River Bear Newfoundlands’ Dog Pack saved the neighborhood. The pups were asleep, the adult dogs were watching Melanie eating lunch. Very serious. All of a sudden, the radio had a burst of static, then it was fine. The dogs looked at the radio, looked at Melanie’s soup and then kept watching Melanie’s soup. About two minutes later, they all start rushing outside and barking, and coming in and barking, and going outside and barking and coming in and barking. Melanie looked out the windows. Nothing. Thinking that this might a ruse to finish her soup she went back to the table. But the dogs were not interested. Mattie had sent out a call and they were answering. So Melanie went outside.
Mattie and the other dogs were barking from our fence looking down the street where there was a column of smoke coming up right next to an electrical pole. Her neighbor across the street came out of her house saying she had called the electric company. Melanie asked if she had called 911. Well, she hadn’t because she saw the surge hit the pole, but had gone in to call and didn’t realize the sparks had lit the brush on fire. Our neighbor called 911.
It’s very dry right now. There had been a 200 acre fire two towns over a few days earlier. The fire department arrived in goodly time and put out the fire. The dogs got to bark at the fire trucks, the electrical trucks and the next day the phone trucks. They had a good time. We, of course, lost our phone! It’s now back.

We had to take our decorative fence in front down. The snow killed it. It was some kind of really good wood, but we don’t think all of it was. The dogs got to bark at the front end loader that was pulling up the posts. Then yesterday they got to bark at our neighbor (with the runaway horses) as he moved more pea stones into our stockade. Melanie thinks that we should just face facts, they are pee stones.

Dan and Zoë’s son and grandson, Daniel and Brendan were down from Maine for part of the week. Hope they send us some pictures of Brendan and the pups. Hint. They raked and fixed our mailbox. The mailbox had gotten plowed. Thanks!

So let’s get to pictures. First is a picture of Ros’s rear end.

Umm. Morning walk/runs have started again.
They sure love the woods.
The woods love to get attached to them.



Rose turns out to be a delight with the puppies.
She loves them and they just follow her everywhere.
In fact, Franklin will now play with the pups, they have now stopped trying to nurse.
Patsy’s enjoying play time too.
This morning Melanie was working at the computer when a pup hightailed it into the living room and hid under the sofa. Patsy came running in, stuck her nose under the sofa and barked.
The pup started telling her off!



If you get on the floor you are fair game.



This is actually from a week ago. It was on a different camera so didn’t get in the log. Two things here.
Notice the bungee cord holding down the handle for the pellet stove. Yes, it’s needed.
Also, from this picture to this week’s, you will notice the pups have grown legs!



Here’s Miss Purple with a stick.



Pups in motion.
They’ve gotten much better at running.



And fighting.



They are very brave now.
They will go exploring.
The left over pea stone pile is fascinating.





They like to travel in a pack.



But a tail can be just too tempting to bite.



Which can start a five pup wresting match.



Fierce Creatures!



Who Us?

This next part if hilarious. In fact, you won’t see the best part because Melanie was laughing so hard she couldn’t use the camera.

It’s like those commercials:

Ball: $2.99
Give a ball to puppies: Priceless



Mr. Blue starts.



Miss Purple thinks that’s pretty cool.



Whoops, not as easy as it looks.



They start over.



The chase is on!



What you didn’t see, because Melanie lost it, laughing, was the pups chased the ball right to the fence, where they bounced off the ball, getting thrown back. Here they are trying to figure out what happened.



And being Newfoundlands,



they decide to eat the grass on the other side of the fence!

We gave a ball to Mattie. She loves balls. She tamed it and rode on it and was teaching Rose to love it. Rose loved it too much and popped it. Rose then carried the limp plastic ball around in the house for some time.

Remember when we put up Andrea’s (Rob’s Significant Other) picture of Patsy and Rose? Well, the painting won the Community Favorite Award!

We didn’t know the painting was that big!

Congratulations!

Here’s a link to her site:

Andrea

They love to get under things.
Here’s Miss Orange asleep under a stool.

The whelping box is getting smaller and smaller.
They aren’t in their whelping box unless we are trying to clean and don’t want help, or at night.



They can squirm over this door now, so the two level door has been put in.



Look at that Patsy grinning.
She loves feeding them in the middle of the living room.
There’s now room to spread out. She needs it when all seven are nursing.



Could only fit five pups nursing in this picture.



