Puppies

Hi, everybody. This is Claire from Van Isle Labradoodles. We’re here with the week six update for the Razzle Dazzle litter. These puppies are mini multigeneration Australian Labradoodles. These puppies are all tricolor puppies, so that means that they’re all full parti and full phantom as well. You’ll see they’re getting into all sorts of trouble and all sorts of mischief at six weeks old. So, we may have a little bit of an interruption here and there. You may see things flying around because these guys are all full of beans. So, we’re going to do a little update on the puppies, an update on Ripple, and then we’re going to talk about health and wellness subjects. We’re going to do a bit on exercise, home remedies for minor mishaps with your puppies, and then I’m going to talk to you a bit about health insurance for your pet.

So first of all, let’s talk about the puppies, because they’re the most fun out of everything. We don’t have weights on the puppies anymore because our scale is not able to accommodate this size. So, they are going to be going for their health and wellness exams next week. And after we’ve done that, then we’ll have a weight from the vet.

So, let’s start here with the puppy that’s closest to me. She is full of beans, and that’s Miss Pink Collar girl. So, here is Miss Pink Collar girl in all of her glory. She is a lively puppy. She is very outgoing. She’s full of fun and adventure, not afraid of anything, and really enjoying her new experiences. And for this week, their big new experience has been that they have gone outside. Nobody was afraid of that. They all had a great time.

And over here, this is Miss Red Collar. We’ll just pick her up so she can come and say hi, too. Miss Red Collar is the one that has the open face. She’s the biggest puppy in the litter. She is also by far the most confident puppy and the most outgoing puppy. When she went outside for the first time, she didn’t hesitate to go and explore, and run around, and just look at everything, and try and take it all in. She had a great time.

And next we have Mr. Blue Collar boy. This is Mr. Blue Collar boy. He is also a beautiful tri, as they all are. He has a slightly more filled in face in terms of his coloring. Mr. Blue Collar is the puppy that at our family visit was a little bit shy because he wasn’t feeling that well. He had a bit of an upset tummy. That’s all long gone. And he’s just wild, and crazy, and full of all sorts of energy and fun times just like his litter mates.

And last but not least, over here we have Mr. Purple Collar. Come here, Purpy. They all want to eat the microphone, so sorry if you’re listening to a bunch of static. This is Mr. Purple Collar. So, he’s opposite from Miss Red COllar in that his face is at dark face. So, he has a solid-colored face, but he is also a tri just like the other dogs. Purple is the quietest puppy in the litter. And by that I don’t mean that he’s shy or at all lacking in confidence, but he’s a very thoughtful and considerate boy. He likes to assess the situation, checkout what his litter mates are doing, and then decide if he thinks it’s something he wants to do as well or if he’d be having more fun doing something else.

So, you can see they’re all playing with toys now. They’re all running around with all these various stuffies. They are right in their really active teething stage, so everything is all about putting everything and anything into their mouths, chewing, and biting, and just trying to get those teeth through. They also are playing with one another now. They’re have their little play fights. They growl. They bark. They just have a fabulous time together.

As mentioned, they all started going outside this week. We use a doggy door for all of the puppies. The first one to learn how to use the doggy door all by herself was Miss Red Collar. That’s what I mean by the fact that she’s the most outgoing out of them all. So, she had lots of fun, opened it, and she was out and about this morning all by herself. Didn’t need anybody to help her or show her the way.

Now as for Ripple, Ripple’s doing really well. The puppies are now weaned, and they are eating solid food. They’ve graduated from pablum and goat’s milk on to their raw food diet. So, they’re eating beef, chicken, turkey, and sometimes venison. Those are all mixed in with bone and some vegetables. So, they’re doing really well on that. They’re really enjoying it. We’ve pretty much cut out the pablum and the milk, although we do sprinkle some pablum and milk over top of the raw from time to time. And of course they still have their pumpkin in there, too.

Now, we had planned on letting Ripple nurse the puppies until she wanted to wean them, but Ripple herself … We had to take her into emergency on Sunday night. We could tell that something was not right. She was not acting like her usual happy self, so we took her in. It was a bit of a puzzle at emergency. They ran several blood panels and tests. They did x-rays. They did ultrasounds. But, they were not able to really pinpoint exactly what was going on with her. it turns out she has had some sort of an infection, so she is on several different antibiotics and other drugs to clear that up now. And as a result, she can’t nurse the puppies even if we wanted her to because the drugs that are in her system are not safe for puppies.

