One week old

The pups are now a week old and a couple of days ago the blonde guys started getting their nose and pad colors. Here you can see little Dax's nose, starting to get a little bit of black at the tip.

They have nearly doubled in size and are all quite healthy. Star has an arm chair in the puppy room that she sits on and chews on her nylabone when the pups are sleeping. It's 84 degrees in the room so they do fine without her body heat. Like any mom, she treasures her kid-free moments when she can relax and do what she wants.

I really find it tough to believe that Star was a puppymill dog. She is in no way fearful of humans, loves attention, and (drumroll) is housetrained and trained to a pee pad. She was just going on the pee pad in the middle of the night but she has taken to waking me up at 5:30 am so we can take a walk in the back yard in the freezing cold and she can do her business. I much prefer wadding up a pee pad at 7:30 am to getting up at 5:30, but hey, I shouldn't complain.

Today we took the puppies' 1 week old photos that will be used on New Rattitude's Website for the nursery Webpage. There was also a New Rattitude litter born in Michigan this week - 4 girls. Watch for photos of them on the New Rattitude Website soon.

Little Squirmers

The puppies are all doing great and growing quickly. Star continues to be a great mom and dotes on the puppies constantly, only leaving her box for quick bathroom breaks. After she's done she tears back in the house and up to the office, waiting for me to open the door so she can get back to the babies.

The 2 blondies are the biggest and are growing faster than the other three. Dax actually started out as the smallest, but now he's as big as brother, Rom. They are nearly identical so we had tied a ribbon around Rom's neck so we could keep track of who was who at weigh in time. Last night I went to weigh the pups and was calling out the weights to Troy, who wrote them down for me. I weighed Dax, put him back in the box, and then grabbed the other blond pup, Rom. I weighed him and the weight was the same. Then I realized this pup didn't have a ribbon. I looked back in the box, confused, and there was Dax, asleep where I had laid him. Then I realized that Star must have chewed off the ribbon. We laughed over that, trying to decide who was who since Dax had caught up in weight to Rom. Luckily I had noticed earlier in the day that when you turn on the overhead lights that Dax is just slightly darker than Rom along his back. You have to have them side by side to notice but there is that slight difference.

The three dark pups are all starting to get their rattie eyebrows which is SO cute. They show up best on the brown pups, Milah and Sisko, but I can see that Worf is getting his as well. It will be fun to see their little markings start to emerge.

Anyhow, the photo above show little Mr. Rom, before his ribbon was removed by his momma.

Star and her Trekkies

Yesterday from 3:45 pm to 6:20 pm Star gave birth to 5 healthy little puppies. There were 4 boys and 1 girl and they were all between 7 3/8 oz and 7 3/4 oz in size. She is an excellent mom and really there wasn't much for me to do but sit back and watch her work. I actually missed the birth of the first little guy because I went downstairs to get heat the microwave pads for the puppy basket. I figured I was way early but, you know - better safe than sorry. I get upstairs 2 minutes later and Star is licking this little black blob.


Two of the boys are blondies, like Armstrong/Sunny if you remember that little foster guy that we had. As they age their markings will show up but for now they look solid. The first pup is a black sable with tuxedo markings and then the other two are dark brown with black sable and the tuxedo markings.


The girl's name is Milah Jo, and the boys are Worf, Rom, Sisko and Dax. All the names follow our space theme and are from the TV show "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" since these five pups bring our current dog count to 9!

Blogger is being obnoxious and currently won't allow me to get photos in my posts from Flickr. So to see all the photos go to the Star set of photos over on Flickr.com.

Star

Star stopped eating last night and has been resting most of the morning. Now stage one of her labor is starting so we should have puppies tonight. Wish her luck!

2010 New Rattitude Rat Terrier Calendar is here!

The contest is over, photos have been chosen and a very nice calendar has been assembled and is now for sale over at New Rattitude's ReTail store . 100% of the net proceeds of the calendar sales benefit the rat terriers in foster care with New Rattitude, Inc.

The cost is $15 and if you order before November 1st you don't have to pay the additional $3 shipping fee. Order early because quantities are limited. Check out the preview Webpage to see the great photos that were chosen. I was very impressed with the final product.

Big ol' belly

As promised, here is a photo of our new girl, Star. She is a very sweet girl, around 3-4 years old and about 20 pounds right now, several of them baby pounds. She has a great big belly but still manages to go up and down the stairs. For a puppymill dog she is very well socialized and has settled in nicely.

She ate a nice big dinner of Orijen Puppy kibble mixed with a little Sojos Grain Free veggie mix and is now resting nicely up in the "nursery" aka office. I will keep you posted as to how things progress.

Introducing Star

Okay, so everything finally worked out and after 3 weeks we were finally able to get 2 puppymill rescue dogs out of the kennel they were in. The male will be going to another Washington foster home and the pregnant female, Star, will be coming to our house. I have been wanting to foster a litter for quite awhile so this is very exciting.

The photo above was taken over 3 weeks ago so she is actually really close to giving birth. She is already producing milk so I'm pretty sure that she will be whelping by the end of the week.

The story is that she was part of a group of dogs that were seized from a puppymill in Missouri. About 100 of these dogs were transported to a rescue kennel in Southern California but they couldn't handle the load of dogs, especially a pregnant mill girl. The rescue contacted New Rattitude and things finally came together this last week to get the two rat terriers transported to Washington.

So now she just needs to hold on until she gets here and we can get her in the nice warm whelping room that we've put together for her up in our office. Her and her buddy will be flown up here tomorrow morning in cabin, thanks to a couple of Alaska Airlines volunteers (thanks Peter and Amanda!)

The latest

Little Mr. Peanut has joined his new family and him and his new brother, a 6 month old rattie named Gator are already the best of buds, spending lots of time racing (and sliding) around on the hardwood floors. He is even already sharing the bed with his family which is quite a treat as he had to sleep in his ex-pen here.

