Sunny days on the farm

Gardening help

Playtime

Relaxing in the heat!

Grandson puppy cuddles

Photos showing grandson playtime and that the puppies life long obsession with shoes has begun! 

Enjoying the evening sunshine

These pictures were taken on Monday evening in the sunshine.  The puppies are now eating solid food which is added to warm water and allowed to soak overnight (this saves time having to make it in a morning and I make enough for the whole day).   I mash up the food so that it is easy for them to eat and they are having four meals a day.  They are play fighting with each other now so there is plenty of squealing as they grab each others ears and tails and there is plenty of rough and tumble but they also sleep a lot !

Another photo

Very cute little faces.

Friends come to visit

Play fight

The puppies are really enjoying the gorgeous weather and playing on the lawn.  Their little characters are beginning to develop - we found that one of them enjoys a sneaky drink of tea which was left unattended on the grass!

Photos -Just beginning to explore

Now the rough and tumble is starting.  You will notice that all the puppies have different coloured collars which are made of a soft Velcro.  This makes it so easy to identify them particularly at this stage as they all look very similar.  Now we can spot which are the adventurous, mischievous ones!

Found their voices

The puppies are getting really cute and have now found their feet and their voices so if they can see or smell their Mum there's a lot of yapping which tugs at her heart strings and she jumps straight into the box to feed them.  Honey's Mum, Fern, has been showing a lot of interest in her grandpups - so much so that she has been trying to act as a surrogate Mum.  The pups are quite happy with this and have been snuggling up to their Grandma .  This gives Honey a bit of time to relax and have a break from them.  I've registered the puppies with the Kennel Club tonight and chosen their names  (mostly named after wild flowers).

Two weeks old today

There is a little glint in their eyes today for the first time and possibly one of the first things they saw was us approaching them with their worming liquid!  We will worm them for the next two days and then again in a fortnight. 
They must have wondered what was happening as some strange tasting, white liquid was squirted into their mouths.  However, they took it all in their stride and just settled back down to sleep.
They are slowly beginning to find their feet and taking small wobbly steps around their whelping box but they still rely on smell to find their siblings and Mum.  They seem very contented and consequently Honey is able to spend more time away from them in the garden.

All thriving

Nine days have passed and all the puppies are  thriving.  Honey now feels confident enough to leave them for short periods to go for short walks or just chill out in the garden but is always keen to get back and check on them.  She has even allowed her Mum, Fern, to have a little sniff.  We have had several visitors having a peep at them over the kitchen door, but no handling yet !

Welcome back ........... it's 5 years since our last blog when Fern had her last litter in our line of yellow Labradors and just to re-cap we kept Honey from that litter.  The family decided that we would like Honey to have her first litter and so we had her mated with 'Paddy', a 3-year old, fox-red labrador from Long Marston who is owned by a shooting colleague.  He has an extremely good pedigree and is both a family pet and a hard working dog with a lovely nature.
On Saturday 25th May Honey gave birth to seven healthy puppies - she had five bitches and two dogs.