One week old

As is the way of these things we dont see much change in the puppies as yet. They can navigate around the whelping box very fast indeed when they feel their mother jump in, they all gained 4 or 5 ounces in their first week and are constantly either eating or sleeping. We are fascinated by the toffee coloured puppies which were nicknamed the bandits at first as they had eye masks just like racoons. At the end of a week these have faded considerably to eye patches and the ginger hairs are gaining on the darker shaded ones. If these were wolfhounds you would call them sables as there is a particular coat pattern in the breed which means you get fantastic pigment but also a darker scattering of hairs in the tails and on the chests of otherwise red or wheaten dogs. I'll know whether these little people are going to end up fantastically rich coloured dark eyed red fauves when they are around 10 weeks old.

Clementine doing very well on xmas feast meats on top of her normal food.We have discovered that a bowl of lactol milk last thing at night knocks her out for eight hours and seems to have the same effect on the babies. They themselves will graduate onto this by the time they are weaned, to which weetabix will be added.