Pictured below are Sydney’s newborn puppies. Girls are in Pink, Purple, Orange, and Black strips of flannel. Boys are in Blue, Red, Tan, White, and Yellow. When the puppies are between 1 and 2 weeks, we will put real collars on them. Then at about 5 weeks, we will replace these very small collars with larger ones that are exactly the same as the smaller ones they wear from 2 to 5 weeks of age.
Puppy Collars
When we have more than one litter here at the same time, we use multi-colored collars on many of the puppies in the second or third litter born so that when we talk about the puppies in the different litters, each puppy has a distinguished name from all the other puppies (even the ones in other litters). At 7-10 days of age, the puppies will grow into real collars as follows.
The girl currently in pink will wear a light pink and green collar with lady bugs on it. We’ll be calling her Lady Bug.
The girl in purple will wear a purple collar with flowers. We’ll call her Flower.
We’ll be calling the girl in orange Bee because she will be in an orange and aqua collar with bumble bees on it.
The girl in black will wear a black collar with silver sparkly bones. Her temporary name will be Sparkles.
The boy in blue will be in a light blue collar with fire hydrants on it to differentiate him from London’s Mr. Blue. We’ll call him LB (short for Light Blue).
We’ll call the boy in red “Stripes” because he will move into a red striped collar.
The boy in Yellow will become Yellow Paws to differentiate him from London’s Mr. Yellow. His collar will be Yellow with brown paw prints on it.
The boys in tan and white will simply be called Mr. Tan and Mr. White. Our other litters don’t have a tan or white collared puppy.
Scroll below the pictures to read more developmental information on newborn puppies.
Current Litter Set Ups
Below is the side of our keeping room with Sydney’s litter. This picture was taken just a few hours after delivery. Sydney and I have been up all night the night before. Sydney’s exhausted.
The picture below shows the other side of our keeping room. The pens on the back wall is where our other two litters live. The two pens closer to where I am standing give a place for the moms to freely go in and out. Elise is sitting with Paisley’s litter on the left. London and her litter are on the right.
Developmental Information
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, newborn 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. To make sure that each one is growing well and getting their share of mom’s milk, we weigh them daily. 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 Sydney’s newborn puppies are growing on a weekly basis. See our Available Puppies page to get to pages of Sydney’s newborn puppies at other ages.