Friday, January 11, 2008

Learning to Eat

Today was the big day. Eating real food. It could be comparable to getting your driver's license or your first kiss ... an event to be remembered. Neither of these things involves the mess that occurred today(well ... one hopes). I was right to assume that the puppies who have been bottle fed immediately started eating whatever was on my hand. The ones who have never seen the bottle had to be encouraged by way of prying open their little gobs and poking food in. Once that was accomplished they seemed to figure it out. I'll tell you who figured things out in a screaming hurry; Pale Pink girl had everything well in hand. Takes after her mom that one. She was exhibiting a level of focus I have rarely seen in one so young. Her little tummy was fit to burst but I swear she would have fallen asleep in the dish if she could have.


The rest of the pack seemed to get easily distracted from their mission to fill tummies - some ate a bit and then wandered away looking for Halo or to go pee or poop somewhere. They came back eventually and I stuffed more food in them. Their tummies weren't as full as Pale Pink here but they got the idea. The only other puppy with anywhere near the same level of commitment was Blue Boy but even he couldn't stick it out til the end. The puppies missing from the photo are scattered to the 4 corners doing blind puppy things and crying.


I let ... sorry ... made Halo come in and feed them. I told her to lie down and the puppies topped up the tanks with some milky Halo goodness. She did not get the leavings of the puppy mess ... she stole it and got in big trouble. I left the room for a moment and when I came back the puppies were staggering round looking for her and she was eating the food as fast as she could. I won't detail what I said to her.
As you can imagine the whole process is an unmitigated gong show times twelve. I generally let Halo lick up the leftovers and wipe up the slobber when it's clean according to dog tongue. It is hard to keep track of who's eating and who's not but whenever a puppy got close enough that wasn't eating I'd pick it up and stuff it's little face. This will be the process for the next couple days and they will pick it up fast - not as fast as Pale Pink obviously but she must be a quick study. Soon enough you'll be catching them on the counter and stealing your Cadbury Cream Eggs when you're not looking ... Raimi.

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