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

I am linking to 

Rose Garden Malevik

Three Little Rescue Doberman Puppies!

The main reason why my blogging has come to an abrupt hold around the middle of April is this: Three four week old rescue Doberman puppies, all little girls, have found their way into our home...

...and have turned our life upside down.

All photos in this post were taken spontaneously the first evening when they arrived with an iPhone, so please overlook the not so great quality of the images.

Since the puppies were constantly moving (at least one of them always was) you neither got all three of them in one photo,... 

...nor did you get a sharp shot. 

Here is Skylar, our red Dobie boy, testing the new x-pen, the afternoon before the puppies moved in. He seems to approve of their new home!

'Can I find some mother milk here?'

Cuteness overload?!

The puppies have been rescued by Susan Kelber, Los Angeles, who is involved in Doberman rescue for the last twenty years. She got them from a backyard breeder, who was selling them individually over Craig's List at the age of four weeks. According to Susan, he claimed their mom was hit by a car and dead, and that was the reason why he was selling them at such a young age.

Puppies should stay with their mom until they are at least eight weeks old. If the mom is not available anymore, they at least should be brought up together until they are eight weeks old to keep each other company, play together and teach each other important things like bite inhibition etc.

When Susan got in contact with the backyard breeder he stated that it was a litter of ten puppies and that he had already sold four. According to Susan she explained to the man that puppies should not be separated at this age and tried to convince him to relinquish the puppies to her for rescue purposes, but he didn't want to do that. So Susan bought the remaining six puppies from him with the help of two generous and dog loving friends, to keep them safe and make sure that they stay together at least in groups of three until they can be separated at a more appropriate age.

Our friend and dog trainer Alexandra Gant, who is heavily involved in dog rescue, was looking for a second rescue Doberman for us and heard through her rescue contacts about the litter and connected us to Susan.

And so it came that three puppies went to a Doberman breeder in the Los Angeles area for fostering and the remaining three ended up at our home.

Our job was to raise and take care of them as good as we can until they are at least eight weeks old and can be adopted out.

First of all, we took them on, because we wanted to adopt one for ourselves. As I said earlier, we were looking for a Doberman companion for Skylar and we were searching for quite a while by then. But, of course, we also wanted to help these little puppies to get the best possible start into their lives, after obviously a very bumpy early beginning.

'This is a fun toy to play with!'

Skylar: 'Yes, but this one is mine and will stay mine, no matter how cute mom and dad think you are!'

The decision to take the puppies on had to be made rather quickly and I freely admit that we had no idea what we were getting into and how much work and time was involved to raise these little girls.

As luck would have it, I was taking part in a Vedic Chant workshop in Ojai, California and on the way back to San Diego, it was easy to stop by at Susan's home in Los Angeles and pick them up.

Not knowing anything about Doberman puppies, I was shocked how little they actually were when I saw them in person for the first time. But still, moments later I had them loaded up in a cardboard box into my car to take them home.

'My nose tells me that there is water!'

Crashed on my husbands leg after the long drive from Los Angeles to San Diego.

They really craved human contact.

Another one crashed in my arms. They seemed to either play, sleep, eat or poop and pee.

They were so little, they were fitting into one hand.

'Yum, puppy gruel!'

'Shall we eat some more?'

I just wanted to show you the little Dobie girls the way they looked the moment they arrived. By now, about six weeks later, they have grown so tremendously, they are hard to recognize.

If you would like to follow their story, please come back soon. I will try to post more pictures of them in the next couple of weeks and let you participate in their development!

Thanks for stopping by, as always I really appreciate your visit! Hope you enjoyed seeing some photos of the little Dobie girls!

Warm regards,

Christina

I am linking to

Rose Garden Malevik

Bernideen's Tea Time, Cottage and Garden