Sarah's pups were 4 months old on Feb 4th.  They are a very cute and lively group. One of their mom's put together this composite picture of their cute faces. How they have grown!!  Hopefully 5 of them and their mom, will meet again at the Solvang greyhound event this coming Saturday. To follow them on facebook check out Sarah and her puppies on                                           facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/greysave.org 

​Sarah's pups are now over 8 weeks old and getting tall.  They climb up on things, like the small stools in my office and are close to mastering climbing onto my desk chair. When they can do that, it opens a whole new world of things to get into. The pups love to sit on my lap and see what is up on my desk. 

On Tuesday they went to the vet for their visit which included their 1st puppy shots, a weigh in, a second worming and another nail trim. The heaviest pup was Indy who weighed 10.9 pounds.  The lightest is Slate who weighted 9.5 pounds. The pups were pretty-well behaved at the vet's office and did not even squeal when they got their shots. They did not like the Bortatella nasal spray and certainly did NOT like the ride to the vets.  Slate and Cobalt screamed all the way there and back.

Four of the pups will head south to their Forever homes this weekend.  Sarah moved to her new home in Thousand Oaks earlier this week.  The 3 other pups will be staying with us for a bit longer.  After having them with us for these last months and seeing how close they are I know how they are going to miss each other.  If you have been watching the puppy camera you have seen how rough, tumble and loud they can be, but you also see them sleeping together in a tight knot.  They do love being together, but now need to move on to get the love and training from others, both human and canine.  There is a sadness within our family that the pups are leaving us and each other but a relief that we were able to get Sarah from the track when we did and give her and her pups a bright future.  It has been a magical, being part of their birth and watching as they have grown into a most beautiful group of greyhound pups. Alan and I look forward to seeing them all again and hope they can all get together like the GreySave 6 did one year in Solvang. Today as we move them we wish them a wonderful life.

​The pups just experienced their first Thanksgiving, and they had a great time.  They had company from several children, and I believe that they are now one of the most socialized group of greyhound pups around.  They continue to grow and look bigger almost every day.  They play wild, rough and tumble games and have been working on their best growls and barks and even starting to learn how to howl.   On December 6th they will be 8 weeks old, and we have the challenge to round up 7 very busy pups and take them to the vets for their 1st shots.  Not many days after that several will be moving to their forever homes.  Two will be going to Upland & Rancho Cucamonga homes, one to Los Vegas and one to Scottsdale. Momma Sarah will be moving to her new home in Thousand Oaks on the 1st of December.  She is doing well; her milk is pretty much all dried up now and when she comes by to see her pups, she likes to lick them to make sure we are keeping them clean enough, but she does not want to get near enough that they might want to nurse. In general, they are land sharks with terribly sharp teeth and nails.  They still have not managed to figure out that if one pup is screeching it is because the other one is biting them. Targets are tail, ears, legs, and anything else they can get their jaw around.  If you have watched any of the puppy camera you know what it is like here in the puppy corral. It is located at https://www.twitch.tv/grey_save and it is scheduled to be on 11am to 1 & 6 to 8pm CA time. Here are some current pictures of the very busy pups.

On Monday Nov 15th the pups turned 6 weeks old.  What a difference a week makes when you are a puppy.  They are now quite mobile and always looking for new challenges.  They love to escape their x-pen area.  Then they are off to explore or just charge around in the bigger room, that was once my office.  Once in the bigger area they run, jump, climb, eat anything they can find and try to get into spaces that they should not be.  They particularly like shredding cardboard, paper towels, pee pads, facial tissues and chewing on feet with or without shoes. They are great explorers of everything new.  Anything added to their realm is sniffed, climbed over, and tasted.  They particularly like freshly washed bedding and towels. The pups are weaned from mom Sarah and eating puppy chow and goats milk mush with much enthusiasm. We are not sure Sarah is relieved, but she should be since we all saw how rough they could be on her.  Sara is now relaxing, hopefully regaining her slim figure, and settling into her own retirement.  
 
Last week Brian, one of our Board members came to Salt Lake City from LA to help with the pups and has documented their lives and growth.  He took some great pictures and videos that you can see on the front page of Greysave.org website and on Facebook. He also built a puppy identification table located on the GreySave Website and on Facebook titled “Telling the puppies Apart”.  In a few weeks the pups will be getting ready for adoption.  That is both sad and exciting.  For now, they are working on their hunting and agility skills and most of all their scary growling and barking voices.  The truly great news for us is that they sleep all night and take a couple naps during the day. Stay tuned to the puppy camera and see if you can figure out what their personalities will be as they develop.  I know most people recognize Cobalt, Smoke, Tess and maybe Slate but the other three boys – Nick, Coal and Indy are very special in their own quieter way.   The picture below were taken of the events leading up to age 6 weeks.    

