Five week old Rottweiler puppies

Warning!

The following blog contains graphic pictures of puppies that are so cute, your knees will become weak and you may cry.

I have been really enjoying my new camera, a Nikon D5000.  With the help of a friend, I took head shots of all 8 pups on their 5 week birthday. 

Blue girl:

Green girl:

Lime girl:

Purple girl (aka Lady Gaga):

Pink/blue girl:

Blue/yellow boy:

Maroon boy:

Pink boy:

I intend to re-photograph the boys and the purple girl, because they were all sleepy and didn't have their ears up to properly frame their heads. The Maroon boy is much more handsome than his photo above. Look at Maroon boy below- he is the very definition of "cute":

All the pups moved outside to a spacious kennel at 4 weeks (which Darin built- good job and thanks to him!!) They go out into the yard to explore and play repeatedly every day. They are eating voraciously, and it is like a rugby scrum at mealtime. Everything was fine until last Thursday, when my husband called me at work to tell me Mr Pink had diarrhoea and wouldn't eat. He was also lethargic. He took him to the vet, and he was not dehydrated and didn't have a fever. He was sent home with antibiotics, but soon almost all the pups had diarrhoea. Immediately I worried about Parvovirus, because Rottweilers are particularly succeptible to this. However, there was no blood in the stool, so that was reassuring. Still, seeing the pups so lethargic, uncomfortable, and sad was very stressful.  Green girl was just sitting alone on the concrete, shivering, so I wrapped her up and brought her inside for some TLC. Ruby's breeder said that it sounds like coccidia (coccidiosis). This parasite is very common in puppies and kittens, but fortunately is treatable.  We had a fecal test done the following day, and got all pups on treatment by the end of that day. It sounds really funny and gross, but we are so happy to see the puppies having firm poos!

To be clear, although these pups are adorable and I want to keep them all, they are a lot of work and cost a lot of money! I have stopped keeping track of all the expenses- milk powder, ground beef, puppy chow, de-wormer, vet visits, the new kennel, the whelping box, etc.   

At the moment, the Maroon boy is my pick, but Mr Pink is incredibly cute.  I will have to get a better picture of him too.  I am quite fond of Lime girl, above, in her new ad for Fiskars axes and Fisher and Paykel clothers dryer. Lime girl is also on the log here:

Purple girl (Lady Gaga- see her Bad Romance music video, and see the arm movements of the white beings at the beginning - the puppy did this when bottle fed) is also very beautiful (below).

Aren't they all gorgeous? I have no idea how to choose which one to keep. The plan is for the pups to go to the registered breeder of this litter, Rita Grenyer of Sahne kennel, at 8 weeks of age. She will be responsible for the disposition of the puppies to good homes.  I'll be so sad to see them go, because I want to see how they develop into adults.  I hold them and they look at my face, they come when I call them. Everything they do is adorable. If I kept them all, I would really be a crazy dog lady and would be their slave. Having 3 Rottweilers is going to be challenge enough for me. 

Ruby, the dam, enjoys playing with them, but thinks all the toys should be hers and steals and hides them.  She hasn't nursed them since they started biting her nipples with tiny sharp teeth about 2 weeks ago.