Dither’s puppies are ravenous. Each weighs around two and a half pounds, so Dither is trying to feed about 23 pounds of puppy from her small frame of 30 pounds. That’s an impossible task.
They are 16 days old, too young for solid food, but they are strong little hamsters. I am supplementing them twice a day with bottle feeding and it’s a bit of a wrestling match. They now instantly recognize what a bottle is, yet do everything they can to prevent me from actually getting in in their mouths. If you put the nose of the bottle near one that is sleeping, it wakes up and launches itself like a shark.
It takes a minute of acrobatics to finally connect the bottle to the puppy, but when it connects, they are in milk heaven. Their little front legs flail as if conducting the “Flight of the Bumblebees” and their itsy bitsy tails with the bright white tip flail too, but definitely not in unison. Once they make a really tight connection, tiny bubbles are generated at a frantic pace. Oddly, you would think they would over eat, but they don’t. All those frenzied actions disappear once they are full. They will mouth the nipple a couple of times and let it slide away. They’re done. Time for a nap.