The puppies are cuter than ever, and this week has resulted in a noticeable increase in puppy activity. They are playful and will pounce on and bite each other. We are starting to have some escape from their x-pen, which means they are going to need more exercise, soon. Indi, 

Their teeth and nails are growing fast (their nails have been trimmed twice already). This is all much to the chagrin of Sarah, who remains stoic despite her tender teats, albeit a bit less patient with long-term feedings. 

Here are current pictures of the little ones. Cobalt is the "cow dog." Tess (the only female) is the only dark brindle. There are two lighter brindle boys, Nickel ("Nick") and Charcoal ("Coal"). Coal has a black collar, but Nick's collar has fallen off. Nick has a small white tip on his tail. There are two solid fawn-to-blue (Maybe blue-fawns? We'll see as they grow older): Indigo ("Indi," who may have a purple collar on) and Slate ("Sluggo"). Slate was the runt, so he's a bit smaller, and he is a bit lighter in color and has a distinctively dark muzzle and ears. Indi is a little darker, with a lighter face and a white tip on his tail.

This morning Sarah and her pups got a new room added to their whelping box.  It was clear that Sarah did not fit in the whelping box and when she tried to nurse in there they swarmed her feet and got stepped on. She was getting fussy about nursing more than a few at once so we came up with an expansion plan.  So very early this am we moved things around in my office and they have 1/2 of it now.  We also change the puppy camera to a split screen hoping you would be able to see more action. And we added the option to have sound on the show (sometimes).  The expanded location will cause twice as much clean up and laundry but they all seem to be enjoying the interaction. Just in the short time since this was done we are already seeing much more mom and pup interaction!  Also the pups have discovered the toy box.  Let the fun begin.

The puppies are turning 3 weeks old today and have learned some new greyhound skills.  They already figured out the greyhound hug and basic roaching.  Now they are starting to walk on all 4 feet, on their paws not the whole back leg.  Their legs are getting longer and stronger, so they are testing hopping, climbing, and sitting!  They can now easily climb out of the whelping box, so we have added the front door extension. They are starting to bark, and this am a couple were trying out the greyhound howl. Most had the greyhound screech of death down pat right from the start. 
 
Their legs are getting long, and their teeth have started to protrude. Actually they are getting quite large, at least 3 times their original weight, but that’s only a guess as they wiggle too much to keep them on the scale. They have had their first nail trim.  Their eyes are open, and they seem to stare at things, like people and the writing on the whelping box.  They are apparently hearing noises and when our big greys decided to let us know the tree work guys were here, they too stood up and started barking, howling, and just screeching. They seem to be starting to play with each other.  They will grab a sibling with their mouth wide open and mouth them, they climb on them and are starting to pounce. All this will lead to more interesting puppy camera experience.
 
The other big change is that Sarah is not so excited about feeing 7 dogs in the tight whelping box so while I was gone my husband, let her eat laying on the people bed and brought her half the dogs at a time.  Now she has her own feeding dog bed outside the whelping box and the people bed is gone.  Last night was their first night with no people in the room with them being spied on by the puppy monitor. So far so good!
 
On the schedule for this week is starting to feed them mushy food.  It will probably be a menu of baby rice cereal and goat milk. This ought to be fun to watch but not clean up after. Two of the hounds are much more vocal than the others, they are Tess and Nick both have plenty to say.
 
Have fun watching the pups from 11am to 1pm and 6 to 8pm CA time at https://www.twitch.tv/grey_save

Only 4 days left to the Race to the Park. We are at 250 attendees and online registration will close mid-day on Friday. The weather looks great for our special day. All of us at GreySave are looking forward to seeing our old and new friends and to have a GREYT day. See you then. For more information and to register go to https://www.greysave.org/race-to-the-park-2021.html
In addition to Race to the Park auctions we are having our first-ever GreySave online LIVE auction! There are 41 items listed so far and we will be adding a few more including an 8x8 framed glamor photo or Sarah and her 2-week-old pups. Start bidding now to do your holiday shopping and support our greyt cause as we get ready for Saturday’s picnic.
We could use some help advertising our on-line auction site so please share the link with your greyhound friends, family and other dog lovers, too. The auction site is at
https://www.32auctions.com/greysave...
Our other excitement is the GreySave puppies continue to grow and at 2+ weeks old they change almost hourly. See their live camera feed from 11am to 1pm and again from 7 to 9pm CA. It is located at https://www.twitch.tv/grey_save

