Fingers crossed for Faith tomorrow

Good Luck with your ultrasound tomorrow Faith. Team Cheers is thinking of you and hoping for good news.

Video!

A lazy Saturday

Does it get any lazier than ten puppies sleeping in a group? Today we had a very lazy Saturday. I spent most of the day in the whelping box with the puppies. They are at a stage where they seem to sleep (quietly) for long periods of time. I must say that I am enjoying that as it makes it easier for me to hear the cat approach. Below you see me doing my guard dog impression. I know don't look much like a German Shepherd or a Rottweiler, but it fools the cat.

Like I said the puppies are busy sleeping, nursing and most importantly, GROWING. Their legs are getting stronger and I think that I have seen tails wag too

But the opportunities for Team Cheers to take cute pictures of the puppies is pretty limited to mostly "puppies nursing" and "puppies sleeping". In order to keep the staff (and the puppies) interested in photo ops, I ran a little "Fill in the caption on the photo" contest today. Here are the winners:

"Mom-Cliff and Norm are picking on me"

"Woody naps in the strangest places" (what can I say, we only had three entries and welcome your suggestions for this one)

"Cliff attempts to impersonate Gene Simmons"

Many many thanks to the volunteers

I would like to extend my personal thanks to all the wonderful volunteers who have or are scheduled to puppy sit this week. The members of Team Cheers have obligations during the day. The younger ones go to Obedience School, and the older members have employers who expect them to show up for work if they expect to get paid. But the puppies and I still require supervision. Helping Paws had been kind enough to provide volunteer puppy sitters in the interim. So here's a big Team Cheers "THANKS" to all of you.

And no, the cat is NOT a volunteer puppy sitter.

Anyway, on to what you all seem to want to see-puppy pictures. The puppies are all resting comfortably tonight after their trip to the vet to have their dew claws removed. It was also their first trip in a car, and no, I didn't let them hang their heads out the windows, though Woody and Norm asked. Repeatedly.

And I think they learned a new trick. I'm not sure if its apparent from the picture, but what you see is that the puppies are now able to execute the very difficult maneuver of sleeping in a triple stack. The head of the puppy on top of the pile actually has two layers of puppies below it. This is a very difficult (and sometimes dangerous) maneuver to execute, but my pups have pulled it off.

Here's a a picture that I 'helped with'. I am no longer allowed to help with photography :(

Here's a picture of the puppies in their travelling gear. Its actually a laundry basket lined with towels and and a hot water bottle was added.

Here's me counting them and giving them last minute instructions.And here's Woody yawning.

Or else he's calling for someone else to come and join him in his comfy spot

The puppies seem to be growing up so fast! At the rate they are gaining weight, they should have no trouble being double their birth weight by the end of the week (Rebecca seems determined to double by tomorrow) Their voices and legs are noticeably stronger every . It won't be long before they are running and barking.

Sleep in its many forms

We here at Team Cheers have received lots of positive feedback on our little enterprise, and we get many, many requests for pictures. So here you go. Also, Team Cheers is taking tomorrow night off, so this is our second post of the night. Team Cheers needs to catch up on its collective sleep. And that is the subject of this post-Sleep. Above is a typical night at Cheers. Some patrons are firmly ensconced at their bar stools, others are napping quietly.

I continue to be amazed at the variety of noises that they make. Sometimes I have to look around to see if R2-D2 is in the whelping box because I hear such a variety of beeps, whistles, grunts and such.

I'm also quite pleased with how quickly they are developing. The pads on their toes have turned black already, and their little legs are getting noticeably stronger. They may even start puppy exercises tomorrow. (Seriously-Helping Paws has some simple puppy exercises they can be doing this early). And as they get bigger, their tummies hold more so they can sleep longer. So without further ado, I present to you the many forms of sleeping puppies. The first is the ever popular "Group Sleep". Its very common here to have 2-6 puppies sleeping close to each other.

Sometimes they sleep on me.

Every once in a while one falls asleep right in front of me, and I sleep on him!

And they're not picky about which leg they sleep on. You already saw one sleeping on my front leg. Below is one sleeping on my back leg. Not sure how that ball got in here. They are obviously too small to fetch it. But someday.............

Sometimes they sleep on each other.

But I can't sleep when I hear the cat's bell jingling. Which way did she go?

And when they wake up, they need baths.

This one has already mastered the "classic" sleeping dog position.

This may look like a wrestling match, but its actually another group nap, albeit a small one.

Goodnight,

Cheers

"Where everybody knows your name"

That's Sam (Left Hip Boy). He's by far the reddest of the boys, so looks the most like me and therefore, the handsomest.

