Puppies almost 3 weeks old

Ruby's puppies are 3 weeks old tomorrow. They are incredibly cute! They have grown so much, we can't weigh them in my kitchen scale anymore because they don't fit in the pan and wriggle around too much. They all have their eyes open now, and are walking on all 4 legs. The female with the blue yarn was the first to open her eyes, and has the most coordination of them all. Their mobility has become a problem, because they are now able to climb out of their box using the rail on the inside of the box to lift themselves up to the door (see photo above). We found 5 of the pups out of the box this morning, sprawled across the floor of the room. I think they were hungry, and Ruby was lying on her bed just outside the door. She won't go in to nurse them unless the box is clean, and the pups had wet the papers in the night. We're not getting up in the night to feed them any longer, and this is why they are hungry. Darin has removed the inside rail and we will have to start closing the door at night.

The pups in these photos show them in "food coma" mode. They eat, sleep, and eliminate- that's about it. In the past few days, they've been vocalising more sounds and louder. 

You can see that we have both newspaper and towels on the floor of the box. The towels or fabric are so that the pups have some grip when they get their feet under them. The newspapers are too slippery to walk on. Ruby and the pups move them around, so we regularly spread them out again.

The next step will be to wean them.

In acknowledgement of the fact that their adorableness is temporary, and that we will probably not breed Ruby again, I bought a fancy new DSLR camera- the Nikon 5000D. The above photos were taken with my Cannon PowerShot, which is a sweet little thing, but I wanted something with more guts. It is much bigger and heavier, but has so many more options. The option that got me to choose this camera over a Cannon EOS 550D is the monitor/viewing screen folds out and rotates. I also really like that a lot of photo editing can be done in the camera, before you ever download to your computer. Below is a link to a video of Ruby nursing her puppies.
Ruby's puppies
I've arranged with my employers to work only 3 days a week- Tue, Wed, and Thur. It's been 2 weeks so far, and I have to say I LOVE IT! Unfortunately, I'm not getting as much done as I thought I would (gardening, sewing, cleaning...). Maybe that will change as the pups get a bit older. Feeding the pups with the bottle takes about an hour, and we're on our 4th box of milk replacement powder (about $39 NZD a box!). We were feeding 3 hourly, but changed to 4 hourly and no getting up from sleep to feed. Indeed, it's time again for them to be fed.