Jolly's 2018 Puppies - 1 Week Old

One week has passed, and the puppies are growing and changing!  Their first week of life is full of eating, sleeping, and being weighed by those pesky creatures that pluck them away from their safe, cozy nest of buddies.  Below are individual pictures of the puppies.  (Click on their pictures to go to their individual pages.)

The puppies' first week of life is spent snuggling with Mama and their siblings.  The puppies cannot see, hear, or walk at this age.  We handle them to weigh them, but we don't allow our children to hold or play with them yet. 

​When we wake the puppies to weigh them, they typically "swim" to find nourishment and warmth.  Their swimming motion is sign of health, but it is a bit frustrating when trying to photograph them.  They may look peaceful in their photos, but it's only because they settled down to sleep after swimming all over the blanket.  Whenever my hand is present, the puppy wouldn't stop searching for friends and food.  Below is Ryder determined to find a meal.

Speaking of Ryder, you may have noticed that he's the only puppy with his eyes open.  He developed an eye infection.  We took him to the vet to have his eyes flushed, and he is on antibiotics, which have cleared up the infection.  His eyes opened a bit ahead of his siblings likely due to having them cleaned out.  Since the infection was caught and treated early, we have hope that his eyes will be just fine, but only time will tell.

At this age, it is entertaining to simply watch the puppies sleep.  I always have to include sleepy pictures - they sleep in the strangest positions.  They also twitch in their sleep, which is a sign of good health.

As I mentioned, we weigh the puppies every day, several times a day at this stage.  Weight gain is one of the best indicators of health.  Puppies should double their birth weight at 7-10 days.  All our puppies are on track to do just that.  The largest of the crew is Boaz at 15 ounces today, and the smallest is Ryder at 9 ounces.  Below, Rocky is getting weighed this afternoon.

Thanks so much for stopping by and reading about our puppies!  5 of these precious little ones have homes already.  We have one boy and one girl still available from this litter.  As you may have read in my post on Miracle's Story, this is Jolly's last litter.  We feel blessed to have these little puppies to raise and spoil for a few more weeks.