I have now grown so much that the crate that Dot would put me in if she was gone for several hours was now too small for me.  I am still too young to be shut up in a crate for 5 or 6 hours during the day, so she set up a stall type pen for me out in the mudroom.  This pen has shavings in a box over in the corner in case I have to pee or poop.  Of course the shavings get everywhere but that's okay I actually like to play in the shavings.  They smell good!  When Dot is home I can be out playing but if she can't be there to supervise me then we use the pen.  The bottom of the pen has wood around the edges to try and keep some of the shavings in the pen and not all over the room.  When the pen door is open, they still have to lift me out because I haven't quite figured out how to jump over the board.

Time for your Phoenix Pupdate.  I am now growing so quickly.  Up until now I have just been able to walk under the courch to get away from rambunctious bigger dogs but now I have to duck a little.  I am out playing with Westin often and we get along very well but when I get tired (I seem to get tired sooner than he does) I just like to go away and nap, so I hide under the couch.  Westin is now so bing he can only get the front of his under there.  Every once in a while I get a surprise when I crawl under the couch because the space is already occupied by one of the cats.

In between two of the rooms is a half door with three windows in it.  These windows are spaced at different heights so different sized dogs can peek through.  I have been so small that I could just walk through the window to go from room to room, but this morning I got another suprise.  I didn't fit through the opening any more.  I am not 7 weeks old and growing right along.

I realize that this is the same picture of me that I showed you last time but it is the best picture to show off what I am going to talk about today.  When I was born, the tipe of my tail was bald. Huh!  What was that all about?  No one could figure out why.  The hope was that as my feathering grew it would cover up the bald tip.  It stayed bald for the first 5 weeks and then, lo and behold, hair started to grow in!  But oddly the hair was pure white.  It you look carefully at the tip of my tail in this picture you will see that it looks like is a paint brush and it has been dipped into white paint.  It is just another way in which I am truly unique. 

You might also notice that I am now wearing a collar.  As first I couldn't understand what this thing was and I spent a couple of days scratching at it.  From what I overheard, I guess this very normal thing for puppies to do.  After a couple of days I sort of got used to it and I decided that since I am a red head that green is definitely my color!  Then one day they surprised me and put something called a leash onto this collar.  What is this all about?  Something new for me to get used to.  I just dragged this leash all around with me as I played and kind of got used to that too.  Eash day brings something new for me to learn and so far, I just take it all in stride.  I wonder what tomorrow will bring??

I am growing in leaps and bounds now.  I play quite a bit with Westin.  Westin is 3 months older than I am and we play well together.  Remember that when I first met Westin I was smaller than his head.  But Dot now gives us supervised play often so I can learn lessons that I missed by having no litter mates.  Dot sometimes even geeds us from the same big bowl so I can learn to share well.  I would have shared with my litter mates too.  I have been moved out of the crate now and when Dot leaves the house for a few hours time, since I am still too small to leave in a crate for that length of time, she has set up a big pen in the dining room.  At one end of the pen are the pee pads.  There is a crate (with no door) in the middle and at the other end is a play area with toys.  This is where I usually get my food an water too.  There is a mat in the crate and I like to nap in there.  I still get to play with the big dogs and they are very tolerant of me but occasionally they correct my behavior when I am particularly obnoxious.  I have learned to respect them and their corrections.

Dot and Morgan spend quite a bit of time exposing me to new things.  In addition to being raised in the house therefore exposed to all the happeneings within a busy hosehold, they also take me to different locations on the property so I can get used to new places.  I like being outside and I also discovered the training room in the barn has lots of great toys in it.  There are tunnels, a slide, balls, ropes, etc.  And Dot can be really noisy too.  She vacuums right next ot me, turns up the radio, shampooed the rugs, and even bangs on pots and pans.  And she is turning into quite the klutz because ske keeps dropping noise things on the floor.  But I take it all in stride.  Each time I am brought to a new location I am happy because it gives me new things to explore.

Westin still gets to have the blue service dog in training vest put on and Dot takes him out with her.  Maybe someday I'll get to see where they go. 

