I have been so bad....I am a failure as a Blogger but I am doing a GREAT job with the babies!
THey have opened their eyes , are walking somewhat well, they are barking a bit and tonight they were playing with some TOYS!!!
Here are some pics from the last few days.
Emerald girl is well over 7 pounds now at 22 days old; the others are high five and six pounds.

 

 

Ok, the puppies are now competing in Rally -O..ok, SLIGHT exaggeration but I HAVE been very remiss in updating, I just have so much to do with these little ones, the computer time is short.
The puppies are now 15 days old!
Here are some updated pics though, finally!!!!
The puppies are becoming Weebles ( remember those??)...except they DO fall down....  :) They will have their eyes open momentarily; I can see them TRYING; it is so cute!!

Oh, man, I cannot tell you how cute these little buggers are getting; every day getting cuter by the second!
I have so many things I wanted to try to remember to write here, but I'm so overtired etc. I can not really remember them.
But, the puppies just developed "Puppy Breath" in the last few days, and their fur has "puppy smell", which it didn't have before. Also, they are "trying" to open their eyes or so it seems; I've never seem anything more endearing as a tiny 2 ound wrinkled looking head, trying to open it's eyes. I know that's not what they are REALLY doing....but, their little wrinkles above their eyes will work; as if they can't get them open but want to...they are soo helpless and sweet; they slither aroudnt he box; like the Grinch when he is stealing the Who's Christmas tree, in the animated Grinch special.  Sooo freaking CUTE!!
Patience is very tender with them she kisses them and worries over them; she is patient when they take forever to nurse...they nurse, then fall asleep; then wake up and nurse again...they push very hard and make slurpy noises...they are growing tremendously, we have several over three pounds and all at least 2.5 pounds as of now.

Hi, people who read this  blog;
I'm sorry I haven't been on but , well...

PUPPIES!  
They are six days old, they are all growing well and Patience is being very cute with them. She spends most of her time in the Nursery with them; not in the box but just outside it; she likes to look in at them once in a while.  When we are in the room with them ( which is nearly constantly),  we ill have the puppies with her and she is interested in them, she licked a few today even; although she is above cleaning them at this point.  She goes to sleep when they nurse on her and we have many long sesions of nursing/ sleeping/ nursings that are spaced out so as to give her breaks to go out, eat and drink etc.
Here are a few  pics of the family:

OKAY!  Sigh!!
This is nutty!! It's fun, it's AWESOME, it's really CRAZY how awesome it is...but the hours are TOUGH ; the ringin of alarms every time I fall asleep it seems...nightimes are the worst; but once we're up it's better; and it's great to see the puppies doing better.
I was worried at first;  they were just so tiny, and P. didn't have her milk yet; ( because remember, colostrum is NOT milk...LOL); they wouldn't take the bottle and their urine was very dark yellow, and they weren't gaining; they were sucking forever and just never getting happy and full etc.
But we started some oxytocin injections and her milk came in pretty well; now I think she's good in that regard and the puppies are showing the evidence of that; all gaining now ; all getting round bellies after eating; and yesterday we had the first episode of them eating and dropping off, and falling asleep in between her legs and ample boobs; under chin etc. ( no, camera was in wrong room).
Because she had a c section, and didn't go through "labor", she doesn't know what the hell these little parasitic things ARE and why she should care about them. She was afraid of them, and ran away when we went to get her, to nurse them. She made me feel so sad for her; I've never had her look at me the way she did a few times this weekend; she was so confused.  I have been overtired admittedly, but it brought me to tears ona  few occasions!!
But I'm THRILLED to say that each and every nursing gets better in all regards; both in the thriftiness of the puppies and in the tenderness with which Patience is allowing them to nurse.  She now falls asleep as soon as they start, and they all sleep together for an hour or so afterwards.
But when she decides she's DONE, you better be RIGHT THERE to throw yourself ON the puppies before she crushes them; she gets up like a horse in a stall full of blind geriatric mini -schnauzers. Typical of mastiffs; not a slight on HER at all.  Just the nature of the beast.
Same with the peeing and pooping of the puppies; she hasn't licked them yet.  Thats' ok, at the rate she's going I expect she will.
And I'd rather pee and poop them mostly anyway; most breeders do; otherwise how do you know if everyone is peeing and pooping, and what their stools are like etc.? Imagine having a baby and never having the information that the contents of each diaper yields? Crazy.
So, sorry if I already said this; but right now she is voluntarily in the puppy room without having been brought by the collar into it.
I DID gate her in once she went in; but she is laying down next to the box, chewing her old rubber hamburger, and looking in once in a while.
So, off to the shower.  I have time to do ONE task in between each puppy session.
This one will be hygiene.
Next one, food. ( Not for me, for Patience.  LOL)
Then later I'll have a Lean Cuisine Lemongrass Chicken.

