Infindigo Finnish Lapphunds: 1 week weights

Sunday, 19 July 2015

1 week weights

On the puppies' one-week birthday they all had their nails cut, were weighed, handled, stroked, poked, prodded & generally made a fuss of. Ok, so apart from the nail cutting, the rest of that stuff happens every day.

The puppies are weighed every day for the first two weeks of life and then weekly thereafter. I keep an eye on them to make sure they are all getting a fair crack at the milk bar and that everyone is growing as they should. For the first week the puppies are expected to gain approximately 10% of their weight per day and roughly to have doubled their birth weight at one week. Here's how the daily weigh-in went - with tables and graphs and everything.

Novak is officially the smallest puppy I've ever had. Sybbie who was "Spot", the first-born of the Devon Nine, was only a few grams heavier at birth, although she did more than double her weight in the first week. But right from the beginning Novak was strong & healthy and he's developing as he should, so no worries there. And if you're thinking that baby size somehow implies eventual adult dog size - nope. It seems to make no difference. As he was Emmi's first ever puppy to be born, I'm sure she is grateful he was on the small side.

You might also be thinking that surely Andy must be the biggest puppy I've ever had. After all, he's head-and-shoulders bigger than the rest of his littermates (so to speak). But, again, no. Usko, who was "Dino" (as in the dinosaur) in the Tuisku litter holds the record for the biggest puppy. As he was a whopping 467 grams at birth, and 840 grams at 1 week, I'm hoping he keeps his record.

Here's what's been going on in the whelping box the last couple of days. And I'm putting it out there now that it would not surprise me a bit if one or two of the puppies had their eyes open before 10 days old. They are already hoicking themselves to their feet for an unsteady step or two. I really need to capture that on video.