I am now 6 weeks old and a lot has happened recently.  As you can see it is Christmas.  Not only did they put a tree up in the house (Imagine!) but then they put this silly bow thing on me - as if I could get any cuter.  My puppy teeth are in and I know how to use them.  I am off canned food and onto puppy kibble.  I am not growing very quickly.  I am all finished with all antibiotics (Yeah!) - no more yuky stuff.  I am also done with the bottle (BOO!).  I am drinking water fine.  Eating on this kibble is so much cleaner and I don't need baths after almost every meal.  I come out to play with the older dogs several times a day, but play with Phoenix is still through the crate.  But as I grow I know I will play with him loose in the room soon.

I have been growing my puppy teeth for about a week now and while they are not all the way in Morgan thought it was time for me to use them.  She put a little bit of canned food into one of the dog bowls.  And what do I do?  I go stand in the bowl!  I then lay down on top of the food, and began to sniff.  Instead of just biting and chewing, I then tried to suck it just like I have sucked my bottle.  Wouldn't you have thought that this would come naturally?

Finally I began to lick and then to use my new teeth and bite and chew.  By the time I was finished I was covered with canned food.  Yuck!  I think more got on the outside of me than the inside of me.  After this, Morgan had another suprise in store for me with another first - bath time!

Today was a big day for me.  I am now 4 weeks old and it was time for me to go back to the regular vet for a check up.  While at the vet's they x-rayed me again.  And when I say they x-rayed ME I mean that all along I have been too small for just a chest x-ray so my whole little body shows up in the x-rays.  While they were waiting for the x-rays to develop they weighed me.  I now weigh 3 1/2 pounds!  Did I tell you how much I love my bottle!

When the x-rays came back the vet said that my lungs are now completely clear!!  WHOOPEE!  For the first time in my life Dot and Morgan were told that I would probably survive all that had happened.  Just to be on the safe side, the vet wisely decided to keep me on one of the antibiotics for the next 10 days but we can stop the other antibiotic.  Fortunately, the one we stopped was the worse tasting one.

It was now time to name me.  The name Phoenix came up because I have risen from the ashes 3 times now and if you are at all familiar with the mythical bird that burns to ash at the end of its life and then rises from the ashes you know that this is a good name for me.

I have many more lessons to learn over the next 4 weeks and if I learn them, maybe I will get to wear one of those blue service dog in training vests!  I am so tired now after my trip to the vet that it is time for bed.  I will write more tomorrow.

Since I am mobile now, I am able to climb out of my basket.  Normally, at this age, the puppies would still be in the whelping box, but Dot wasn't using that for me, so Dot and Morgan got creative to give me more space and still keep me confined and safe.  They set up a large dog crate.  At one end is the heating pad still covered with a towel.  At this end I have my Papa Smurf to cuddle with and a couple of toys.  At the other end of the crate they put down newspapers to give me some place to pee and poop (yes, I am doing this on my own now) away from where I sleep and play.  I still come out several times a day for bottle feedings and to play with the other dogs.  But the crate keeps me safe each night so Dot and Morgan are finally getting a full nights sleep.  I think it makes them less cranky, don't you?  Tomorrow is going to be a big day for me so be sure and tune in tomorrow to find out why.

Since I have not grown up with a mom, it is important that I learn the lessons that mom could teach me, such as what is appropriate puppy manners and behaviors.  If a puppy is too rough or obnoxious (and which puppy isn't?) then mom gently but firmly corrects that puppy.  Orphan puppies don't get these lessons from their mom.  So now that I am mobile, Dot often lets me play with the older dogs in the household.  I live with my 15 year old Great Grandmother, my 11 year old grandfather, my 8 year old grandmother and an aunt and uncle.  I get to play with all these dogs and while they are tolerant they also let me know when I have crossed the line.  In this picture I am with my Great Grandmother Sunny.  She has a lot of experience dealing with young puppies.  In the right background you can just see my Aunt Shannon.  As with all young puppies I love to play but only for short periods and then it is nap time again.  Did you know that puppies only grow while they sleep?  So if I want to grow up big and strong like Grandpa Samson I have to sleep a lot.

My eyes and ears are all open now and I can hear as well as see.  I am starting to walk a bit too, but boy, am I clumsy!  My walk is more like a wide-spread legged waddle than a graceful walk.  But I love to explore and as part of my socialization I am put on many different surfaces such as rugs, wooden floors, metal crate bottoms and even tile.  None of these different surfaces bother me.  Each new flooring gives me a new location to explore and I am enjoying that.