 I can't even write a blog about this; right now!
This is Patience on her way in for her C- section.
We are both exhausted from the stress but happy and having fun with the tiny Opies. There are two boys and five girls. The girls are all bigger than the boys. Don't worry, everyone will catch up I'm sure!  But it IS funny!
Here are a few pics! I will try to keep as up to date as possible; but it will be tough. I will also at some point soon, write about the whole event yesterday.
Thanks for everyone'swell wishes!! I'm just SOO relieved she is ok, and it's OVER. Sigh!!

Ok, everything's FINE, but I'm going out of my SKIN basically!!
So, today it was going to be a "GO"; we were advised that it would be fine to go ahead and do it today by her repro vet; the last little item we were waiting on was her progesterone from this a. which needed to be below 2.0, and we were all assuming it was just a formality to wait and it would definately be below 2.  REsults from am. don't come in til around5 pm, so we twiddled thumbs through the afternoon , with the surgery setup all in place for her, right down to her catheter tape being torn and placed etc....LOL...results came back, 3.2!!
It came UP instead of down~!~ 
So, apparently yesterday's was a fluctuation; we didn't do the section today; she's acting great/normal/ etc. Her temp. has remained the same throughout, exactly the same in fact all week.
My luck she'll go into labor overnight!!LOL!!
So, we do another prog tomorrow am., and possibly another in the pm.
We still don't know when the exact day ( or night!) will be.

She's fine though!  :) 

Hi all! Well, Patience was very nesty yesterday afternoon and was trying to mother an empty Pepsi bottle.
She was acting sort of nervous, etc.
This am., she had a big string of thick clear mucus ; and the progesterone we did this am. came back at 5 pm and was already 2.1!!!
So, it looks as if she may go a day early, as early as tomorrow! In fact, her repro vet said she would go ahead and plan on having it done tomorrow; it would be "safe" to do so...but if we are willing to hang in there and wait for some signs of early labor, we can do that too..we are sending another progesterone tomorrow am and will get the results by five again.  We will either be doing the section at that time ( tomorrow evening ); or perhaps before; if she goes into labor tonight or tomorrow! Her repro vet said she could begin tonight.
She could still be at 2.1 tomorrow, in which case it would probably be Friday. At any rate, it doesn't look like it will hold off til the weekend!
Getting so close!!

Tomorrow we begin tracking her progesterones, looking for the number to fall to around 2.0; which tells us it's time to do the c section.
The blood goes out to a lab and we get the results around dinnertime the same day.

I'll write more after today is over; I have a bunch of little normal chores to do today and will be probably blowing most of them off in favor of laying aorund with P. , which I have been doing a ton of. She is so extra smooshable right  now! Can't get anything else done because of her smoosh factor, which is running so very high.

The house is going to hell in a handbasket; and only destined to get worse. LOL.
We did the pond yesterday and the fish are happier (ok, VISIBLE) now.  Alexander, my big koi, is 19 inches long this year!  Patience was so funny, I'm not sure she's ever seen the fish before for some reason!! When we had them out of the water to measure them, and then put them in buckets while we cleaned the pond; she was ALL concerned about them and nervously looking into the buckets....it was so funny! She was super wrinkled and creeping up to each bucket, peeking over the edge in SneakMastiff Mode....really cute stuff.
Again, the cuteness!!   :)

( How gorgeous is she???)


Okay, well; there's only SO much preparation you can DO; really....before you get to the point where you are just itching with excitement! I'm really exited and also nervous.  Patience is beautiful and wonderful; feeling fabulous if a little "stuffed"; but truly seems not to feel uncomfortable at all.
I put the thermometer in the whelping box and have the heat lamp on now, to test it out. As predicted, some cats are finding their way there and enjoying the fry warmer effect.
I am now checking her temperature once a day , too. So far it's around 100.9.
She had a tiny dermatitis on her belly, under her udders ( which are so baggy now, there's no air circulation ).  I was amazed that one treatment with some Malaseb pads and Gold Bond powder cleared it all up. Honestly, overnight!
More later.