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2008 Rhodesian Ridgeback Puppies In Rescue
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Litter Born 10/11/2008. 2 Boys. 7 Girls.
For adoption information of any of the puppies or mom, Kya, please
Click Here
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Puppies and Kya, Day 35
THEY HAVE TURNED INTO MONSTERS!
By Thursday the potty pads turned into toys and the started dragging them around and shredding them. But that
was ok, because we had already added the wood-chip-box and had slowly moved the pads in that direction. They
are hitting the box about 50% of the time. The basic idea is to get them to move away from where they sleep and
eat and potty elswhere. It's natural for them to do so, but if puppies are in too small of an area
and they are forced to poop or pee where they lay, it makes it harder to house break them when
they go to their new homes.
Kya continues to want to nurse all day and all night long. She is a great mom but a puppy full of milk is
not hungry enough to eat solid food and puppies can get milk anemia just like human babbies can. On
Friday we started decreasing the amount of food Kya gets to eat so
slow her milk production. We also started keeping Kya out of the puppy-room for two hours before feeding and all during
the night. Kya is adjusting, but she is not happy about it. Most important, the puppies are now eating more solid food than
milk from mom. The largest male now weighs 11.3 pounds. The darker male is 10.6 pounds. The largest female is 10.5 pounds
and the smallest female is 8.9 pounds.
Today, just after lunch and while Kya was out of the room, the puppies played ESCAPE.
They started running from one
end of the room to the other looking for the way out. Several pushed their way around the wood-chip-box.
Three more check under the bed, while a third set tried pushing their way behind and under the big crate in the room.
After that, they played beat-each-other-up until they all got tired. I let Kya back in room and she nursed them and then
they all took a nap. Six of the puppies layed down with Kya, while three layed in the big crate.
And the little monsters turned back into angels!
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Puppies and Kya, Day 30 - Close Ups
We have had some people ask about the close up that I added on Day 28 and if that puppy was available.
He is one of the two males and currently the only puppy that we promised.
In this case, there were only 2 boys and thier personalities were so different that it was easy to
pick which puppy would best fit the family he will be going to.
For the remaining 8 puppies, we are trying to gather all of the applications and match puppy temperment
as close as we can to the family that puppy will be going to. Secondary is color, but we will try very
hard to also match up color.
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Puppies and Kya, Day 28
Puppies are now 4 weeks old. The lighter hair boy weighs 9.10 and the darker boy weighs 8.50. The smallest girl
is 7.9. The rest of the girls weigh between 8 and 8.40. They are still gaining fast but will start to even out a bit
not that they are getting more excercise.
We added a water dish to their area around Tuesday. Puppies found it very interesting. Mom did not. She got
ubset when the puppies walked through the bowl and then tried to bury it in the blanket. So much for that idea.
On Friday the lighter male climbed out of the box. On Saturday, as we were getting ready to move them out, the darker
male went over the top. I managed to get a picture of him going over.
By Saturday night we had them all moved into our dinning room where we have ceramic tile and where we were able to
close in an arear with plastic lattice.
Now when they play they growl, bite, and try to get the other puppy down under them.
It's all part of their learning to be social, but I have
had to go in and pick up the puppy on top a couple of times just to save my ears.
Kya is our biggest problem right now because she wants to stay with the puppies all the time and nurse almost
constantly. We moved a bed into the room with them and Kya has been very good about staying on the bed while we
feed the puppies solid foods and clean their bedding. We will slowly start cutting down the amount we feed
Kya now and she will slowly start spending more time on the bed where she can keep a close eye on them but not
have to nurse.
Puppies have a natural instinct to not pee and poo where they sleep so it was important for us to get them out
of the box just as soon as they were able to stand on their feet and move around easily. They started leaving the box
right way and doing their business on the paper. Sometimes they hit the paper, sometimes they miss (as one of the pictures will show).
We will slowly move the paper father away as their eye sight gets better.
Unfortunatly, when they get close to 6 weeks the paper becomes a toy and we have to pick them up but the puppies will contine
to do their business away from where they sleep. If weather permits, we will start getting them outside on and off during the day.
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Puppies and Kya, Day 21
Puppies are 3 weeks old today. The lighter hair boy weighs 6.12 and the darker boy weighs 6.00. The smallest girl
is 4.98. The rest of the girls weigh between 5.54 and 5.66. They are gaining about 2 pounds a week, and right
on schedule.
The puppies had another hard week but only because their teeth came in this week. On Tuesday (16 days) their top teeth broke through. By thursday (18 days) they had
their bottem teeth. Their baby teeth continued to move down into place all week. By 21 days, they have a mouth full of
very sharp baby teeth. The little dark female cried for about 10 minutes on Thursday until I finally picked her up
and let her chew on my finger. We are about done with bottle feeding because they are more intersted in chewing on
the nipple than sucking.
Their ears also opened this week and they are now responding to my voice. With eyes, ears and nose now working, I can no longer
feed Kya right in the whelping box because keep trying eat her food. One fell asleep with his head in the bowl
and I snapped a picture. They have also started to play with each other.