So, she’s very sad. She doesn’t like that at all. She’s a very attentive mom. But, we have what we call a surgical suit, which is a special suit that goes from the head right to the toe. It is a very tight-fitting body suit, and that way the puppies are not able to nurse, but Ripple will be able to go in and lick them and be a mom to them and play with them. So, everybody will be happy about that. We hope that we’re going to be able to find out what’s going on with Ripple fairly soon and that everything will be well. But, she’s back home now. She’s happy. She’s jumping around it and back to her usual self.

And as you can see, Miss Red Collar isn’t content was playing with a puppy toy. No, she has to take on the entire great big bed and move it around. So, she’s a very strong girl, and she certainly has no hesitation with trying out anything. She’s quite a character. Well, they all are, but she’s really makes us laugh with all of her antics.

So let’s talk a little bit about health and wellness for these guys now that we had mom not get well and we had to go to emergency. So, I just wanted to give you a bit of information about when you have your puppy at home, things to look for, what you can do at home, and when it is time to actually go to emergency.

So very often dogs, will have slight cases of constipation or diarrhea. This is something that just happens from time to time. Dogs, even even adult dogs, pick up so many things when they’re outside. They are always nosing around, and they tend to eat things and put things in their mouths and aren’t always the best for them, and it often ends up in a slightly upset stomach. So the best thing of all is pumpkin. Pumpkin works both for constipation and for diarrhea, and it keeps the system running smoothly. So if you’ve got a puppy or an adult with either constipation or diarrhea, just take some extra pumpkin, put it on the roof of their mouth with your finger, and have them take that about four times a day. That usually will fix it up.

If that’s not working and you have a puppy who has diarrhea, not to the point where it’s explosive diarrhea and it’s constant throughout the day, but a soft stool here and there, you can always use Imodium before you get to your vet. Any diarrhea or constipation that lasts for more than two days or diarrhea that is explosive or has mucus or blood in it, that is the time you go to your vet right away. Phone them, explain the situation, and get an appointment as soon as you can. Those things can usually mean other things that need to be treated with antibiotics and other things.

But if it’s just a little bit of a soft stool and you know it’s probably because your puppy ate something, maybe you had guests over and they gave them a whole handful of cheese or whatever, Imodium works really well. It’s a very safe drug for puppies and for dogs. And if you need to know the dosing, you can always just email me and I’ll be happy to give it to you. But if you need an answer more quickly, just Google it and you’ll find it really easily as per their weight.

Now, if you’ve got a puppy who is also maybe having a little bit of a tummy ache or a little bit of an unsettled tummy, you can hear excessive gurgling, that sort of thing, Kaopectate’s really good as well. It too is safe for dogs. And again, you can just Google it and get the dosage. Usually, you’ll find that that clears everything up within 24 hours. If you haven’t seen everything cleared up in 24 hours, then that’s when you want to be phoning the vet and going in.

Hey. I’m just going to get Red Collar puppy because she thinks that she doesn’t really want to be in here anymore because this is boring now. She’s trying everything, move the bed. So really, we should go explore something else, right? Hey, monkey.

Now, the other thing is if your puppy is constipated, what do you do? You can tell if your puppy’s constipated if they’re straining to go and their tummy will be really hard and it will be uncomfortable when you palpate it. You can do a basic warm water enema, which is just warm water and a syringe, without the needle of course. You just insert that into the anus and just put a very small amount, about 0.2 of a milliliter of warm water, and then massage their tummy. And if that doesn’t solve the problem right away, then you’re going to want to call your vet.

Now, the other thing that might happen with your puppy on something of a regular basis is they might get a cut, or they might get a little bit of a sunburn, or something like that. For that, we recommend that you have on hand a type of cream that’s called like a Rescue Cream. We use that regularly for our dogs with any kind of minor scratches, or cuts that they might get, or if they get a thorn in their paw. The one we sell is part of the same line that we have our shampoos from, the Soos line. So, it’s all natural and it’s made with all dead sea minerals and other ingredients. It’s perfectly safe if they lick. So, we offer that for sale if you’d like to buy that, but it works really well. It lasts a long time, and you can just keep that on hand.

Now, sometimes your puppy might get a bee sting or a wasp sting. That does happen. And for that, what we keep on hand is Benadryl. Benadryl is also safe for dogs. And again, the dosing information you can find on Google. The best bet of all is just to phone your vet. Your vet can tell you precisely what you need to know for dosing of these things. But, Benadryl’s awesome if they have any sort of a sting or if something’s swelling and you want to bring the swelling down.

