Tater Tot

More accurately...

Tater

and

Tot

Yes, we're back in the puppy business, after such a brief hiatus. Ashley was here yesterday bringing Nicki for a visit and shortly after she returned home, I got an e-mail from her saying someone was looking for someone to bottle-feed puppies.

Well...duhhh.

Apparently there was a family somewhere in Sacramento whose dogs had four puppies. The mother and 2 of the pups died at birth. The family's house was being forclosed and the bank gave them something like 7 days to get out. They were illegal aliens, so they just packed up and left, leaving the puppies on a neighbor's porch with a note. The neighbor had been bottle feeding them, but was "at the end of her resources energywise & otherwise," so her friend contacted Ashley.

She brought the puppies here by taxi and dropped them off with a couple of bottles, and a big container of puppy formula and then was gone in a flash. She told me about some difficulties with feeding, especially the smaller one (whose ribs could be felt through her skin when you held her and who was significantly smaller than her sister).

I didn't know what to name them and mentioned in Facebook that they looked like "furry potatoes." Then I went upstairs to take a shower. By the time I got back downstairs, there were several suggestions for names, including one from the Yolo County Recorder, who suggested Ore and Ida. Someone said "Tater" would be a good name for one of them, and building on that, Marta suggested Tater and Tot, which was actually something I had thought of myself. (Marta also suggested Latke & Pancake and Hash & Brown, Funk & Wagnall and Drooper & Snork)

So they became Tater and Tot. Tater came here weighing 1 lb 15 oz and after breakfast this morning she weighed 2 lbs. Tot was 14-1/2 oz when she got here and is 1 lb now, so I guess they are eating OK.

Tater takes a bottle very well, which is strange for me because I've never given a puppy a bottle before. Tot isn't so sure about the bottle, but the old finger/syringe method works great for her.

In fact she finished off what I had for her this evening so fast that I was sorry I hadn't made more. Even in this short a period of time, her ribs are not as prominent any more.

One thing about these guys, they are definitely not in danger of squeezing through the bars of the cage.

They are shepherd pit bull mixes (of course) and are 2 weeks old, so their eyes are opened and they are starting to teethe. They are also more mobile than Poochini and Tosca were and are crawling all over the cage, as they change position in their sleep.

I have a good feeling about these two, which I didn't have about Poochini and Tosca. I think they will grow up and be ready to be adopted in a few weeks. They are certainly very easy to feed, especially Tater.

We have settled into a feeding routine around here, over several litters of puppies, with Walt holding the un-fed puppy while I feed the first one, then he puts the first one back and gives me the second one. The poodles were really too small to do that, but Tater and Tot are nice "cuddling size" and so we have settled back into the old routine once again.