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.

10/8 NOTE: Video times changed now 11 am to 1pm & 6pm to 8pm CA time. Having a hard time getting everyone fed & cleaned at the earlier times. ​

The pups whelped between 4pm & 9:30 pm on October 4th.  She apparently knew when her due date was. This was a first-time experience for all of us involved and we are so glad mom Sarah knew what to do almost perfectly.  There are some interestingly colored pups in the litter and 3 of them we still can't tell apart consistently.  If you watch the puppy camera or look at some of the still pictures you will see that there is a dark brindle, a white & maybe dark brindle, a smaller pup with a darker brown body & light- colored head. Then there are 4 maybe solid or brindled greys.  Maybe they are blue brindles.  Not sure yet.  One has a white patch on the back of his neck and 4 white feet.  The other 3 look a lot alike just looking at their backs but have a different design on their chests.  

Sarah had a rough day yesterday and she needed to go see her vet.  Dr Lynette took some x-rays to make sure no one got left behind, gave her a post-delivery injection, and put her on antibiotics.  Since yesterday Sarah’s temperature has dropped to normal from the 107 degrees, she ate a good breakfast so hopefully she is heading back to her new-normal life.  After breakfast and a trip to the back yard she went right to her whelping box, counted her pups, and then searched around my office to make sure we were not hiding anymore.  Once she had a full tummy the pups got theirs and have been napping, wiggling, and slithering around ever since.  The pups make noises most of the time.  It may be moans, squeaks or in some cases loud screams.  Mom is slowly learning not to step or sit on the pups but that is a hard task.  When she gets up to go somewhere they fall all over the place and start to move to where they think she is.  Before she goes down to sit or lay she will often spin about a bit and target a safe place to land.  We are thinking it is our job, at least for now to make sure the landing space is fee of small bodies.  It works most of the times but in a 4ft X 4ft box it can be a challenge.  Yesterday we introduced a heating pad. That has been a hit and last night one of them burrowed under it much to my worry.  Today we introduced doggie potty pads since they light, disposable and a light color so you can see the puppy colors better.  The pups seem to like them to wrestle with and sleep on.  They seem to like to be up on or under things.  We have a “pig” rail that is supposed to keep them safe from being sat on or squashed by their mom.  I believe that works as intended but they also love to use it as a shaded and safe travel path.  They seem to like to sleep in that space.  When we can’t find one of them for one of our multiple head counts they are usually under the rail. Since I was not in CA when the “GreySave 6” were born I never saw them as newborns and so this group is quite interesting to observe.  Some of their cutest parts are their little pink bear (like black bear) feet, the nearly invisible but sharp claws and their flappy ears which are growing by the hour.  We just turned on the evening version of the puppy camera (5 to 8 pm - CA time) at https://www.twitch.tv/grey_save so be sure to look for it.  We are also streaming from 10 to noon CA time zone.  To read about and see pictures as they are growing and learning check the GreySave website News feed at https://www.greysave.org/our-news