For about the past three weeks I have been working on who would fill Peanut's foster spot once he went home. Because Franny is pretty alpha we needed to be careful. Well, this Wednesday is the transport day for our new foster girl but I still can't say whether it will actually work out until tomorrow when the volunteer in California goes to temperament test her and pull her from the kennel where she is at. If she gets pulled tomorrow I will be sure to post the exciting details. If she doesn't, I will be to busy moping. ;)

Fun Franny

Franny is turning into a very fun, playful dog. She is the only adult dog in the house right now that will tolerate 4 month old little Peanut's puppy antics and wrestles with him and plays chase for quite awhile before she gets tired of it. She loves lying on the back of the couch so she can see everything going on and although she doesn't like it, will go to her crate and sleep there if led on a leash.

She still won't be able to be in a household with another alpha dog, but somewhere out there is a household that will love and cherish this little dog who's loaded with personality and just needs a new start to life.

She is really slimming down now, thanks to the Sojos mixed into her kibble (veggie mix that replaces some of the kibble) and all the wrestling with Peanut. I'll have to get photos later so show that she has a waist now. Anyway, busy, busy... talk later.

One of those mornings

This morning Peanut had an appointment at Coalition Humane for the "big snip" so at 7:30am I packed a large crate with his bed and a blanket and loaded him up to head to Tacoma. My husband had assured me he had pooped and peed when he was taken out early so I didn't take him for a bathroom run before we left. Mistake.

The stress of being in a crate again and in the car must have gotten to Peanut because halfway to the clinic I smelled a tell-tale smell, and no, it wasn't the Port of Tacoma. Peanut, the little pup who rarely even has accidents in his big ex-pen had pooped in his crate.

When we arrived at the spay/neuter clinic I took a poopy little puppy out of the crate and attempted to clean him and the crate up without getting myself all poopy. Thankfully I had covered the dog bed with the blanked so I was able to just pull the blanket out and the bed and crate were clean. Peanut however, was not clean. We wrestled in the back of the CRV as I used the doggy water bottle and the towel from the doggy car seat to attempt to clean him. Mostly it was his paws that were a mess, because he had stayed standing after he pooped. I had to be very careful that I had no remnants of the clean up job on me before I went inside to do the paperwork.

After I came back to the car to finish the clean up job it reeked horribly. I decided to just throw out the blanket and towel rather than ride with the stink and that definitely helped. Thank goodness for the old towels and the doggie blankies and fleece yardage that gets donated to me for the dogs. With puppies around they always come in handy.

I felt so bad for the little guy. He has a rough day and evening ahead of him. I will be there tomorrow morning at 7:30am to pick him up and take him home for some love and attention. He will come to work with me so I can keep an eye on him and make sure he isn't licking the incision site.

Little Peanut struck gold!

So I had been receiving a couple applications for little Peanut that made me cringe and was getting worried. I needed this sweet little guy in a spot where I wouldn't worry about his future. He needed a dog, and possibly kids to play with. He needed a fenced yard so he could play chase. He needed a home where he'd be fed a nutritious diet of quality dog food. You see we have fallen for this sweet puppy and only the best would do.

I E-mailed a few folks asking them to think of friends who might cherish and dote on a spectacular little dog. One of the ladies who helps me with air transports of foster dogs E-mailed back, that she knew the perfect spot - with her! She had said that she was waiting to look for a buddy for her rat terrier pup when I had talked with her recently so I thought she was joking. I didn't even respond until the next morning when she E-mailed again and said "I was serious. Should I fill out an application now?" I got so excited that I had to call my husband to let him know the good news.

So probably next week sometime he will be heading to his new home, complete with kids and another rescued rat terrier who is still young enough that he will be overjoyed to have a partner in crime, so to say. The adoption coordinator has already given the application a pass, as have I as the foster parent, so all that is left is the home visit, which should go great.

Peanut will be neutered Monday in Tacoma and I think the home visit will be Wednesday and I'm guessing that all the paperwork will be done by Thursday (because our applications team is just that good!)

Whenever I'm sure that one dog is going home I start working on getting another dog that is on New Rattitude's urgent list pulled and transported to WA. Right now I'm working with the California team who has 8-9 rat terriers that are considered to be in danger of euthanization at this point. As soon as I have more details I'll be sure to post about the next foster.

Franny and Peanut updates

Well, it was a bit of a disappointing day. Franny had an awesome application and today was the day that she was going to go home. We had agreed to do a short trial just to make sure that she got along with her new furry siblings. Well, when her new mom came to pick her up Franny and one of the dogs, Dudley, took a distinct disliking to each other.

I've seen this happen before for the first 15 minutes or so when there are territorial issues and the dogs are still checking each other out. We let the dogs off leash in the back yard and several times Franny full out attacked the sweet little rat terrier boy. I've seen her be snippy with other dogs at the pet store but never have I seen her full on start fights. It was pretty traumatic for little Dudley as Franny is much heftier than he is. She does fine with Frodo and Tilly but I think she will definitely need to go to a home where none of the resident dogs have alpha tendencies. Tilly and Frodo are about as omega as you get so Franny doesn't sense a challenge with them and gets along with them fine.

Peanut went to the vet this morning for his distemper vaccination booster. As usual everyone was in love with him and he charmed the staff when he escaped into the back area of the vets when the vet opened the door to the exam room. He made sure he ran around back there and gave all the vet techs kisses before he let the vet catch him and bring him back to the room for his vaccination. He is now 9 pounds, 4 ounces and is about 15 weeks old. I just got his information to the New Rattitude pet publicists, who list the fosters on petfinder.com and adoptapet.com so he should start to have some application rolling in soon.