2024-07-10 03:22:14
A lot happens in two and a half months when raising puppies. You are always worried about them, basically from day one. You might think that you have made a stable playpen and in an hour you have little racers in the middle of the room. Puppies the size of the palm of your hand already have a sense of smell for weak spots and headlong rush where it is least appropriate. The story is part of the series “Dog Mom’s Diary.”
(2nd part of the series) – In the first days, dog mom Bára and her owner had a lot to do. Nine blind puppies in the color of all kinds of chocolates were like a bag of fleas. Some of them regularly went in another direction for milk, and since the mother dog – nursing those who found pods – often did not know how to deal with them, the owner had to assist her in catching and constantly counting if they had all nine of them together.
One night, around two o’clock in the morning – if you want to know exactly – the lady woke up with a loud wail. The situation looked like this: the mother was whining, the child was “calling for help”, but could not be seen. “Oh my… how did you get there?” the lady thought as she found the puppy trapped behind the cast iron ribs in the gap between the radiator and the wall. And since there was nowhere she could simply pull it back, she took a screwdriver from the shelf and cut a hole in the wall in the ajfer, which still haunts her there today, but she saved the puppy.
As a first-time mother, Bára was an exemplary caregiver. She hasn’t moved a step since she was little. She refused to go out or eat anything unless it was served lying down and right under her nose. “That’s the mother of the year,” declared the human grandmother of the puppies after her daughter despaired that the bitch was secretly urinating on the carpet. But she was worried about Bar the first few days. The vet was at home more times than is generally necessary, apart from the post-partum check-up, also because the bitch, as she was being cleaned, started to suffer from severe diarrhoea, which manifested itself mainly on the floors of the first-republic apartment.
“Nine children? No one would want that”
The plan was that, due to veterinary care, Bára would rather “give birth” in Prague than at the cottage, where everyone was supposed to move in a fortnight. After only a week, however, they were driven out of the city. Bára refused to go further than 500 meters, and walking on the granite blocks in the street brought her more stress than relief. The lady therefore decided to pack everything and go to the solitude of the forest. How ten dogs and one cat managed to be transferred in the sedan, we prefer to leave it to the imagination of each of the readers, so that no one has reservations about the ingenious solution that the lady came up with. But brother Richard took excellent care of everyone in the back the whole time.
In the house with a large garden, it was as if they were starting over, but Bára was happy. Her eyes lit up, and for the first time since the birth, the lady felt that the bitch was properly grateful to her. Before the puppies’ arrival, grandma and grandpa already lined the hall with cardboard, blankets and diapers. In terms of size, the place was just right, and the lady was also pleased that it could be closed from all sides and that, above all, it did not have a cast-iron heater. It was April, so her biggest concern right now was to keep the puppies warm and growing nicely.
Puppies are usually on mother’s milk for the first three weeks, then they start to be supplemented with artificial milk and porridge. Bára’s exhaustion was already noticeable after a fortnight. Breastfeeding every three hours seemed beyond her strength. In addition, she had other concerns at the cottage than just watching over the children. She liked to lie in the garden and watch what was going on around her, especially when the family sat around the outdoor table. “Dammit, you have children there,” her grandmother often reminded her, who seemed to be getting laxer day by day in the care of her puppies.
Before they switched to artificial food, Bára went to the puppies only occasionally. Meanwhile, the furry children opened their eyes, grew from two to four, paws wrapped around their claws and the first teeth grew in their mouths. “Don’t be surprised that she doesn’t want to go there, look at how scratched up her belly is,” observed sister Daniela, who still vividly remembers getting up at night and being tired of her two sons. “And nine children? No one would want that,” she added.
“Quiet, the children are sleeping”
The care of the little Barons lasted from April to June, and each period required special care. From the beginning, the family also received visitors, which gradually displeased the grandmother and grandfather, who own the cottage and like peace. Since the lady had to work to feed the hungry, she took turns in care mainly with her mother, who after all – because she had already raised several children, including grandchildren – had the best overview of what and how she was doing.
The turning point came when the lady allowed herself to go on vacation for a few days and her mother, as the grandmother of the furry children, took over all the responsibility of raising them. The offspring, the size of an adult Yorkshire terrier, were already starting to go outside during the day, but since it was even below 16 degrees Celsius that fateful week, the grandmother had to figure out how to satisfy the naughty little ones inside. And that was an unenviable task, because the little ones were already big runaways and wherever they got through the cardboard fence, they were angry and excluded. The inner vestibule was no longer enough for them.
But the grandmother managed, she set a regime for the furry ones. It was fed at seven, ten, one, four in the afternoon, then also at six and nine in the evening. And the one who seemed skinny got extra milk with the soaked kibble. After eating, he walked, slept and in between frolics. The lady knew very little about it at the time, she was abroad. “Please, I’ll come to the cottage and see what kind of wallabies are here! They’re giant,” she was surprised by the news from her sister. “They are just the right size and they like it very much,” the grandmother responded to the criticism of a distant observer at the time, who was beginning to see in the videos that the bellies of the puppies were outgrowing their small heads.
“Children, children, papals? Run to grandma,” says the mother in the video, who is cuddling the four-legged puppies in a fenced-in enclosure. “Don’t do that to the fence! Do you hear that!?” she shouts at her three-year-old grandson Oliver, who is clamoring for attention through the playpen, and the grandmother’s tone of voice makes it clear that she is no longer the most vulnerable member of the family. At that time, it became clear to the lady that when she returned from vacation, nothing would be the same. Because puppies are now grandmothers. From then on, the family spent their evenings outside rather than inside, and they didn’t even go to the fenced enclosure as often anymore. “Don’t go there now, the kids are sleeping!”
In the next installment, you can read about how our furry children painted themselves, how much it cost to raise them and where we found new homes for them. You can find the first part here.