And then there were THREE

Tula wonders "Where the heck did HE come from?"

Poor Tula. She goes to sleep at the vet clinic, she wakes up with two puppies. She comes home, has a nap – and wakes up with one more. If this keeps up, she’ll be afraid to ever go to sleep again.

Tula is doing some surrogate mothering – Paula’s singleton French Bulldog puppy (out of Elliott, which makes him sort of our Grandpuppy by proxy) has been having a hard time of it. His mom, Lucy, has no milk at all, and they’ve been getting up every three hours to bottle feed him. Worst of all, he’s not been doing well on the bottle. Since Tula loves her puppies, and has enough milk to open her own dairy bar, I suggested we tuck him in with Tula’s kids.

He arrived this afternoon, wrapped in a pink blanket and looking terribly small and thin. He’s almost two a half days older than the boys, but weighs just 209 grams to their 289 and 297 gram weights (that’s the fawn boy, who is something of a chow hound). Since he got here, I’m not sure he’s once let go of the nipple. Maybe he’s afraid that if does, it will either disappear, or dry up. Unlike Tula’s boys, who are still nameless for now, the little pied guy is named “Striker” (although I might lobby to have it changed to ‘Sucker’).

Tula had an initial moment or two of “I’m pretty that this is not mine” type hesitancy, but since he’s now covered in her milk and has been sleeping nuzzled up against her boys, she’s just fine with it. I’m going with the theory that she just thinks maybe she miscounted them.

Photos here, or on Flickr. Video later on, if I get the chance.