The dry food only diet, mixed with a little pumpkin puree, firmed up Gracie’s stools somewhat, but they were still loose. I also felt like she was continuing to look thinner and thinner. She enjoyed the dry food much less than she had enjoyed the wet food, so after a few days, I started adding some back in hoping she would eat enough to sustain her underweight body through nursing 10 pups.
At the start of the week, all the pups’ eyes were still closed.
Cobalt 
Beau 
Buddy 
Tulip 
Ruby 
Rose 
Blaze 
Avalanche 
Thunder 
Blast
By mid week, an eye here and there would open and by the end of the week, each puppy had two open eyes. During this week, pups’ ear flaps also open and they can hear and see the world around them for the first time. It was so neat to be able to talk to the pups and have them turn their little heads toward us and look up with their bright eyes.
Gracie, while still being a wonderful and attentive mother, started being more excited about her time away from the pups during this second week. Her energy returned on her walks. I doubt she had received much leash training in her prior life because she was a big puller. She reminded me of Taka in Moana (refresher below) as she dug her claws in and dragged me around the neighborhood. I would have loved to put a harness on her, but felt like that would potentially harm her nipples.
When we returned from our walks, Gracie would run over to peek at the pups but would then come out of the pen and hang out with us in the basement for a while until a puppy summoned her with its cries.
I don’t think Gracie had been an indoor dog or had been housebroken. But to her credit, she never eliminated in the basement after her trips outdoors and only went in the puppy pen (outside the whelping box) about once each day, overnight.
The puppies were continuing to grow. Tulip (hot pink collar) was the chunkiest and Cobalt (black collar) and Buddy (bright blue collar) were the smallest. (For the complete list of puppy names and collar colors, see previous post!)