Then, the other thing that you might have is a dog who’s prone to being a little bit sick in the car. Maybe they’re going to throw up from time to time. Maybe they’re really stressed going in the car. Traveling just isn’t their best friend or you sometimes we’ll have a puppy, or a dog, who just tends to have a sensitive tummy. For that, you can give them Gravol, Gravol in 25 milligrams. Gravol is super safer for dogs, and it really helps nausea go away. So if you have a puppy who’s not feeling well for any reason, Gravol is a great thing.

Now, if you have a puppy who sometimes spits up a yellow bile, that’s because your puppy’s hungry. Quite a few puppies can’t go for a long period of time without food. And sometimes overnight, if you stop feeding her puppy around seven and don’t feed them again until seven in the morning, that 12 hours is just too long for them. So, those puppies need at bedtime snack. And if you find your dog is throwing up a foamy, green-colored, yellow-colored bile, that’ll be because their tummy is too empty. So, a snack during the day and a snack at bedtime is what you need for dogs who have that condition.

So now what about pet insurance? So, Ripple’s bill at the emergency hospital where she spent two nights and three days and had, what I said, the x-rays, and the ultrasounds, and the blood panels done, that bill was over $2,000. So if you have pet insurance, all of that would have been covered, other than the initial exam by the veterinary or the emergency vet. That was, I believe, about $75. So, it’s something to keep in mind because something that’s not hugely a big event, like it’s not like she got hit by a car, still is $2,000. I tell everybody that generally speaking, if you have to have something done in terms of a surgery or an ultra sound, anything like that that’s out of the normal, you’re looking usually around $3,000.

So if you’re a really great saver or if you are a very fortunate person and are comfortably off financially and you feel you would always have access to $5,000, then pet insurance may be something you don’t need to have. But if you don’t have access to those types of funds readily or if you had to use them it would be really harmful to your bank account, as it would be to mine, then pet insurance might be something you want to consider. It runs around $55 a month, off the top of my head. It does vary depending on your deductible. But, I believe for a $500 deductible, that’s about what it is per month. So, it’s not a lot of money, and it does give you a lot of peace of mind.

Now, we give you 30 days free pet insurance through to Trupanion. We partnered with them just because we happen to like the company and the way they did business. We receive nothing from them in exchange for offering this to you. So, you get your 30 days free after you get your puppy. And the big bonus of getting the coverage from a breeder is that your puppy is considered to have no preexisting conditions. So even if your puppy came with, say, a base narrow canine or an underbite that needed something to be done in the future, that would be considered to be something that was not a preexisting condition. So, that’s a sort of bonus thing about getting it from your breeder.

Come here, Blue. Blue is trying to escape as well. Where do think you’re going? Look in the camera. Look and say hi to everybody. Say, “Hi. My name’s Blue.” So you can see he’s not shopping at all anymore now. It was just because he had a tummy upset. And speaking of that, when he had his tummy upset, he got Kaopectate. And after he had Kaopectate for a day and a half, he was right as rain and feeling all back to his normal perky self. Yes. That’s all he needed. We have no idea what caused his … him to have the upset stomach. Just one of those things you can’t always know. And oftentimes, dogs have conditions and nobody ever really does know what happened. It’s great if they can do a test and it shows up, but many times it doesn’t. And because they can’t tell us precisely, sometimes we just have to go along with that.

So, back to the insurance. And the other really nice thing about Trupanion is that you can add on additional coverage for holistic vets, for acupuncture and chiropractic care. Now, some of you may not be familiar with those things for dogs and wonder if they’re worthwhile. We’ve used all of those things and find them to be wonderful things for your dogs. We really recommend acupuncture for dogs if they have an injury of any sort or if they’re older and have anything like arthritis, or an older injury that’s still causing them trouble.

When Checkers was older, he had a trigger point in his back that caused him a little bit of discomfort. He had acupuncture every three weeks, and you would never know that anything had ever been wrong with them. One of our other dogs had an old injury on her shoulder from a slip and fall on the ice. She too went for acupuncture. Kept it totally under control. No need for pain meds, or NSAIDs, or any of those things. And just like with people, if your dog goes on an NSAID, which is an anti inflammatory drug, then there are long-term health consequences that are not good ones for the dog. So, much better to go and have the acupuncture and keep your dog pain free in a natural way.

And holistic vets are terrific. We try to use a combination of holistic and traditional vet care. So in Ripple’s instance, Ripple was in critical condition. Her heart was tacky. Her heartbeat was so high that she easily could have died from the rapid rate of her heart rate. So, there’s no way that I’m not going to use a traditional vet for an instance like that. The antibiotics are what are making her better. And in this case, that’s what we’re going to use. Now, for long-term care, we’ll see what we can figure out what actually caused the problem, and then we’ll probably switch to something that’s more natural and more of an herbal approach from there, if it’s going to work. But, I like the two combined because I think it’s great if you can have the best of both worlds. Whenever possible, we try to avoid drugs, but you can’t always avoid them.

