July 26

Poor Annabelle! I woke up and felt her sides and her stretch marks
have begun scabbing up. I have started putting some udder cream on
her, but poor baby!

When the puppies were born, I took their weights. I have always used a
diet scale that I bought at a garage sale for $0.50. The old scale was
analogue. It only weighed in ounces, didn't have the ability to
measure in grams. It didn't have a tare function. By no means was this
a great scale, but it had always worked for me. Unfortunately, after
weighing the 5th puppy a spring broke and my scale would no longer
work. Today I splurged and got a new scale. Spent a whole $7 on it,
but it has all the bells and whistles that I wanted. It weighs in
ounces and grams. There is a bowl that will hold a newborn puppy.
There is a flat top that will hold a larger bucket to hold a larger
puppy.

I keep track of what the puppies weigh so that I can make sure that
everyone is gaining weight and no one is losing. If a puppy starts
losing weight, then I need to start supplementary feedings
immediately. As the pups get older, their weight is important so I
can administer the correct amount of medication.

While weighing them, I also realized that I needed to trim their
nails. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the nails of all baby
animals grow. I make it a habit to trim puppy nails every 4-5 days.
Nothing seems to turn a mother off of nursing like 9 sets of sharp
puppy nails being raked over her tender chest!

While Cringer, our male cat, was out on the streets, he would "help
baby sit" the local kittens. When one of the kittens would wander
away, Cringer would pick the kitten up and help them find their way
back to mom. Today between the weighing and nail clipping, I had a
couple of puppies on the couch. Cringer came over for a sniff. Selina,
our female cat, was sitting at the other end of the sofa. While
tending to the pups, Cringer kept trying to "pup-nap" a baby and take
him to Selina. The puppy tried nuzzling into Selina and she jumped
straight into the air. She has no mothering instinct at all.