And Then There Were Only Two

Do you remember the three little four weeks old rescue Doberman puppies that we took on in April last year? Today I would like to go back in time and continue their story.

Elsa, the red one, had just left us. The picture above is one of the last photos that we took of her while she was playing with our red Doberman boy Skylar. She found a home with a police officer and has another Doberman boy to play with.

Now suddenly we were down to two almost identical looking black Doberman puppy girls, Lilly and Princess, and our own red adult Doberman boy. I vividly recall how much less work it was to have only two puppies to care for but also how much we missed sweet little Elsa.

I still feel a sting in my heart when I look at her photos. She was incredibly cute, adorable and beautiful, but we couldn't keep more than one puppy. So we had to make a decision and let Elsa go first. We had two more weeks before we needed to finally decide which puppy to keep out of the two remaining black ones and the photos in this post are from these last two weeks, where both of them were with us. The puppies were about nine to ten weeks old.

Lilly snuggling on my lap. Who can resist such an innocent little face?

Do you also love puppy paws? Princess exhausted after a bath sleeping on my lap wrapped up in a warm towel.

Princess, following the big ones lead.

The energy level and enthusiasm, here Princess running full speed, with which the puppies conquered their world never failed to amaze me.

Always curious and...

...alert.

"Can I whisper something in your ear"?

Skylar and Princess sharing an intimate moment.

"What are you sniffing? I want to sniff that, too."

"Oh, you are playing with a stick, let me play with you!"

Even as young puppies they could do very quick turns on a dime.

The puppies were always all over Skylar wanting to play with him, but also testing the boundaries and sometimes simply being obnoxious. Most of the time Skylar was very patient and tolerant with them, but sometimes when he really couldn't take it anymore, even he got cranky. We had to constantly watch, supervise, and make sure that he got a timeout from all the puppy silliness and also that none of the puppies got hurt.

Each evening before we all would go to bed we had a ritual. My husband and I were going into the X-pen in which we kept the puppies overnight and cuddle with them. Skylar would sometimes join as well.

It really felt like a family is together.

The puppies were tired from the day and usually climbed on my husband's and or on my lap and Skylar would be in the middle between us making sure that he wasn't excluded.

Princess leaning on my husband's leg, Lilly on my lap looking up to me.

Princess banging her little paw on Skylar's head. Somehow that was one of the puppies favorite things to do and understandably Skylar didn't always like it.

Lilly has been fallen asleep after a long exciting day in my lap and Skylar is checking her out. 

As I said earlier, at this point, we had two more weeks to come up with our final decision which puppy to keep. It was a very tough and difficult decision to make. Come back for my next post and find out, which puppy would stay with us. 

I hope you enjoyed looking at some more Doberman puppy photos and also seeing our big boy Skylar again!

If you want to see the previous posts about the Doberman puppies please click on the links:

Three Little Rescue Doberman puppies!
More From The Rescue Doberman Puppies
The Rescue Doberman Puppies Are Growing Fast


Warm regards, 

Christina 

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More From The Rescue Doberman Puppies

As promised, today I will show you more photos of the three rescue Doberman puppies, that we took in on April, 24th this year. On the pictures published today they are about five week old and at that age they seem to grew visibly every day.

After play they often liked to huddle up with each other in their little den, a plastic box padded with towels, for warmth and comfort. On a whim at dinner with a friend we had given them their puppy names. So from the left to the right you see Lily, Princess and Elsa. The two black sisters looked so similar that we had a hard time telling them apart at that point. We solved this problem by putting little collars in different colors on them. Here you see Princess showing off her red one with white mini paw prints.

Even though all puppies were terrible cute, Elsa had the little "special something".

The black ones, Lily and Princess, were much stronger than Elsa and bullied her at times badly, which was not always fun to watch. They even didn't seem to mind teaming up against her. Doberman puppies can be so incredible rough with each other.

But there were many peaceful (means mainly sleepy) moments as well. But the visible scratch on Elsa's head tells about the other times.

Lily in play mode.

Princess and Lily having a go at each other.

Lily looking mischievously: "Mom, all these bones are mine."

Lily crashed after play.

Lily, deep asleep at one moment...

... and ready to go again in the next.

Drop dead tired sisters, Elsa can hardly keep her eyes open.

Because at that time Lily was such a rascal we got her a black collar with skulls and cross bones on it. At that age we had the puppies wearing the collars only every second day to be easy on their skin. That is why you always see only one puppy with a collar in all the photos where we captured all three of them together.

The pups ate like nothing else. At that age they got their puppy gruel five times within 24 hours. That meant feeding them about every five hours, day and night, because they were still so little without a mom providing a constant food source when they were hungry.

And of course shortly after they had been fed they needed to pee and poop. It is still unbelievable to me how often and how much these little puppies had to go potty, which required constant clean up.

You can imagine that was a quite intense time for my husband and I. It was equally wonderful as it was tiring. The constant sleep deprivation was the hardest for us. It didn't took long and it became clear to us that we needed help to raise them, otherwise it would have been impossible to keep doing our professional jobs.

It was really touching how eagerly they were seeking physical contact with us, I guess because my husband and I became a substitute for their mom.

Here you can see how hard the two black ones were to tell apart. That only goes for their looks, though. Temperament-wise, they were very different even at that young age.

Look at these cute paws and and nails!

In the meantime we tried to make sure to not neglect our two and a half year old red Dobie boy Skylar. While I took care of the puppies my husband went with him to the beach as often as possible. On this photo he is waiting impatiently for the tennis ball to be thrown, again.

Skylar wading through the cool water proudly carrying his tennis ball in his mouth.

Back to the puppies: They always fell asleep in the cutest positions.

Line-up of all three: A curious looking Elsa, a skeptical looking Princess and Lily in the back sound asleep.

Very typical for Princess, after being skeptical for a moment, she gets curious and comes over to investigate.

Cute, but at that time skinny and weak Elsa. We found out what most likely the cause for this was: She was full of roundworms! The backyard breeder told Susan Kelber, the woman, who initially rescued the puppies from him, that he had de-wormed them. But Susan was skeptical and decided to de-worm them herself just to be sure and we repeated the procedure 14 days later. Under our care alone at least six big nasty roundworms came out of Elsa's body! No wonder that the parasites limited her ability to take up nutrients. Things really got better from there and she started to catch up with the weight of her sisters. In the beginning we were really worried about Elsa, so you can imagine how relieved and thankful we were.  

Cute...

...and cuter!

I always found that Elsa was the one with the most expressive features.

Gosh those eyes,...

...but she knew too, like her sisters, how to put her baby canines to good use. After all they are Doberman girls!

A sleeping Princess.

Elsa feeling safe and content in daddy's arm.

At the age of eight and nine weeks Elsa and Princess got adopted. Both went to good homes and Elsa has an adult Dobie brother and Princess an adult Dobie sister to keep them company in their new life.

We kept Lily for ourselves, since we were looking for a second Dobie for us and a companion for our Doberman boy Skylar for a long time.  

Hope you enjoyed my second post about the rescue Dobie litter! If you have missed the first one please click here and it will take you there. I will continue to post about the rescue puppies and show you how they grew and matured. 

As always thanks for stopping by! I also would like to welcome my new followers, I am very happy that you have decided to read my posts on a regular basis!

Warm regards,

Christina

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