Play time is getting longer.
Naps are getting shorter.
We had to puppy proof the room.
Cords out of the way and such. That didn’t stop Miss Red from finding Miss Orange’s yarn and chewing.



We think this is Miss Orange playing with the tennis ball.



Dan said he was going in for a nap.
We found him playing with puppies instead.



This is NOT Patsy with the puppy Mr. Blue (on left, on Mac’s tail).
This is Mac, the pups’ dad!
He’s been puppy sitting. He really likes them, unlike Franklin, their half-brother who dances away from them.

We don’t know what it is about Mac’s tail but here’s another pup.




Not sure which puppy this is.



Miss Red after getting washed by mom.



Getting hugged by a big mom!

Other things happened this week, but hey, we didn’t write them down! So here’s a couple more pics of pups and then some news from the litters.



Miss Purple asleep on someone’s head.



Miss Turquoise and Miss Purple.
Can you tell that Miss Turquoise is our smallest pup?

So what else is going on at River Bear? Well, it’s hard to remember. Melanie went down to the Working Dog Show and saw friends and lots and lots of pretty Newfoundlands. That was fun.

The wind has been up (very) and the dogs think that the 50 mph gusts were plows going by, so they’ve been protecting the house from the wind.

We’re not the only ones who get loose pets. Dan was looking out the window and in our "across the road" neighbor’s yard were three of the horses from down the street. They were having a great time exploring. Dan went down and got their owner and drove her to the horses, who had gone into West Cummington proper (1/2 mile) she asked him to stop and said they would come right up to her when she rattled their treat can.

It’s nice to know that our dogs aren’t the only pets in the area who do exactly as they please.

The dogs noticed the horses as they came back from the other end of town at a gallop. They had a great time barking.

By the time our neighbors got back to their house, the horses were in the pen asking what took them so long.

We’re reorganizing the kitchen!! Umm. We just don’t have the brain power to outwit Rose anymore. We’re taking one of our closets in the dog room and changing it into a pantry. It’s already dog proof and rat proof (that’s another story) with a lock! Rose can’t reach the lock. We hope.

Zoë had cooked up an entire chicken and was making stock for the dogs’ food.

Rose really enjoyed it.

That’s all this week.
Take care.

Hmmm. We’re pretty tired. All three of the humans have a story of being tired. Melanie is on in the evening, Zoë takes over for the night and Dan comes in about 4 am.

Dan decided to have oatmeal for breakfast the other morning. We are trying to be very careful of Rose’s propensity for stealing everything. In fact, this morning we were thinking of putting all the toys on the counters and closets and leaving everything we don’t want her to get on the floor.

So Dan was fixing breakfast, and put everything away. The butter, the milk, the sugar, in fact the only thing he didn’t put away was the container of oatmeal. Who would want a container of dried up oatmeal flakes. Well guess who did?

There were heaps of oatmeal all over the kitchen floor. We’re still finding oatmeal.

But really that wasn’t anything compared to Zoë’s slip of the brain. She and Dan were taking a nap upstairs and she got up to feed the dogs. We have a hook latch on the outside of their door because the dogs have figured out how to open the latch. Without thinking she locked it.

When Dan woke up, he couldn’t get out of the bedroom and had to call down through the register until she hear him.

Of course, that still doesn’t beat Melanie's slip. She was taking Patsy to the vet’s to get her stitches out and stopped by the bank. They have one of those vacuum things for their drive throughs and Melanie put in the check, told them what she wanted and then stopped thinking about the bank. She was thinking about how long it would take to get Patsy to the vet and back again and would the pups be okay if they didn’t eat on time. So the canister came back and she took stuff out of it.

She was almost to Route 90 when Zoë called and said that the bank had called and wanted their canister back. Melanie looked down on the floor and there sat the canister. Does this make Melanie a bank robber?

Here’s a couple of more pictures of pups asleep.



Wish we slept this well.

That’s all this week,
Take care.

Patsy started in the first stages of labor on Saturday night. This is heavy duty panting for hours on end in the middle of the night on top of Melanie’s bed, preferably on top of Melanie. Oh, yeah, the light has to be on.

Melanie in hopes of getting a bit more sleep took Patsy out to pee on Friday night. Patsy decided to go on a pee strike.

Melanie can be very stubborn (just ask her children) and decided that Patsy was going to pee. At ten pm Melanie put this very pregnant dog on a leash and went out to walk her outside on the street.