Before you go any further, you should listen to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD8ljNobUys to put you in the mood.

Secondly you may have noticed pink and blue spots on the pups. And if you are especially sharp-eyed, you may have noticed a purple mark or two. Those are marks placed there by Team Cheers to keep track of the puppies when they weigh them. I don't know why they don't just sniff them. It works for me.

Anyway, above you see a picture of Right Shoulder Girl, hereafter known as Kelly. She is the second blondest girl of the group. Also, since there are six girls in the litter, I had to dig deep into the cast list to find six girls names. Oh, and Kelly has her own song. You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hJjx7jTHA8. Here is another picture of her.
Next up is Right Hip Girl, aka Carla, also the smallest and feistiest of the girls, and always close to a bar stool at Cheers.

Below we have Right Hip Boy. He was by far the biggest boy at birth, so he had to be Norm. He is NEVER very far from his bar stool.

And of course, if you have a Norm, you must have a Cliff, formerly known as Left Shoulder Boy. He was the smallest of the boys and has tended to nurse by crawling under my chest from the front (the rest are content to come at it from the side). Given that he has his own special place with me, I must conclude that he's a momma's boy.

As I mentioned, there is one purple mark as Team Cheers was running out of obvious places to put pink nail polish. Also, in this litter, the boys are generally blonder like their dad, whereas the girls favor me and are redder. But one of the girls is really blonde, so I have been calling Purple Tail Girl Diane.
While we are on the subject of tails, Pink Tail Girl was obviously my Rebecca. Though she is the biggest of the girls, that's not why she was given the name. The reason for her name is related to her nursing habits. The best bar stools at Cheers are in the back, but Rebecca tries to get 'behind' the bar and kiss up. (That's the best way I can relate it in a G-Rated forum :). Please contact me personally if you need further clarification.
Next up is Right Shoulder-Boy, now known as Woody. He seems to like Kelly, and he is the blondest of the two remaining boys.

As I mentioned, we had to dig deep for girls names, so Left Hip Girl is Lillith. She was the second to last girl named, and Lillith was too good not to use for a name.

Lastly, Left Shoulder Girl. I was in a deep quandary about what to name her. I almost when with Robin, in honor of my sire, but Robin was a man on Cheers, and that won't do for me. So I thought some. I noticed that Left Shoulder Girl spent a lot of time under the heat lamp napping when not on her barstool. (Many of the patrons here sleep right at their barstool). That got me to thinking about characters that weren't at Cheers (the show) very much. So I am proud to present Vera.
For those of you too young to remember the show, here's what Wikipedia has to say about her:
Norm has a wife named Vera who is often mentioned but never seen. When she is finally shown, her face is covered in a thrown pie. The only other time she is seen, viewers can see only her legs.

Musings of new mom and some pictures from today

Above you see me on a typical day. I'm trying to sleep and keep an eye out for the cat (she is very curious about the contents of the whelping box) while the puppies crawl on me to nurse or sleep. Nursing the puppies can be quite the experience as there are only 10 bar stools here at Cheers, and 10 puppies. If one falls off or decides to take a different seat, a process we call 'resource reallocation' takes place and it takes 5-10 minutes for everyone to be reseated to their satisfaction. Or sometimes I shift my position and someone invariably gets left out or pointed in the wrong direction. But my staff is always there to take inventory. (I can't do it, I don't have enough front toes to count to ten!) But I wonder about the staff too. I have heard initial counts ranging from 8-12 puppies (note to staff-my feet are NOT puppies) but they always end up with final count of 10. And they have gotten good at searching my nooks and crannies (I didn't even know I had nooks and crannies til yesterday) and finding all the pups. Among other things, pups have been found hiding under my shoulders, and one likes to hide underneath my tail between my back legs. But like I said, staff always finds them.

While we are the subject of my staff, it reminds me that I should tell them that are now all members of "Team Cheers" and I will try to refer to them as such from now on. It was either that or give them a raise. Hey, even I am not immune from the effects of the economic downturn. But I am not going to give them titles, no matter what!

Below are some pictures of the puppies doing what they do best. They may look like they are sleeping quietly, but I can assure you that at least half of them are making noise. I had no idea that this was going to happen, but they make the most wonderful sounds. Most of the noise is squeaking with an odd whimper and the occasional wail of someone who is far from their bar stool. But I would swear that this morning I heard someone try out a new sound that sounded like a practice bark.

Thanks for reading and looking!

Cheers

Please tune in for our next post tentatively titled "Where Everybody Knows Your Name"