Heritage Hearth Mastiffs
                                                     proudly announces 
                             the birth of 6 beautiful boys and 4 beautiful girls!! 

7/18/05   It has been a very long day as you can probably imagine...details later.  Hedy and the pups are all doing well. 
Jann and I are beat!

                 

7/20/05  Everything seems to be going well...so well in fact, Jann is letting me fly solo!!  All ten pups have gained weight.  Their birth weight ranged from Black Boy at 1# 5 5/8 oz to Blue Girl 14 5/8 oz.   48 hours later little Blue Girl weighed in
at 1 # 1oz!  

                                                       

Today was fairly quiet.  Hedy spent a lot of time resting and feeding her pups, when they weren't wiggling off!  I am considering calling Ripley's Believe It Or Not or maybe the Guiness Book of World records because I am sure no one else has ever counted to ten over and over more times than I did today!

7/26/05  Wow!  I am finally coming up for air!!  I cannot believe a whole week has gone by already.  But then again, since each day seems to blend into the next, I truly don't know what day it is.  One day last week as I finally had a chance to check the time, I realized it was 4:30 in the afternoon and I hadn't even gotten dressed for the day.  I managed to get at least 100 loads of wash done and all the "weigh-ins" for all the pups, but me getting a shower was truly a luxury that just wasn't going to happen!  

I am so happy to report that all pups are doing great.  They are all real chow hounds, gaining weight like crazy.  Hedy is a phenominal mom, having so much patience with all ten pups.  The "feeding frenzy" as we call it around here, has been a real challenge.  To make sure all ten were getting their fair share, we found we needed to be in the whelping box along with Hedy and all her pups to make sure they were latched on to a "faucet."  There just wasn't enough room for us all.  We decided to move her to her own private suite for nursing her pups...my bed!  Now we can "work" the pups from three sides and my back isn't nearly as tired by the end of the day, that is if I can figure out when the day actually ends and a new one begins again. 


                 More to come!!  Time to feed them again...


7/30/05



These shots were several days ago, probably the last time we had Hedy feed her pups in the whelping box.  As you can see, since she has so many, they must be fed in shifts.  Seven pups are eating all at once here, but as of yesterday (maybe it was the day before, remember they are a blurr!), she can really only accommodate five at a time.


Another picture of Hedy nursing her babies.                    Here are all their very first collars.  Girls above the ruler, and 
We have decided that my bed is easier on our                 boys below.  These will go in their "Puppy Book."  They     
backs since we have more room to sit around her.           have all just had their third collar put on.  


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