In the middle of a snow storm.

It was very fluffy snow about ten inches by that time. One car had passed earlier and Melanie and Patsy were walking in one of the tire tracks.

Patsy seemed to be enjoying herself, though she refused to pee. So Melanie kept walking.

It was a ways down the road when Patsy lay down in the middle of the road. Melanie freaked out.

What on earth was she doing with a pregnant dog, now lying down in the middle of the street, while a snow storm is raging. Pictures of rushing a pup wrapped in her coat to the house while dragging Patsy behind her streamed through her mind.

Luckily nothing that bad. Patsy’s feet hadn’t been clipped for awhile and had developed ice balls in-between the pads. Melanie had to clean out her paws four times before they were able to make it home.

After that Melanie decided anything Patsy wanted she could have.

Which worked until Monday. Patsy wasn’t looking right. She appeared to be going into labor earlier than she should but she didn’t have other signs of labor. It looked like it was going to be Tuesday night and Wednesday morning for pups. Right in the middle of another snow storm.

Talking it over with the vet we decided to do a c-section that day.

This is the miracle. If Patsy had gone into full labor, we would have lost her and all the puppies. She had a hematoma. We are still having nightmares.

We brought home nine puppies. We have lost two. One was fine and within 15 minutes was gone from us. The second we tried getting to the vet, but she died on the way.

The others are doing fine, but all prayers are appreciated.

More close ups next week, after we get some sleep.
We’ll be doing twenty four hour days for another two weeks.

We had another snow storm last night. At least when it snows, it’s warmer. Friday morning it was -10 degrees and that was after the sun had been up for a while.

You can just see the top of the car in between the two tree trunks.

Newfoundlands with snow.



Whoops, real Newfoundland with snow.



That’s Mac.

The snow is making Mattie’s hairdo cute.

That’s all this week.
Keep us in your prayers.
Take care.

That’s all this week.
Take care.

Rose is doing well with her training. If you long time readers remember she came along when Dan was very sick. Her training has been neglected.

PUPPY KINDERGARTEN IS A GOOD IDEA!

So as we were saying, her training is coming along well. She now comes when we call (mostly, when she doesn’t, we go get her), will sit and stay on command. This training has not changed her personality, though she is much more likely to share with the other dogs.

Take Thursday for instance. She decided to do some Spring cleaning. First, she found the charcoal bag. We haven’t used the charcoal for ages; it’s been tucked in a corner way out of the way. She pulled it out and invited everyone to play. They had a great time.

That’s half of the bag inside and half out side.



We left the charcoal outside, figured we could use it for traction.

Yes, traction. We had 8 inches of snow, then ice, then rain. The rain had no where to go but down the middle of the street. The plows were working hard, but there was about 2 inches of ice and slush and then a inch of running water in the street.

So we needed the traction. To get out the back door to the stockade, Dan had to take the screen door apart and crawl through the hole.

To add to that fun, after the charcoal bag, Rose opened the cabinet door under the kitchen sink and pulled out the garbage can. Again she shared this with the pack. It was a big mess.

Zoë looked for the little camera to take a picture, but we can’t find it. There were more pictures from the week, but we think Rose might have decided to use it. Which means maybe in the Spring?

The next thing she decided to clean up was Zoë’s coat out of the closet.
We found that. Rose was looking for treats. She is a mechanically minded dog.

Here’s Bess in that new cut. She is cute. Unfortunately, our groomer is moving to FL.

The human health around here is on the mend. Melanie is getting over the flu, Dan’s heart is pumping the way it’s supposed to, again, and Zoë gets to rest, sort of, because she’s the one who’s been doing all the work.

We’ve got some no flash, Melanie’s new lens, portraits of the dogs coming up. She was practicing for pictures of Patsy’s puppies. But first, things have been happening around here, it’s just that we were too tired to write them down. So, Melanie decided she would tell you about nights here right now.

It has been too cold for the boys to be in their kennels, so they have been inside at night. They love their kennel. They love having company. It’s a guy thing out there.

Dan and Zoë go to bed very early. Since they are up at 5 am, this makes sense. Ellie, Bess and Franklin go to bed with them. That means that Melanie is kept company by Patsy, Mattie, Ros, Mac and Rose until she goes to sleep.

