super granny

Mum and babies are looking great today, don't you think?  The early stresses are behind us, I think, and now I just need to concentrate on making sure all the puppies get equal time at the milk bar and that I get some sleep.

The first night home after the birth, when Taika wasn't feeling quite so perky as in this photo, she lay down, conked completely out, and allowed her puppies to nurse.

Later that night she had some food, some chicken soup and a trip to the grass then happily returned to her brood.  She sat up in the corner and allowed them to nurse again and then she proceeded to fall asleep.  She didn't lie down, but her head kept getting heavier and heavier, dropping lower and lower.  She resisted all my attempts to coax her down until sometime after I had started to doze myself.

She finally decided to lie down, since she was obviously going to be stuck with these puppies, and so she just plunked straight down where she sat - right on top of the nursing brood.  This is not unusual - bitches often lie down on their puppies and they just squirt right out from underneath.  However, Neka was always a little more careful and at least tried not to trap anyone as she lay down.  Poor Taika, of course, wasn't completely committed to the well being of her family just yet, and the combination of exhaustion, full belly and recovery from the anaesthetic were just too much to resist any longer, so down she went.

The puppy screams brought me rocketing to my feet from my spot on the inflatable matress on the floor, even though I know that the volume and urgency of a Finnish Lapphund puppy's scream bears little resemblance to the gravity of the actual pending danger/injury/suspected slight.  And then who should appear in the doorway (of the door I thought securely closed) but granny Neka, ready for action, ready to take over, ready to rescue anyone who needed rescuing.  All that was missing was the superhero cape.  I guess she didn't pause long enough to don the cape in her haste to scale the barricades at the bottom of the stairs.

This is how that looks now (with Keskiyo checking out the squeaks he can hear coming from the puppy room).

Somehow, Neka scaled this to get to the puppies.  She has told me on a number of occasions that she's the one who does puppies around here.  She just cannot believe that she's not allowed to go to them.  Even before Taika moved into the room, Neka was trying to get in there - I guess it was the irresistible combined smells of cardboard and newspaper that did it.  As soon as the puppies arrived and started squeaking, she has been positively frantic to get in there.  Poor Neka!  She goes to work with Jay each day to lessen her distress.

So over time we have been adding things to the barricade at the bottom of the stairs until we thought that surely she couldn't get past.  Well, turns out she can get past anything if she wants to badly enough.  Mercifully, most of the time she leaves it alone.

Two days ago when Taika wasn't doing all she should have for her litter, I admit I was tempted to hand them over to granny to get on with it, but sometime in the very small hours of Tuesday morning, the maternal instinct finally kicked in and now Taika is doing a great job.  With the nursing, with the cleaning, with the wees & poos - the whole shooting match.  What a relief!

I know I promised the poo story, but that will just have to wait for another day.  Will these do intead?

Here you can see 2 Toes's namesake on her back right paw.  She also has a vertical stripe of white on her chest.

This is 2-Tone and his bright tan legs.  With his flashy white face markings and tan legs, I guess you can see why I originally thought he was black & tan.  But then I caught a glimpse of his head - you can even see it in this photo - wolf sable through and through. 

Here you can see almost all of Butterfly's butterfly chest markings.  I'll have to try to get a better one at some point.  Shouldn't be too tough as time goes on since baby Lappies seem to spend most of their time sleeping on their backs.

Grey Wolf top, random wolf sable puppy bottom.  Finally managed to get a shot where you can see the difference in the coat colours.  She also has white toes on all paws and a big white arrow on her chest, so when her colour changes I've got a backup identification plan.