Late Night Cravings

I always nickname the black and white harlequins "Cow Dog"
but she is beginning to look the part.

Della continues to grow, and grow. Her belly is becoming distended. She's not yet stretched tight, but to use an archaic phrase, she is "thick with child." She is eating 12 cups of puppy food per day, spread out over three feedings, so hopefully she's gaining weight on her own as well as growing puppies.

We are monitoring her temperature three times a day, watching for the two degree drop that is our 24 hour warning. This morning we had a brief moment of panic when the first temperature reading seemed to indicate just such a drop. It turned out to be user error, however, and a second temperature reading allowed us all to go about our usual day instead of making a last minute scramble for things we still needed.

Della is getting a bit testy with other dogs, but fortunately
she and Serena are still good companions.

We picked up more donated supplies this afternoon, more pee pads and paper towels, plus a large, Dane-sized puppy playpen. We borrowed and set up a baby scale to weigh the puppies so we can monitor and make sure everyone is growing. Again, thank you to everyone who has donated money and/or supplies.

I've been trying to encourage Maya to hop up into our bed
at night and leave this one to the two Danes.

This evening I'm going to reset our coffee maker to start up at 5:00 a.m. instead of 6:00 a.m. because Della has had us up before the coffee is ready for the past two weeks. The pre-dawn wakeup is one thing, but we've also been getting up in the middle of the night, about 2:00 a.m. most nights. She needs to go out to pee and Serena always goes with her, sometimes Theo too. A couple nights ago Theo and Serena came back in but Della wasn't following Serena as she normally does. I called and finally went out to look for her. I spotted her with the flashlight and called but she still wouldn't come. I heard a crunching noise as I got closer only discover that she had caught and killed a rabbit and was in the process of eating it. I was almost surprised when she dropped it and came to me. I was very grateful that she didn't bring it to me. Last night she didn't want to come back in, so I gave her a small, two cup feeding to hold her until morning's first light.

We stopped by Green Dogs today to pick up
more supplies. Della had a wide variety of
children to choose from but didn't eat any of
them. I hope this means she'll be a good mother.

A BIG Dane-size play pen. Thank you!

This is a screen shot of the bluetooth
thermometer we've been using to monitor
Della's temperature. It thinks we are
using it on a human. For a dog, these
readings do not indicate a mild fever.