Now by “keeping company” the dogs mean they will stay in the room with you and sleep. And snore. Usually the pellet stove fan is going so the snoring can be ignored, but when the stove comes up to heat, the surround sound of snoring is amazing. Mac is usually by the door out to his kennel. The ladies are in various upside down attitudes on the floor around Melanie. Rose is near her feet, Ros is near her side, Mattie is on the love seat and Patsy is as spread out as she possibly can be. All snoring.

Now Dan and Zoë’s bedroom is just above the family room. It’s an old house with wide floor boards and empty space between the ceiling and the floor upstairs. This empty space acts as a resonator and Melanie can here any dog on the floor upstairs snoring.

It’s great.

When it’s time for the boys to go to bed, she sings first to Mac.

Mac, a-doodle, doodle
Mac, a-poodle,
Mac, a-doodle, doodle, doodle, dot.

He loves this. Outside to pee and Rosie comes with. Rose comes with because she knows that Mac is going to get a treat. After a massive head rub Mac goes off to pee and Rose sits for her treat. When he’s done, Mac runs back and tries to stop on the ice and usually runs into Rose. He then gets his treat.

Now usually he would go into the garage and into his kennel. But, right now, (last night it was 5 degrees with 35 mile an hour winds) he is sleeping in the living room. Melanie shuts the door. Goes up stairs to get Franklin. He also likes to be sung to.

Franklin, wanklin
Little sweetie pie,
Time to go beddy, beddy bye,
Come on Franklin
You’re so cute,
With your big old
big old snoot.

(What can we say, Shakespeare she’s not!)

While Melanie is taking out Franklin and Rose, (yes, she’s going for another treat) Zoë is getting up to go sleep in the living room.

Remember when we said the boys like company? Well, Mac doesn’t like to sleep on his own. Zoë is sleeping down there on what we are now calling the double lounge chair instead of the sleeper sofa.

Now the fun starts.

Melanie goes to bed. Patsy, Franklin, Rose (and sometimes Mattie and Ros) come up and get another treat. They supposedly go to bed.

Except for last night. We live thirty minutes from everywhere, but for some reason there were sirens going up and down the highway last night. Mattie, Ros, Franklin and Rose took umbrage to this. Zoë kept yelling and bringing them in, but finally Melanie shut Rose up in her room to keep her from barking. She put a fan on so Rose wouldn’t hear the sirens.

But last night aside, the next part of the night is the conniving of the dogs to do Dan out of the bed.

Bess is in control of the room. No dog wants to go by Bess. She does this not with growling or anything, she is the true essence of alpha bitch. This means in order to get out of the room, dogs will actually get on the bed and walk over Dan and Zoë’s heads to keep out of Bess’s way. Once they are out, they want to get back in. This means standing at the door of the room and talking. Patsy has this under her breath bark that gets louder and louder. Mattie just demands. Those two Dan and Zoë can get to come in by inviting them. Ros won’t come in without help, so she’s bark and wait for a human. Rose doesn’t care.

Then there’s Ellie. Ellie has a “thing” about Bess. Ellie will bark to get out. Dan will get up because about this time, he needs to fill the pellet stove in the family room. So up they get and down they go. At this point, there is a mad rush for the bed. Every dog will try to get up there.

Ellie goes out, Dan fills up the stove and back up they go. No room on the bed. Dan pushes and heaves and pulls on blankets and makes room for himself. Then Ellie barks. She’s still at the door. She won’t come in without him getting up. So he gets up and as soon as he’s near her, she comes running in and gets in the place he created for himself.

More pushing, tugging and we wouldn’t change it for the world.

Our dogs aren’t spoiled!

Speaking of our dogs!
Here they are, eldest to youngest.



Ellie


Bess, she had another beauty day.
She looks like a puppy.



Patsy, still working on that peanut butter jar.
This picture was taken with the flash.
Melanie thinks it makes Patsy look flat.



Here’s Mattie!
She’s not pregnant.
She wants to be pregnant, but she’s just fat.



Mac.
This picture was taken in a very dark room.
Melanie loves her new lens.


Ros!
Franklin and Rose were playing hard the other day and Franklin got tired of her and sat on her head.
Ros thought that was terrible and made Franklin get off.
Rose told her mother off for messing up her fun.

It’s never boring here.



Franklin



Sweet Rose
(cough, cough)

Melanie came down to breakfast the other morning and found this.



She thought that Rose had turned into an early Easter Beagle,
but Zoë said it was the last egg in the carton and she had put it there.

But you can never tell with Rose around!

News from the Litters will continue next week.

