Poppy's Puppies - 1 week old

Soooooo as you might have guessed a certain someone was allowed to go visit Poppy's puppies the other ay (Wednesday actually). I had to scrub, gown, glove, and foot booty up before I was allowed to even look at them. Well I was allowed to look at them I just wasn't allowed to touch or breathe on them.. well I could breathe I guess, if I really wanted to...

Its not very much fun petting a dog through a glove but oh well :)

You may be wondering why I was required to do all this - I mean, puppies are born everyday and their people don't put themselves in a plastic bubble so they can hold them, and sniff their breath.. and rub their tummies to make them potty. Yes I did that, I considered it a privilege thank you very much.

I can't even begin to tell you how cute I felt in these lol. I think I might steal a pair and wear them to the mall.

Well the reason for all this is prevention - see Poppy tested negative for the Doggy Herpes Titer immune thingy... basically she doesn't have the antibodies to fight it so she had not antibodies to pass onto her puppies. So what does all this mean? This means that anyone with a dog or who has come in contact with a dog has/had the possibilities of picking up the Doggy Herpes virus and if they then come into contact with Poppy or her puppies the whole litter could possibly die within 24 hours... not a good thing to happen. This is the process that anyone wanting to meet the puppies or Poppy has to go through for at least the first three weeks of puppy life. Once they are about 3 weeks they will be able to fight off the virus themselves but in the meantime - we get saran wrapped. We also had to make sure we were sterile for the 3 weeks preceding labor if we wanted to interact with Poppy, that is just the window.

Well hello mr. blue buffalo, this boy is the biggest one of the bunch... regardless though point of this picture was to show you the puppies sealed ears and to point out that their eyes are still sealed. I like his tiny ear.

Some might disagree with all of this but these are the precautions GDTX is taking in order to ensure their pups get the best care possible - I'm fine with it though because if that is what I have to do to hold them and help out its worth it ;)

Now on to our actual visit...

The pee party:

Come on Poppy, we gotta work together doing this! 

Above is where I had the privilege of helping each puppy expel all their urine, I had Poppy help me too of course. See, when puppies are new they don't know how to do this, usually the mom will help to stimulate this by licking their "special spots" which will make them expel their urine. Poppy however needs a bit of help (new mom and all) so we went through each puppy and she happily assisted me in the process, or is it the other way around? Who knows.. point is Teamwork! Well, Safety first then teamwork - wear shoes around the house! (Anybody can tell me the movie that quote is from I'll give you a star sticker - **Darrell can't play cause I know he knows)

Trying to do a photo shoot:

Puppy Pile! 

Look at his little nails!! 

We did an individual puppy photo shoot with all of them but I haven't gotten all those in order just yet so maybe I'll show those in a different post...



The Collar Changing Party:

Well, I don't know if you can tell from the other pictures but their paper collars were getting torn up and too tight, so we got to replace them!

All their first little puppy collars 

New collars - we made one for me too :)

Sorry no pictures of the actual process.. don't know what I was doing... ? But here is the finished product :)

All their new little collars - they look so official now :)

Yay puppies!

Also, there is a naming contest going on if you would like to take part in naming of the puppies - they have to be A letter names and if you're my friend then they have to be Texas related lol...

Here are the ones I like if you don't have any suggestions but just want to help my names win :)

Alice - city in Texas where Darrell went to high school :)
Alamo - Please tell me I don't need to explain that one...
Abilene and Amarillo - other cities in Texas
Aggie - for Texas A & M University (even if you like UT better vote for it because B litter we can add Bevo! (all non Texaners that is the Longhorn's mascot name))
Austin - for the UT fans who are just really upset about Aggie :)
Andi - this one isn't a Texas name but its for Dr. Anderson who made a generous donation at the GDTx luncheon the other day (a blog post about that will come soon).

Here is the link if you would like to participate - Click Me!!!