Happy Thanksgiving! Obie x Mona Pups are One Week Old Today.

Today we celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada and we have so much to be thankful for.  We are extremely grateful for our good health and happiness and that of our friends and family (including the four legged ones) and we are extra thankful for our beautiful litter of Barbet pups that were born last Sunday.

Mona and her puppies continue to do very well.  The pups are in the neo-natal period of their development.  They are extremely vulnerable in these early days since they cannot regulate their own body temperature and they need help eliminating.  The puppies spend an enormous amount of time sleeping and nursing.  They are getting better and better at moving around the whelping box but are not yet up on all fours.  Their eyes and ears are still closed.  The little noises that they make are ever so endearing and Mona is very attentive to their needs.  

We have started the Bio Sensor program of early neurological stimulation exercises which began on day three and will continue until day 16.  It's a series of 5 exercises.  We have also introduced the puppies to novel scents. You can read more about how we do these exercises in one of our past blog posts  Early Neurological Stimulation & Early Scent Stimulation 

Of course in addition to these exercises the puppies are weighed daily, receive regular nail trims and lots of gentle handling.  They are terrible time wasters and I find myself crawling right into the whelping box along side Mona and her pups for lots of snuggles and loving.