cute! pretty sure she's mix
Princess Sparkle...
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@jengosmonkey You would have had something in common with Marvin, Greg - he was American ! Albeit married to a Brit and lived in UK for the last 39 of his 91 years. He went back once - to judge the BCOA National.
Got his first Basenji - Am/Can Ch Bettina's Dark Diamond (tri) from Bettina Belmont Ward in 1956. Basenjis were the big love of his life, along with flying, gliding (he was a licenced pilot in both) and ice skating !
He would approve that I have Mku and Kito even though no longer breeding myself.
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We've been busy! Princess Sparkle has turned out to be a fantastic momma in my opinion. She's happy to spend long amounts of time with her little creations. We've started taking her for a few walks every day to keep her exercised, but she's always happy to hop back into the whelping box after we've cleaned her feet. She's feeding her pile o puppies very well. Very well indeed...
Just dawned on me that a well fed fat lil’ Basenji puppy looks an awful lot like a Tardigrade.
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Thanks for the pics! I've never seen wee little ones, they're beautiful! -
@jengosmonkey the milk bar looks very well stocked!
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@elbrant said in Princess Sparkle...:
Thanks for the pics! I've never seen wee little ones, they're beautiful!It's been decades since I've seen any this young. My first time as the Monkey On The Ground In Charge. A few observations...
When they're born, they are small, floppy and pretty quiet. Everything is pink... feet, belly, nose, lips... all pink. Little eyes are slammed shut and their ears are like shirt pocket flaps... neatly closed.
They grow a bit faster than I'd imagined or even how fast I thought it was happening. When I compare pictures at birth till now... they're a bunch bigger already! It's also funny seeing their little puppy bellies before and after they feed. Ever seen a hot air balloon laying on the ground, then they fill it up and you're thinking "Wow! That got bigger than I thought it would." Puppy bellies... They inflate A LOT!
It the few days they've had those bellies on the ground, I can see their little legs getting stronger every day. Some are beginning to lift their bellies off the ground and I saw one scratch an ear with a hind foot yesterday! That was REALLY cool! Just happened to be peaking on them at the right time, I guess. The residual umbilical cords have fallen off now and their ears are no longer neatly closed little pocket flaps. They're beginning to fold open. The other cool thing is that their noses are beginning to look like someone sprinkled pepper on them. Little black spots are appearing as they begin transforming from pink to black. I imagine the lips and eyelids will do the same soon too.
Really fun to watch the changes and it's only been 5 days!
@jkent said in Princess Sparkle...:
@jengosmonkey the milk bar looks very well stocked!
Right! I call it the "Tap Room" featuring some of the finest craft milk to come out of a California craft dairy in decades. Fortified with THE highest quality antibodies available anywhere and produced using proprietary methods known only to our brew master, Princess Sparkle.
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So Exciting and so cool! I love hearing about their development! Precious mama and babies!🥰
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Here's a pic of the nose changing...
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@JENGOSMonkey -Greg, you must be so proud and “just out of you mind” with happiness with Sparkle , Logan, and the new pups! Bet you never would have dreamed this 1 year ago. Magical things do happen!
Congratulations to the proud grandpa! 
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@kembe Beyond proud! Nose freckles...
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@jengosmonkey - Yup that little red spot is starting to be filled in by the white disappearing.... and you have till about the 1st of the year and you should start to see "peepers"...
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@tanza Really looking forward to the peepers opening. Legs are getting really strong. These guys are way mobile. For being blind and deaf they seem to be able to find their way pretty well. Once in a while they get stuck behind Sparkle and I have to move them back around the other side, but they're pretty good about screaming about it. Puppies are so much fun!
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Pile o puppies…
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Good that you have collars on them, Greg. I always did - usually when the eyes opened. On last thing at night and by morning they don't ever remember life without a collar. Just make sure the collars 'grow' with the pups.
The splits are filling in nicely and those tails look as though they are starting to come up.
Have you given them names yet - just puppy call names so you can identify them ? We had The Three Stooges (Curly, Larry and Mo), Faith, Hope and Charity, Hubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble (Trouble kept her name for the next 16 years !) and I forget all of the series we used.
Such time wasters !
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@zande Have we given them names yet? That's a good question, Sally. A little perspective first. I swooped in and snagged two Champions that were the product of more than three decades of selective breeding. I love them, feed them, play with them and enjoy them, but I had nothing to do with creating them. Same with these puppies. My role is limited to whelping them and giving them a loving kick start to what I hope will be long and happy lives with new Monkeys. My roll ends after a bunch of weeks and then the next chapter starts when each little pupper gets to meet its new Monkey/s. That new Monkey really should be the one to name them, and I happily accept that.
That said... you know me...
OF COURSE, I"VE NAMED THEM! Some even have more than one name...The Tri is named Tri-Baby after my VERY favorite Sheltie puppy of all time. The one I wanted so bad, but my Mom wouldn't let me keep. Tri-Baby is gonna find a fantastic home that will love him forever. That's my sincere hope.
