Puppy Updates – and a website update, too

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Well, I finally feel like I can stay out of bed for three hours without falling over, so it’s time for a Bunny puppies update.

As I mentioned before, this litter has been gloriously, wonderfully stress free. After an initial 48 hours spent studiously ignoring her puppies, Bunny clued in to what motherhood is all about, and hasn’t let up since.

There have been a few annoying moments (her tendency to bury herself and the kids under the blankets in the whelping box, for one), but over all she’s done so much more than I could ever hope for from a first time mom.

The pups themselves have been a striking change from the troubles I faced in Sailor’s last litter. Consider their weight development, for starters. At age one week, Delilah and her little brother weighed 15 ounces and 13.1 ounces respectively.

Bunny’s pups, on the other hand, weighed in at –

Brindle Boy – 1 lb 1.1 ounces

White Boy – 1 lb 1.1 ounces

White Girl – 1 lb 1.8 ounces

That’s a huge difference in weight, for such tiny puppies. It helps, of course, that Bunny has tons of milk. It also helps that no one is struggling to breathe. I wish I could have said the same for the last litter.

Besides weight, these pups just feel the way that healthy puppies should. That’s something that every breeder learns – how healthy puppies should feel ‘in the hand’. There’s a sense of dense, packed puppy flesh, firm and rounded and warm to the touch. They should feel heavy for their compact size, and their skin might have chubby rolls, but it should also ‘fit’ the pups. I can’t really put it into words, but anyone out there who’s ever had a litter will probably know what I mean.

Loads of new photos over on Flickr, and I’ll try to shoot some video tonight. My favorite from this set is pictured above.

Website Overhaul

French Bulldog Z – http://www.frenchbulldogz.org – has just undergone a complete site re-design and overhaul.

I’ve added tons of new sections, updated the sections on purchasing a Frenchie, Frenchie adoption and health concerns, and I’ve changed the links area to make all links require pre approval. Please visit us and take a look – I welcome your feedback and bug reports.

Most importantly, if you have an old link to frenchbulldogz.COM on your website, please please update it to our new url –

http://www.frenchbulldogz.org

Bunny Puppies on Day Four

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I love everything about puppies (except for the work, of course).

White Boy and White GirlI love watching them twitch in their sleep. I love watching them roll over, and curl themselves up like little snails. I love watching them nurse in their sleep, little mouths curving to accommodate the nipples they are dreaming of. I love watching the pigment fill in on their noses, one tiny freckle at a time. I love how they sometimes squeak in their sleep, and I love wondering what such tiny puppies could have to dream about.

I love photographing them, too. They change so rapidly at this stage of life that it can sometimes be invisible to our eyes, simply because we see them so often. Photos allow me to look back and watch their progress, charting their changes, seeing their heads and bodies develop.

Today’s new photo set is here – http://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchbulldogs/sets/72157602968873697/

Bunny with her PuppiesBunny has turned into such a wonderful mother that it’s allowed me the luxury to simply sit back and watch the pups as they grow, rather than fretting over them constantly. She went from having no interest in her puppies at all, to barely tolerating my handling them.

If I lift them out of the box, which I do several times daily to check them and to accustom them to being handled , she whines and paws at me until I’ve put them back. She then sniffs and cleans them thoroughly, and curves herself around their bodies until they can hardly be seen. Her very posture epitomizes protective motherhood. It’s become a joy to watch her as she bonds with her pups.

Let the puppy photo onslaught begin…And Bunny Finally GETS it!!

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An Update: Hallelujah! Bunny finally realized that “these are puppies, and puppies are for licking!”. And lick them she has, until I had to tuck them back in the whelping box before they drowned. So, yippee for Bunny, and for mother nature!!

You are forewarned – I tend to post a lot of puppy photos. Like, daily sets of photos. I suppose it makes for boring blogging, but they change so rapidly at this age, and I never seem to run out of cute poses I catch them in, or expressions I just have to get on film (well, not film exactly – hard drive?).

So, lots of photos taken today already up on flickr –

http://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchbulldogs/sets/72157602915821709/

And here’s a sample – this is the little white girl.

A puppy update…

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Bunny’s pups are blessedly, gloriously vigorous – fat and happy, and already fighting with each other over prime nipple real estate. This is a good thing, because Bunny has decided she would much rather be a pretty pretty princess than a mommy, and is studiously ignoring them, in the hopes this has all been a bad dream. She’s nursing them, or rather she’s allowing me to put them on her to nurse, but other than that she’s not shown one iota of interest in them. Not a lick, not a sniff, nada. This is bad news for me, as it means I’ll be spending the foreseeable future doing the stuff that moms are supposed to do – wiping their bottoms to ensure they’re urinating and defecating, gently wiping down their faces, cleaning poop stains off their bodies, and pushing them back into puppy piles if they stray into the other end of the whelping box.  What fun.

More after the break.

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Bunny Puppies!

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Bunny puppies were born this morning – three pups, a white boy, a white girl and a very stripey brindle boy.

Pix are on flickr –
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchbulldogs/sets/72157602862453747/

And one sample below. I’ll write a more thorough update when I’m not so tired….

Bunny puppies