There are other lessons that are so important for me to learn especially as a single puppy.  One of the things that puppies learn in their first few weeks is how to handle frustration.  This is normally learned in a litter when all the puppies are trying to nurse from mom, and one puppy pushes another off whatever teat they were on.  The pushed off puppy gets frustrated and then needs to find a new teat for themselves.  Since I didn't have litter mates to do this, while I am drinking from my bottle, Dot would once in a while gently push me off the nipple and move the bottle a little ways away and I would have to crawl to find it again.  Why didn't she ever do this with the yucky tasting medicines she gives me.  I would crawl the other way...

Got Milk?  I have just finished my bottle and eating is such a messy business.  But look at me - I have EYES!  Today my eyes opened for the first time.  Dot is thrilled that this happened while I was at home and not at the emergency vets.  I still can't see anything very clearly but aren't I even cuter now?  I look more like a puppy.  Maybe those cats won't think I'm a rat any more.  My breathing is still a bit labored especially after having my bottle but I am not at the point of needing oxygen again.  I am on 2 oral antibiotics and I don't like the taste of them.  Dot learned that if she gives me the medicines first then I am reluctant to take the bottle into my mouth because I have such a horrible taste already in there but if I am bottle fed first then she can get the medicines into me much more easliy.  I make the funniest faces after the antibiotics go in and it makes Dot and Morgan laugh.

I stayed at the emergency vet clinic until Friday afternoon.  During the day Friday they weaned me off the oxygen to see if I could breathe OK on my own and they removed the IV.  Dot came Friday afternoon to pick me up.  I am now 2 1/2 weeks old and weigh 2 1/2 pounds!  See in the picture I am now bigger than Papa Smurf.  I went home with 2 oral antibiotics.  I am now drinking from my bottle about every 4 hours, which means a little more sleep for Morgan and Dot who are taking turns having me in their rooms at night.  The vet told Dot that even now she could not say that I would survive but she was impressed with what I fighter I am.  For those of you who don't know much about newborn puppies, we are born blind and deaf.  Our eyes and ears are sealed shut.  We have a good sense of smell and this is how we are able to find Mom to nurse.  We can't walk but we can sort of "swim" our way across the floor to where mom is.  We also can't pee and poop on our own.  So after Mom nurses us, she has to lick us in just the right ways to get us to go to the bathroom and in the process she is cleaning us too.  So not only do Morgan and Dot have to give me the bottole but then they have to take soft tissues and stimulate me to go to the bathroom.  Otherwise I get very uncomfortable and can cry in discomfort.  In addition to this Morgan and Dot have to burp me.  Because I am bottle fed I can take in air (just like a human baby) and even though the mother dog doesn't have to do this Morgan and Dot have to.  They take good care of me and through my good sense of smell I can tell when one of them has picked me us.  After I have my bottle, am cleaned and burped I crawl up beside their neck and settle in there for a nap.  I have outgrown two baskets already and am now living in a larger one.  When they have to leave the house they put me in my basket into a large dog crate.  They are not worried about the other dogs in the house but they are not sure how the cats see me.  Am I a mouse or rat in their eyes?

This 24 hour emergency vet that I am at (remember I arrived about 4:30 on Wednesday morning) did another x-ray and my lungs are still bad.  They also made my basket into a little oxygen tent so that I could breath easier as I cuddled with my Papa Smurf.  And once again I was put on IV antibiotics.  This time the vets became very aggressive and put me on 3 different antibiotics at once, one of them is even a new medication.  Since it was a 24 hour 7 day a week clinic I saw many different vets and vet techs.  Each one, of course, fell in love with me and they began to refer to me as "love in a basket"!

Once again, I showed them how much will to live I have, and they were able to feed me with my bottle.  Have I told you how much I LOVE my bottle?  Despite being so sick all of my life I continue to grow.  In this picture you can see how much my ears have grown.  Dot has called several times each day and vet on duty tells her how I am doing.  At this point I don't even have a name so I am registered as "Two Week Old Puppy".  While none of the vets are sure that I am going to make it each one declares what a fighter I am.  Papa Smurf and I snuggle down for however long it takes for me to get better.

