Piper’s puppies have arrived! She delivered five handsome boys and four beautiful girls starting at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday July 18. All of Piper’s newborn puppies are healthy and doing well. All are scooting around, active, and nursing. Piper is being a super mom keeping them fed and clean. She already has plenty of milk and is loving being a mom.
Some moms don’t get a full milk supply for 24 or sometimes 48 hours. However, Piper’s puppies are already nursing with little happy tails going straight up in the air!
The boys are in blue, red, orange, gray, and brown collars. The girls are in pink, purple, green, and yellow. Each puppy will remain in the same color collar until they go home.
Scroll below the pictures to read more developmental information on newborn puppies.
Pictures of Piper’s Newborn Puppies
Developmental Information about Piper’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’ve only lost one puppy (ever) after two weeks of age.
We’ll continue keeping you posted on how Piper’s newborn puppies are growing on a weekly basis. See our Available Puppies page to get to pages of Piper’s puppies at other ages.