Thanks all,
Take care.

(Of course, Melanie had to take a picture of the x-ray!)

Needless to say, she had to have an x-ray and the doctor said, “That’s a big spoon.” Zoë agreed and Ellie had the spoon removed from her stomach. She is fine and has to take at easy for two weeks. Which she’ll like because she likes sleeping on the sofa.

Otherwise . . .

December was the coldest in four years. We had more snow in December then we’ve had in the last few years total seasons. This week it’s been in the 60’s. The river is free of ice once again.

In December.
The dogs loved it.



The river running free.
The ladies aren’t in heat anymore (thank goodness) but we still have wild life.
The beavers have built a dam across a small stream and have made the banks of the stream collapse, causing the small pond in the middle of the upper part of the picture.
You can also see a tree to the far left that’s been very chewed and not by Rosie!

Speaking of Rosie, she is taking advantage of not wearing the bells around her neck. She very carefully sneaks up and steals right under our noses. Zoë was reading a book and Rose got her glasses case. Melanie was at the computer, she tried to lift a pair of scissors and when Dan cooks, she just helps way to much.

Here she is with her mom, Ros, and her dad, Franklin, playing with a sheet that Rose had taken from the wash. Hmm. . . We’re not using that sheet anymore.

Franklin and Ros

The house is much quieter, Rose not withstanding, since they’ve all gone out of heat. Now, it SHOULD be impossible for Mattie, Ros and Rose to be pregnant. Hopefully, Patsy is pregnant. We had to go the artificial insemination for her and Mac. Just let it be said that Patsy has longer legs than Mac.

The boys in their ever ending search to impress the girls, were singing in harmony. Mac’s best effort to impress Patsy happened when they were in the barn in the kennel. Together. But somehow Mac got out of the kennel and then had it lock behind him so he was locked out of where Patsy was. He took down the insulation around the kennel.

Franklin, on the other hand, while in the kennel (what is it about the kennel?) pulled in two double size blankets though an inch and a half space, getting only one hole in one of them. He then barked to let the girls know what he had done.

Is Patsy pregnant? We won’t know until about February 1st. How is she? Patsy is even hungrier than usual. She is definitely a food motivated dog, but she got on the counter and took some chicken. She hasn’t done that for a long time. Then when Zoë was working on the computer, Patsy came in, looked at her and peed all over the blanket that Mac had been laying on.

Hmm. Maybe she thinks that it’s Mac’s turn to have these babies.

Now some photos. Melanie got a new lens for her good camera. Now she just has to find the directions to the camera for turning off the flash and she’ll be set.

Patsy waiting for food.

News from the Litters will continue next week.

That’s all for this week.
Take care.

Tis the season to be in season as four of our ladies will attest. First came Ros and then Patsy, Mattie !!!, and then Rose. Makes for a very warm household for the boys. Melanie swears it’s why the river in back of the house unfroze, but Dan and Zoë say that was probably because of the rain we had. But, hey, did it rain instead of snowing because of the heat in the house?

A couple of stories. Rose was helping with the laundry the other day and took a pair of pink panties outside. She was very pleased with herself. She showed them to Dan and then thought it was quite a game to let him ALMOST get the panties. Now, Dan at the time, was picking up poop and did manage to have Rose give the pink panties to him. Because he was working, he stuffed them in his pocket. Later, he went to the post office. (You know where this is going, don’t you?) Dug into his pocket for his wallet and brought up something else instead. Luckily, we have very nice and discreet people at the post office.

We are trying to get Patsy pregnant ONLY! Which means all of the doors and rooms in the house are getting a work out. Franklin wanted to get into the living room where Ros, Mattie and Rose were and took down some of the molding around the door. He also took off part of the gate. Now, he’s learned how to open Dan and Zoë’s bedroom door and also the living room door. Jeeze.

Melanie was feeding Patsy and Mac in the west wing when she noticed Mac’s approach to lovemaking. Patsy ate her dinner. Mac ignored his and watched Patsy. When she was done, he nosed his plate to her and then proceeded to have his way with her while she ate. Melanie was telling McKey about this and he said, “Well, at least he gave her dinner.”

We were beginning to think we’d have to put on Barry White to get these two “in the mood.” The other girls are overpowering and much more attractive to Mac. Melanie and Zoë talked to their oracle of all things Newfoundland (Kathy Luce, Dingle Newfoundlands) and are now keeping the single ladies out of Mac’s sight. That seems to be working.

