Litter Born 10/11/2008. 2 Boys. 7 Girls.
Kya and all of her puppies have gone to wonderful homes. If you would like information on other Rhodesian Ridgebacks that Rescue has available for adoption, please visit their website at: www.ridgebackrescue.org

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 helped 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.

Puppies and Kya, Day 56

The puppies are now 8 weeks old and we just had our busiest week ever trying to get Kya and her puppies all ready to go home to thier new homes. They have all learned how to use the dog door, and with the exception of one boy that gets stuck comming back in (only because of his stiches) they have been going in and out the door to go potty when they can.

On Monday, both of the boys went to the vet for their puppy checks and to have surgery to fix umblical hernias. The dark male also had a birth defect on his neck the vet repaired for him. Both boys are staying with me a little longer and until thier stiches can be removed. But their new families are just counting the days till they can come home.

On Thursday, Kya was spayed and she came through the surgery just fine. Kya has been adopted by a family in Conneticut along with the ligher boy. They will be in their new homes by Christmas.

On Friday, all the girls headed to the vet for their puppy checks and they all passed and got ready to travel.

Saturday the first two girls traveled north to their new homes. Sunday, one of the girls went home to her new home in Tennessee, and another girls traveled to North Carolina to join her new family. All the rest of the puppies have great homes waiting for them and will be traveling home before Christamas.

Puppies and Kya, Day 49

We can not fit their chubby butts on our scales but they have all grown about 2 pounds since last week.

We spend most of the time now just running behind, and keeping them out of trouble. They are curious about everything and always climbing up on anything new. A couple of figured out the doggie door and have manged to get out so we have to keep that shut tight now. What we really need is a break in the weather. We did have a couple of days where the sun actually came out and we managed to get them outside for a few hours. The puppies loved it.

They are hitting the wood-chip potty about 90% of the time now. I have been picking them up when I see them getting ready to go on the floor and putting them in the box so they can finish. I came around the corner and caught one female getting ready to go in the middle of the floor. She took one look at me and ran into the wood-chip box and finished her business.

Puppies and Kya, Day 42

THEY ARE NOW FEARLESS MONSTERS!

The biggest female is now 11 pounds and the largest female is 13 pounds. The lighter male is 13.3 pounds a the darker male is 13 pounds. Probably the last week we will be able to weigh them because their big butts are falling off the scales.

Tennessee has very cold and we have not been able to get them outside yet. The puppies needed more exercise so Dave built a temporary door to block on the den and we turned them loose into your kitchen (which needs a new floor anyways). Right away they went on a fast run, round and round the island. While they were busy, I tried to empty out the wood-chip-potty and but they caught me trying to sneak it out the back door. I ended up with all 9 puppies right behind, shivering, and heading down the back steps. I had little luck getting them back in and finally had to close the door and push them through he dog door. Once they figure out that dog door, there will be no stopping them making a run for it.

Friday night we gave them their first full puppy shot (we gave them a parvo only shot at 4 weeks). More than half the puppies ended up with loose stool. We had already been seeing some loose stool which generally means the puppies have coccidia. It's very common, sometimes hard for the vet to diagnose, and usually dogs can keep it under control with their own immune system. Unfortunately, coccidia is an "opportunist" and will grow quickly when an immune system is stressed, like when a puppy gets a shot. We started dosing them with and 5% sulfar med last evening and will continue for the next 10 days.

For now, Kya is mostly just watching the puppies over the little door that Dave made. Kya still wants to nurse, but the puppies are just to big and way to rough on her. She will run in and try, but ends up running back out just after they get attached to her nipples. Kya's milk is slowly drying up, but in the meantime, we are giving her one puppy out in the den to let nurse so the puppy can get out the excess milk. Kya will let the puppy nurse one nupple, then move the puppy off with her mouth and on to the next.

They are hitting the wood-chip potty about 70% of the time now. I clean it several times a day because if it's messy they will go outside the area. When I change it they jump in and play.

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!

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.

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. Unfortunately, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Puppies and Kya, Day 1

Kya gave birth to 11 puppies. 8 females, 3 males. One female was still born. Of the 10 live births, the smallest female weighed in at .90 pounds. The largest male Kya She is an almost perfect mom, but it is a little scary seeing her put their entire heads in her mouth so she can move drag them around.