Paisley’s puppies have arrived! She delivered five handsome boys and three beautiful girls starting at about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday November 29. All of Paisley’s newborn puppies are healthy and doing well. All are scooting around, active, and nursing. Paisley is being a super mom keeping them fed and clean. Pictured below are pictures of Paisley’s newborn puppies.
The boys are in black, maroon, dark green, yellow, and brown collars. The girls are in pink, green, and orange. Each puppy will remain in the same color collar until they go home. Paisley’s boys will remain in solid color collars. The girls will transition into collars that have dots on them when they are just under 2 weeks of age. The pink puppy’s collar will be predominantly pink with green dots. The green puppy’s collar will be predominantly green with teal dots. And the orange puppy’s collar will have an aqua background with orange dots and orange lining.
These puppies are only a few hours old in these pictures. Paisley has been up all night and is pretty worn out. Still she’s loving her puppies and being a super mom!
Scroll below the pictures to read more developmental information on newborn puppies.
Pictures of Paisley’s Newborn Puppies
Pictured above is our keeping room. We have removed some of our furniture and rearranged the rest to accommodate our growing litters.
London and her puppies are in the box closest to the camera. London loves her toys and brought the green toy that you can see in the box to share with her puppies. Below is a picture of one of London’s puppies making herself comfortable on this not so comfy toy! I wouldn’t have chosen this toy for a 4 day old puppy, but it made London happy to share it and apparently Miss Pink likes it more than I would have guessed.
Paisley is in the box closest to the couch. I like to keep the younger puppies closest to where I am sleeping at night which is on the table-turned-bed behind the sofa.
To the left of this picture is our kitchen. Both litters are fenced off from the kitchen to give the moms privacy from our other dogs. At this point, both moms are still spending most of their time in the boxes with their puppies.
To the right of where I am standing is a TV to keep us company during the long nights that we have been up with them.
The blue box between the two whelping boxes is where we put the puppies while we change out the bedding. There is a scale just behind and to the right of London’s litter. Each puppy is weighed two or three times a day for the first few days. Then once we see that are all getting their fair share of the milk and are growing well, we cut back to once a day.
Developmental Information about Paisley’s Newborn Puppies
The average newborn Golden Retriever puppy weighs about 14 ounces. They are totally dependent on their moms. Their eyes and ears are closed and they depend on their already developing sense of smell to find their moms. They cannot walk, but rather scoot around on their bellies.
During these first days, the mom is the primary caretaker. In fact, usually the moms are hesitant to leave the box even for potty breaks. The mom will not only keep them fed, but cleans them as well.
However, young puppies need us humans for the best possible chance of surviving and thriving. We take turns keeping watch over the puppies for the first two weeks, including overnight. Puppies are so small at this age that without supervision, it is very common for the mom to accidentally lay on one of them.
We handle them often and start clipping nails weekly at one or two days of age. Each puppy is weighed daily to make sure they are growing well and getting their share of mom’s milk. We also give them daily probiotics which keeps their digestive system strong.
At three days, we will start ENS (early neurological stimulation). You can read about ENS on our Raising Puppies page .
We ask families to wait until puppies are at least two weeks old before making definite plans and booking flights to pick up puppies. We don’t anticipate loosing any puppies, but it does sometimes happen in those first couple of weeks.
We’ll continue keeping you posted on how Paisley’s newborn puppies are growing on a weekly basis. See our Available Puppies page to get to pages of Paisley’s puppies at other ages.