Sarah's pups have names now and neck bands so you can start to tell them apart.  Three of the big males look a lot alike so it has been a challenge to keep track of who is who.  Also there colors have changed since they were born and the two boys that appear to be a blue brindle look more so every day.  This am we tried to weigh them but they are now too wiggly to keep on the scale.  I can report that a couple of the biggest boys are now well over 2 pounds.  All have more than doubled their birth weight.

So here are their names and the color of their neck bands. -- Tess Trueheart in bright pink.  She is the only girl.  Tess was the 1st hound born so you know she is a confident and maybe pushy pup.  The 2nd born was Smoke who is wearing a white collar.  He is a solid blue/gray color with a white fur collar and is the biggest of them all. The 3rd born was Indigo who we are calling Indi.  He is mostly a solid blue/gray with a large triangle shaped blaze of white on his abdomen.  He is wearing a purple/blue collar.  4th born was Charcoal who we are calling Coal. He appears to be a blue/gray brindle with a triangle blaze on his chest.  He is wearing a black collar. Fifth to the exit was Cobalt.  He is the "cow dog" and wearing a bright blue collar. He is also the big climber and just learned how to get up on all 4 legs!  The 6th was Nickel or Nick as we are calling him.  He looks a lot like Indi with a blue/gray brindle back but has a V shaped white blaze on his tummy. And the last and cutest maybe is Slate.  He is quite a bit smaller than his brothers and has unique markings.  He has a dark muzzle, dark stripe down his back and a light colored head.  He is wearing a gray collar and he is the one always late for dinner!  

​Sure looks like they will be quite a bit more mobile in the very near future!

The pups turned one week old last night. They have grown significantly, even the little guy.  The first time we were able to get a good weight in them was 10/8 and by then they were 4 days old.  The scale I bought to use for them turned out to be a bit light weight for squiring greyhound pups.  As of today, yesterday they weigh between 1.13 to 1.97 pounds.  The lightest being the small looking one with the dark muzzle, light fur on his head and dark colored back.  He was very clearly the runt of the litter, but he makes up for his size with sheer determination.  The largest pup is the solid bluish male with white circle around his neck.  He is close to 2 pounds and feels every bit of that weight.  He is also the first one to the milk supply whenever the 4 legged milk bar shows up and he is not shy about pushing the others out of the way.

Since this is the first time my family and I have had pups, let alone greyhound pups, we are noticing things that the mom or pups do that seem maybe unique. First, they are loud!  When they are not stone cold out they are always making noises.  They grunt, squeal and chirp constantly.  I have a video of them nursing that shows what I mean if I can figure out how to get it on the website.  They are busy! Again, when not in a milk stupor they are off and moving somewhere, everywhere, nowhere.  Today, I added 2 heating bags since they were getting too cold when mom went on walk about around the house or to get some rest.  They immediately noticed them. They went to smell them and then nuzzle on the surface.  Before long they were trying to get inside the covers.  Now mind you they are doing this without being able to see as they are still too young.  They also are learning to have bowel movements on their own so they grunt about that too and deposit some very stinky snail looking piles that mom get real insulted if the humans clean up. 

One of the biggest handicaps to having young pups is trying to keep them warm.  They are warm enough nestled up to mom, but all mom's need a break at times and it is getting colder in Salt Lake city.  The recommended ambient temperature is between 88 and 92 and this time of year we are far from that.  So my office is now running at 80 degrees plus they have a couple of electric heating pad plus their new friends the microwave heating pads.  Personally, I like my room at about 65 for sleeping but that won’t work for the cubs so between the heat and jungle noises it make a good night’s sleep a bit rough. 

I have noticed two things that are pretty much greyhound classic moves and I think they come by them naturally.  One is the sleeping on the back with the feet in all directions.  Most of the pups are now capable of doing that.  The other is the greyhound hug.  They do that all the time, awake or asleep. 

Next step is to give these kids some GreySave names and identify them with collars if needed for the ones that look alike so you can tell who is having all the fun, who is the big climber, who likes to sleep on mom and who is always first to the milk bar.