Now, I was talking about acupuncture and chiropractic treatment. Chiropractic treatment is not anywhere near readily available as acupuncture is. But if you do have access to a chiropractor for your dog, I would highly recommend sending your dog once a year for an adjustment and keeping them in great condition and fully aligned. When we lived in Alberta, we did have access to one, and we would have treatments for the puppies after they were born. Because you can imagine when they’re coming down the birth canal and they’re all folded up, just like a human baby, it’s really great if they have a treatment afterwards to get them all into alignment. It works really well. So, it’s a really beneficial preventative program, as well as one that works really well when something has gone wrong. Right, Mr. Purple? Yes. Mr. Purple says yes.

Now, what causes these conditions to happen? Normally, it’s dogs being dogs, and being wild, and jumping, and running where they ought not to. Sometimes it’s icy conditions. Sometimes it’s rough play. So, one of the things I want to make sure everyone knows is with a puppy, it’s really important that there’s not too much exercise. Everybody says, “Oh, tire your puppy out. Take your puppy out to run around,” and of course we want to do that. We always want them to be out and about having lots of fresh air and exercise, but it has to be very carefully monitored and limited in its duration. So, 15-, 20-minute walks is the maximum. You can go for four or five walks a day, but no more than 15 or 20 minutes for the first six months, if possible on varied surfaces, and of course avoiding hard surfaces as much as you possibly can. It’s really good if you can vary your pace during that walk, too, so some quick walking, some slow walking, and so forth.

Now, if your puppy’s at play group or just playing with their toys … Ouch, ouch, ouch. That’s my toe. Owie. Then you don’t have to monitor the 20 minutes or worry about that rule. They’ll limit themselves, and they will also not be playing wild and going like crazy for more than 20 minutes because they’ll run out of steam. So, you don’t want to be running or jogging with your dog. You don’t want to be swimming or doing anything that’s the same activity for more than 15 or 20 minutes for at least the first six months.

The other really critical thing is stairs. So, everybody test their dogs for hip dysplasia. That is a concern, of course, for all breeds of dogs. But, hip dysplasia is caused 80% by the environment, and only 20% of it is actually hereditary. Ow! That’s a little bit of bite inhibition. When your puppy bites you, you want to sound like what? Ow! Like that, what his litter mate would sound like. So, that’s Blue Collar biting me, and that’s exactly what his brothers and sisters would do if he was biting them. So, you want to make a sharp ow, like that, and then you want to not give them any attention. Then, redirect them to a toy. So, that’s not what we were going to talk about today. But since they’re biting me, I’ll tell you about that.

So, stairs are really critical. It’s very important your puppy not use stairs, if possible not at all for the first six months. If they do have to use stairs, only a couple of stairs a couple of times a day. Other than that, you need to carry your puppy up and down the stairs. It’s very important and critical for their joint formation and to avoid any hip problems in the future.

Now, one of the benefits of having a mini is they don’t weigh as much as the other dogs. These dogs here in Ripples litter are going to mature to be mini labradoodles, as you know. They’ll probably weigh about 20 pounds, so there’s not that much stress on their joints. However, you still want to be really careful with them and limit that repetitive exercise. I tell you, Red Collar girl’s really got a thing for this bed. She wants to destroy it. So, this is another reason why you want to have a nice, tough bed because puppies have claws and puppies have teeth.

So, that’s your update for the week. I hope that you enjoyed it and found those tips helpful. We’ll keep you posted on Ripple, but I’m pretty sure she’s fully on the mend now. We’ll just see if we can’t find a diagnosis for her. The puppies are all going to do just well, just swell without her. Hazel, Ripple’s sister, as you know, has a litter right now, too, and that’s the Cinnamon Swirl litter. Hazel’s well able to go in and give these guys anything they might need that Ripple’s not able to provide. But, I’m quite confident with the surgical suit that Ripple will be able to fulfill all of her mommy duties, other than feeding them, and they’re well on their way with their raw food diet now.                          

So, we hope you liked the video. If you have a chance, give us a thumbs up. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to post them below. I’ll be happy to answer them all for you. And if you’re subscribed to our channel, you’ll see lots of regular updates for other litter. The Cafe Noir puppies have all gone home now, so that series of videos is complete, but we still have the Shake It Up and the Cinnamon Swirl, along with the Razzle Dazzle puppies. Thanks so much for watching. [inaudible 00:24:16] monkey. Youse is a monkey. Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, they’re all monkeys.