By Thursday, Kya had a hard time keeping up with feeding so we started them on solid food. It takes
a few days for them to learn to eat, but they catch on quickly. We started calling one of the boys "piglet" because
he just gobles. To keep him occupied while the other puppies finish eating, I have started
putting him with an almost empty bowl that he works on licking clean.
I managed to get a couple of pictures of Kya outside. It's hard to get pictures of her because she mostly sticks close and tries
to convince me to let her back inside with the pups. She is still too thin but her wounds are all healed and
her hair is growing back nicely.
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Puppies and Kya, Day 14
Puppies are 2 weeks old today. The light boy weighs 3.92 and the darker boy weighs 3.86. The smallest girl
is 3.06. The rest of the girls weigh between 3.44 and 3.76. They have all more then tripled their weight since
birth, which is the growth rate we like to see with healthy Ridgeback puppies.
The puppies all had a very hard week. We started out with one of the females waking us up crying. She cried for
a good three hours. Since mom was loaded with hookworms at 6 weeks pregnant, we had to assume the hookworm larva had
traveled through the placenta, and was now mature in the puppy's stomach and causing the discomfort.
We decided to worm all the puppies immediately instead of waiting till they were 14 days old, which is the norm.
About 55 minutes after giving the little female the wormer, she finally settled down. Puppies are wormed daily for three days.
Unfortunatly, worming puppies that young can cause other poblems so
we spent the next three days tube feeding puppies that would not eat.
By Wednesday, the worst was over and all nine puppies really began to thrive.
Kya is also doing great. She is eating between 5 and 6 times a day. We give her mostly water with plain yougurt
first to keep her full of fluids, then 1.5 cups of kibble mixed with yougurt and boiled hamburger and rice.
The mixture is a little easier to digest than just kibble and Kya is doing very well on it. I am having
to bottle feed less and less and mostly just early morning when Kya is out of milk.
Below are pictures taken throughout the week. The bottom 4 were taken this morning. We call one
of the females Clover because she has a dark clover spont on her stomach. I was trying to get a picture
of the clover this morning and another puppy decided to use Clover as a pillow. We also managed to get a
picture of the dark male bottle feeding. Note his eyes are open. His opened on Thursday, and the rest
of the puppies eyes opened right behind him.
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Puppies and Kya, Day 8
The 9 puppies are doing great and so is Kya. At this stage, there is really not a lot going on other
that eating and sleeping, but I did take pictures throughout the week that I thought were cute. The last
3 pictures in the bottom row were taken this morning. The close-up is of the first born. It's a girl and we
call her Footsie because of the white foot. She was born 1 pound and today weighs 2.14 pounds.
All of the puppies doubled their weight in the first 7 days, which is about normal. The two boys now both weigh 2.36 pounds.
We have one small girl we call tiny. She was the smallest at birth and is still the smallest now weight 1.86 pounds.
The rest of the girls weigh between 1.96 and 2.10 pounds.
For the first few days, we had to feed the puppies about 1/2 of what they needed, while Kya recovered.
Kya has managed to put on some weight and is now feeding about 80% of what the puppies need. She could probably
feed all of what they need but we are still trying to get Kya up to her normal weight so we continue
to help with feeding the puppies.
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Day 4, We lost a puppy.
One of Kya's puppies died today. One of the dark boys. We noted when he was born that he was very thin, but
sometimes that happens when puppies are tucked back in the uterine horn.
In four days the puppy grew from .90 to 1.30 pounds, but his two brothers doubled that growth and this little guy
was still too thin. All the other puppies are getting nice and plump.
Today the little guy crawled in between to other puppies to sleep and simply died.
Most likely he had a weak heart. *** Note, we later discovered this puppy died of hookworms.
If the mother is infected, the hookworm larva can travel through the placenta and infect the puppy
before it is even born.
My husband took the puppy away and Kya is still
mad at him. She growls now whenever he comes into the room. I am hoping she will forgive him by tomorrow.
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Mom Kya, Pictures and her Story
Kya entered Rescue along with 8 other ridgebacks. It was a huge effort that took volunteers from both
Rhodesian Ridgeback Rescue Inc, and
Ridgeback Rescue of the United States because the dogs needed
to be moved quickly from the farm where they were located. Eight of the 9 spent most of their day tied to a tree
with no shelter.
All 9 dogs needed immediate vet care. It took two of our volunteers two-very-long-trips to the farm to make
sure they rescued all the dogs and delivered all of them to the vet. It took countless phone calls, and countless caring people from
both groups working together to make sure all nine dogs received the care they needed and that they were transfered
safely to their foster homes.
During Kya's first vet check it was discovered that she was around 6 weeks pregnant. She was underweight, full of hookworms, and
had multiple sores on her body. Rescue also discovered that Kya is one of the sweetest, most patient, and most forgiving dogs
that any human will have the pleasure of meeting.
This web page and all these pictures are here so Kya can say thank you to everyone that help
all nine of her ridgeback family, and now her 9 puppies. Because of your kindness, 18 Rhodesian
Ridgebacks can now live in wonderful pet homes and never be mistreated again.
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