Comfort food
Feasting on gruel
The puppies started the weaning process by getting a watery gruel of mashed puppy chow. After the second time seeing the feeding bowl, all the puppies are taking after their mother - never missing a meal or morsel of food.
Now that the pups are three weeks old, they are playing with each other deliberately. They still lose t
heir balance and fall unexpectedly once in awhile. While they still sleep the majority of the time, their playing is getting much more animated. When they are out of the whelping box, the pups do quite a bit of exploring and investigating. We have a wide variety of toys and objects for them to mouth, pounce on and sometimes fall into. Scampering across the room is a new skill the pups just developed; quite funny to see the sudden burst of speed!.
Now that the puppies eyes are open they’re actually walking to where they want to go - or so it seems. 
. Here is a short video of the pups in action.
The puppies eyes are glimmering blue globes, somewhat cloudy. They’ll change to brown over the next few days and their eyesight will improve significantly. Right now, they can’t follow an object nor see depth. Which can be pretty funny as they bump into things.
However so shaky, the pups are getting their bellies off the ground while trying to stand. Since the pups only have a sense of smell, we’ve been taking them one at a time to sniff around on a different surface to experience other odors. They really seem to notice! Their little sniffers get going pretty good. Yesterday they got to experience the dining room rug; today it was the living room rug. One of the girls really was vocal about it. Little boy blue was the most active at sniffing around. Here is a link to a short video of “Yellow” crawling around.
The puppies have just about doubled their weight in one week. They’re much stronger which is noticeable when they’re crawling around the whelping box. The blue boy puppy is still the smallest but he’s been gaining weight steadily. The yellow boy puppy is the porker and always seems to be nursing. Still can’t figure out any personality traits at all, even though we try. 
Two pups snuggling
The pups went to visit the Vet today for dew claw removal and tail docking. Dr. Tim Bubach of Schmidt Veterinary Clinic did a great job suturing up the tiny incisions. The tails were completely shaved with a number 40 blade so we could get an accurate length tail for the individual puppy.
The color dots on the pups’ rumps are non-toxic acrylic paint. That’s used for identification. The girls are Orchid, Fuchsia, and Apple. The boys are Blue, Yellow, and Orange.
The pups will get weighed each night at about 7 PM. until they’re about two weeks old. So far they’ve gained about three ounces each. The average birth weight was just under 10 oz.
Considering that the pups can’t see or hear, its amazing how much they can move around. They hold up their heads right away and strong enough to start crawling towards Mom. They use their noses to find mother for nursing.
Sleeping pups
There are more pictures in the Photo Gallery.
Klara with her six puppies
After pacing, panting, and generally being annoyingly restless all day, Klara whelped six black puppies. Three boys, three girls are all healthy and Klara is doing well, too. She’s being a very good mom. Average weight of the pups was about 10 oz which is what I’d expect as Klara and Mick (sire Ch Nightwind Paint It Black) are medium sized Std. Poodles.
Klara is looking very big although she doesn’t seem uncomfortable as she still wants to run around and go upstairs just like normal. We try to get her active but a bit more subdued the usual.
Klara looking pregnant