We’re not sure what Christmas songs we should be singing.

For Mac and Patsy? Piece on Earth?

For Franklin? I'll have a Blue Ball Christmas . . .

For Ros and Mattie? God Rest You Merry Gentlemen, cause you're not getting us?

For Rose? Oh Christmas tree, Oh, Christmas tree, I'll soon have you on the ground?

For Bess and Ellie? Oh, Silent Night?

Getting ready for the Holidays is very important.
One of our “musts” is the

McKey Family Eggnog!

Here’s Patsy after helping with the whipped cream.



Here’s Rose after helping with the whipped egg whites.



This morning went well.
We dressed Rose up for her picture.



Cutie isn’t she?

We only let Bess in to help with Christmas morning.



She fell asleep on the sofa.

News from the Litters: (or cute Newfs with Santa hats!)

River Bear Abigail Rose (Franklin and Ros pup, MA) wrote us a letter and sent some pictures.

That’s all this week.
Take care.

Melanie was uploading all the pictures from this week. All of them were of the pups not of the other dogs. We do have some stories though.

Bess has had to have a bandage on her leg (she’s fine, but she licked it too much) and went to the vet last week. Melanie was driving and Mac came along for the ride. Mac sits right up front in the van, he doesn’t help drive, but he does like commenting on the view. Bess also does this, but she likes to look out the back of the van. Mac enjoyed the men working on the road in their orange vests. Every time he saw some he would wag his tail and move to the back of the van to watch them leave. Now bicycles are a different story. Just like zebras for Bess, bikes just aren’t right for Mac. That was loud.

After the vet visit (he was very proud of Bess for not eating her bandage, Zoë has discovered if she puts a wool sock on that foot, Bess won’t touch it) Melanie went through a drive through. Our dogs love drive throughs. It was an Arby’s and she couldn’t find a small sandwich. They did have a kid’s meal though, so when the employee came through with “May I help you?” She went through this.

“Yes, can I get two Jr. Arby’s sandwiches without the meal?”
“You want two Kid’s meals?”
“No, I want the sandwich without all the other stuff.”
“But it all comes together.”
“Yes, but, you see, I’m giving the sandwiches to the dogs and they shouldn’t eat fries and Cokes aren’t a good thing for them.”
“I’ll have to ask my supervisor.”

The supervisor said yes, and as Melanie pulled up to the window Bess and Mac pushed forward to see what was going on. The window employee said, “Jeeze Lady, you sure you don’t want the extra large sandwiches?”

The dogs loved it. They slept all the way home.

Now Rose has been busy. Bess was wearing the Elizabethan collar to keep her from eating the bandage (the sock works better) and we think she paid Rose to take the collar off and then eat it. Melanie took the collar to the vet and explained. He was impressed. He gave us another one, but said to keep it out of Rose’s reach and to only use it on Bess if there’s a problem. We haven’t had to use it.

You would think that we would learn. We don’t. All of us have left things out and Rose has helped decorate. McKey’s phones have been the most expensive, but Dan might have surpassed even that. Dan took a nap and took out his partial plate. Rose thought the partial plate was great and carried it around, dislodged a tooth and remolded the plastic. Dan spent a whole day traveling around getting it fixed.

For some reason he didn’t take Rose.

Okay!
Now for Big Miss and Relatively Little Miss!
(Notice the slight name change.)

As of Saturday morning their eyes were open!
They have begun playing.
They have begun walking.
Big Miss barked for the first time this morning.
She was surprised.

They are fat.

Here is their week in pictures. You can see the difference a week makes.

Look at that stance!



Here we’re not sure if it’s playing or seeing if she can nurse off her sister’s face.



Getting a bath.



Mom cutting off access. That’s a rare event as you can see from Big Miss’s tummy.




Relatively Little Miss chewing on her sister’s leg.




Big Miss has moved (slowly) out of her sister’s reach.



From this morning. Slightly out of focus, but, oh, so cute.

They are out of the whelping box for a while each day. The rug we have in the living room, is perfect for them to grip and start actually walking. They do this for about 2 minutes and then go to sleep.

Melanie discovered if you put them in the sun to take pictures with the good camera, they also go to sleep. They’re good at sleeping.



The eyes are getting tired.



Down for the count. Cute nose.



Little Miss in the sun.



Big Miss dozing.

Folks, they are only two and a half weeks.