Patch Pups are Growing Fast and Getting Fat

I am searching for a large dog crate, one big enough to hold a large mother dog and her four puppies comfortably while I am away from the house.

My laundry room worked as the perfect nursery for the dogs until last week when the mother, who is not house broken, came out of the pantry area to do her business next to the washer and dryer. She knocked the screen off of the door that leads out into the garage, panicked and shut the pantry door behind her, cutting her off from the puppies.

By the time I got home she was stressed out, lying on the screen that was covered in poop and she had eaten one of the slats in the door to the pantry. She was trying to get to her puppies.

By the time I got home the next day she had finished eating through the door so that she could get in and out even if the door is closed.

I spent the entire weekend at home trying to potty train her and to keep her calm. It did some good, although she is still not house broken. She has done better though. I left her four about five hours on Monday and when I got home she was standing by the back door waiting to go out.

Of course she made another mess overnight. But she does seem to be getting the idea. It's just going to take a lot of time, patience and perhaps the crate to keep her and her puppies together when I am not home and to prevent the panic.

The point of this column is not to scare off potential fosters, but to let people know what they are in for if they foster so that they can be prepared. If I had been better prepared I probably would have had a crate right from the beginning. But I didn't forsee the panic of the mother separating herself from the puppies.

The good news is that we are all making progress by the day. I am guessing that the mother dog has put on nearly 10 pounds in two weeks. She was emaciated when she arrived at my house, I could see every rib, her spine and her two hip bones protruding. Now only her hip bones are still prominent enough to notice. She is still a skinny dog, but not emaciated.

She is also very sweet and loving. She loves attention and trusts me. She will go out for short walks with me and waits patiently for me to feed her. She has gotten used to my dog and cat being in the house, although I keep everyone separate especially with the puppies there. My beagle will go past the pantry on his way out for a walk and she will watch but more in curiosity than anything else.

But fattening up the mother dog has made it difficult to potty train her. I don't have her on a regular feeding schedule. I leave puppy chow out for her all the time and she goes through it by the bowl. Of course she is feeding puppies — who seem to get bigger by the minute — so would need the calories even if she wasn't underweight. But because she eats throughout the day, she also has to potty throughout the day. 

I put down a ton of newspaper and puppy pads -- thanks to my neighbors who have generously supported me in my fostering from listening to the latest heartburn to supplying me with loads of newspapers and some puppy pads. The newspapers usually make clean-up a little easier, although not always.

Now for the puppies. Like I said they are getting big fast. They have fat little bellies, so mom is doing a good job of feeding them. They are opening their eyes now and even trying to walk around a little. In the first week or so they would just drag themselves along on their bellies. Now they are up on all fours for short little walks. It's fun to watch them as they learn new things. They are getting more vocal, mostly squealing when they can't find mom or when she steps on them when she's trying to eat. One of them, the biggest of the bunch, likes to growl when he's trying to get position at feeding time.

I still can't figure out what they will look like. Right now they have short little legs, wrinKled faces and short snouts. I joked the other day that a wild boar had snuck up on the mother dog and left her pregnant.

I should say that a deputy found the mother dog wandering. She was pregnant and emaciated at that point. He fed her and then took her to animal services where she had her puppies before I fostered the entire brood.

Because I am the foster, I get to name them. But because I think of them as the Patch Pups I am going to leave it to the readers to name them. So as you watch them grow please submit your suggestions for names in comments. I will list the most popular names and let everyone vote at the end.