Although Jazz does not approve of this at all!).

Potty breaking

Tuesday night Adrian set up the 2nd stage whelping box for the babies. We actually have two kiddy pools, one with the foam noodles glued to the inside to protect the babies from getting squished by their mom and one without the noodles, that has a section cut out. By using this second whelping box we are able to attach a wire crate with a dog litter-box to the backside, giving the puppies a place to go to the bathroom outside of their sleeping space. Within 24hrs we have witnessed every puppy using it at one time or another. They are very quick to learn this when they are young and makes housebreaking much easier when they go to their new homes. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to photograph it until tonight.