Next is Tank. He was the heaviest and biggest at birth. He's the lil' dude with the Blue collar. I also call him Bloogie. Tank is quite boisterous and very active. nine time out of ten if there's a pup screaming... it's Tank. He shows a lot of personality.
Next is the one with the dot on the split head. Her name was Dot till I figured out she was a he. Now we call him Dotto. To me he's a really stunning looking puppy. I can't wait to see what he grows in to.
Next is Zowie. She was born with a little lightning bolt blaze up the back of her head. My wife and I huge David Bowie fans and would have called the pup Bowie if it were a boy. But she a girlie girl, so we call her Zowie. She was smaller than everyone else, but she's gaining well.
Next up is Spike. My wife and I are huge Peanuts and Tom Petty fans. Snoopy's brother was Spike, and Tom has a song we love called Spike. She has a nice spike shaped blaze up the back of her head a bit like Zowie's. She's another cutie.
Last is PW. Sparkle's show name is Sparkle Perfect, and Logan is Logan's World. So we call her Perfect World, or PW for short. We also call her Pee Wee too. She's kind like Jan Brady though... kinda gets lost in the shuffle. But I have no doubt that once she finds her forever home someone is going to spoil her rotten. I certainly hope so!
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@zande I forgot to mention that we check and adjust collars daily at the same time we weigh them and slime their little tail tips with A&D ointment to keep their little tail tips happy.
The tails are kinda cool. One of the things I’ve really been looking forward to watching as they change. I’ve noticed they get stronger at the base of the tail first. As they’ve gotten stronger they begin to lift. Now they kinda look like bent over fishing poles dipping towards the back of the pups. Hope I get to see them curl over their backs towards their heads.
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@jengosmonkey - Thanks for using A&D on the tails... we have had "tail tip rot" over the years... so this stops that... Don't know if just a US thing or warm beds... but it doesn't hurt them and Mom's really don't bother with the A&D.... Thanks
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@tanza That is something I have never come across or heard of ! Certainly never had it in all my litters over the years. Interesting. Often pups have heat pads under the bedding - ours didn't because they were whelped and spent their earliest days in a large whelping box in an alcove next to the coal-fired Aga which was permanently warm and heated the whole kitchen.
@JENGOSMonkey I didn't mean call names the pups would take with them - The only ones which 'stuck' were on the ones we kept. Hope, Curly, Trouble etc. But as babies they had to have something so we knew which one we were talking about.
Tails do strengthen as you are finding out and certainly will have come up and be touching the backs at the very least by the time you have to say good-bye to them. I imagine you will have them for at least 8 - 9 weeks. Time to make them bomb-proof ! Drop saucepans around them, slam doors, play loud music, get them used to lots of sound and bangs - and have everyone who comes to the house handle them.
Have they doubled their weight in the first week ?
Poor Greg, you are getting so much input you probably don't need - just look on it as coming from a jealous and frustrated breeder who would love another litter but is herself too old !
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@zande - Tail rot has been around in the US for a long time... no one here can pin point the reason for it. Vet specialist have not a clue, many of us breeder think that it is moisture in the whelping box either from heat pads under the bedding or over head heat lamps.... but by using the A&D no issues.
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@tanza Its interesting - I keep learning something. What actually happens to the tails ?
I always started mine on quite a depth of shredded (torn, never cut) newpapers which were changed several times a day. Then they went on to Vet-Bed which again was changed and washed frequently.
Trouble would nose them out of the bed-box onto newspaper - she potty trained them for me. She would NOT permit them to soil her bed. . . and that way, I got to clean it up (change the paper). No flies on my Trouble ! Wish the other Moms had been as fussy.
And by the time they were running around, newspaper was 'the' spot and before any normal age, her pups were trained. Very useful !
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@zande - Tails (tips) would dry out and get scaly. Hair would fall out and then they could lose the tip of the tail. Some say it is an infection, others say dry skin or coming from moisture.... no one knows. If you had a litter of 6, maybe 2 or 3 would get this. In my Mickii's litter of 4, two of the four got this and they lost the tail tip (this was back in 1996) and the one boy had only about 20 white hairs on his remaining tip. It was the Jones girls that put me onto A&D and never had a problem since. So to this day, we do not know what causes this, all the breeders have raised their pups in different manners, so nothing ever pointed to note what/when the problem was coming from. Of course back in the day before internet, none of this was shared... it was word of mouth... but when I asked the Jones Girls, they told me they had this and started using A&D from birth. And like I said, to this day, no one really knows what/why it comes from. For my pups I would do this daily when I change the bedding in the litter box (put the A&D on)... and continue till at least the eyes were open. Once the eyes were open I would start them on the litter box... they really figured it out pretty darn quick. Love it much better than paper... LOL
