Missing something...

Last night was little red-flower-girl's 4th day of life...
So it was time for tail-docking and dew-claw removal...

I get to the farm, after dropping off my laptop for a hard-drive upgrade, and am greeted by an ecstatic Shadow. I think that she really misses me as much as I miss her!

All of the instruments had to be sterilized, so while we are waiting, I made Shadow lie down and feed her puppy. Little red girl has become a voracious eater, and she wiggles around alot. She is much stronger than she was on Sunday, so we aren't really worried about her any more. She has nearly mastered the art of nursing, even travelling from source to source when one runs dry. She is a feisty little puppy, and she is up a little bit in weight which is awesome, because she wasn't really gaining there for the first few days. She is now not quite so ribby, and she has a little belly on her.

So we docked her tail, and removed her dew claws, and she hardly cried. And after that we took her back into the puppy room, and put her next to Shadow, and she immediately started to nurse again. Which is great! She was not in pain hardly at all, and it was nice that she just got on with her life immediately.

Then she went back to sleep. In the whelping box. Under the heat lamp, because her mother is too much of a "queen" to lie in there with her.

We are thinking about re-breeding Shadow to Baron, but Baron's owner is going to get him checked first, to make sure that he is producing viable sperm before we do that. We are probably going to breed her on her next heat, since this pregnancy wouldn't have taken too much out of her. And we *might* be getting some new blood in which is double line-bred back to Scarlett's dad (one of the foundation bitches of the breeder's line, and Shadow's grandma), which could potentially be AWESOME. But...we have to see first.