Time for the Phoenix Blog.... The Emergency vet that I was taken to is only open nights and weekends so Dot had to pick me up by 8am on Monday.  As she drove over she thought that since the vet hadn't called her with bad news I must still be alive.  When she got there the vet said that I had done much better than she had expected given how bad the x-rays were.  I was still doing well on my bottle and the vet thought that Dot should take me to her regular vet for the day and keep me on oxygen.  If needed Dot could bring me back to the emergency vet for the night.

So Dot drove me 50 minutes away to her regular vet who seemed to think that I would be going back to the emergency vet for the evening, but I showed what a figther I am and at noon the vet called Dot and said she could take me home after all.  I was still on oral antibiotics but off the IV.  My breathing was still more labored than it should be but better than it was.  So all fingers and toes crossed that I had seen the last of vets.  I did ok for a couple of days but unfortunately during the night Wednesday I was really struggling to breath again.  So once again Papa Smurf and I and my heating pad in my basket had to make a middle of the night trip to an emergency vet - this one is open 24 hours but is an hour and 15 minutes away.  More tomorrow....

We left off yesterday where I needed to go to the emergency vet because I was having difficulty breathing and of course it was a Sunday morning.  So Dot and Morgan packed up Papa Smurf and me and my heating pad in my little basket and drove 40 minutes to the nearest emergency vet.  There they x-rayed me.  The vet said that the left lung was completely full of infection and the right lung was half full.  She said she had never seen a puppy survive an infection this bad and I should probably be put down.  But Dot said that she had never seen a puppy who was such a fighter and she felt that I should be given a chance.  They took me in my little basket into the treatment room, put an IV into my little leg for antibiotics and IV feeding and put a cover on the basket so they could pump oxygen in.  This helped me to breath easier and I snuggled in with my Papa Smurf.  They had thought I would be too weak to drink from a bottle but I proved them wrong.  I love my bottle and I am a champion sucker on the nipple.  The vet told Dot she would call if and when things went wrong and she would save my body for the necropsy.  Dot and Morgan said goodbye to me not knowing if this was the last time they would see me alive.

Hi.  It's me - Phoenix again.  Today I just want to point out what a fighter and survivor I am.  When I was just hours old, as I already told you, I was taken to the vet because Mom and I were so sick.  The vet put us on antibiotics.  The infection was in my lungs and I was having difficulty breathing.  As we were leaving, the vet said to Dot "When he dies, put his body on ice so we can do a necropsy and determine the cause of death".  Not "If he dies" but "When he dies".  As I said yesterday, Dot tube fed me every 2 hours day and night and gave me my antibiotics right on schedule.  After 2 days of tube feeding, I was stronger and began to fight the tube going down my throat.  So Dot put the 1 tablespoon of puppy formula into a bottle and I showed what a champion sucker I could be.  I loved my bottle and sucked down everything she and Morgan put in it.  After a week it was time to take Mom and me back to the vet's for a checkup.  The vet was shocked that I was still alive and growing.  The vet kept Mom on antibiotics for another 10 days but felt I no longer needed them because my lungs sounded clear.  Unfortunately the infection was not completely gone and just a few days later I began to struggle to breath again.  Of course it was now early Sunday morning and we had to find an emergency vet.

To continue my story... We left off with just Mom and me surviving.  We went to visit the vet where it was determined that Mom had contracted a late term infection and could, even now, be passing more infection to me through her milk so I had to be removed from Mom and raised as an orphan pup.  How sad!  No mom and no litter mates.  Both Mom and I were put on antibiotics.  I was too weak to nurse so Dot had to tube feed me every 2 hours day and night and in order to keep me warm both Dot and Morgan kept putting me down their shirts close to their bodies.  Morgan set up a little basket with a heating pad in the bottom, towels on top of that and then I was put in this basket along with a "Papa Smurf" stuffed toy to snuggle with.  I weighed all of 4 ounces (normally newborn golden puppies weigh a pound or more).  Papa Smurf was bigger than I was!

For the next 3 days I was fed by a tube, given antibiotics on a regular schedule and snuggled with my Papa Smurf.  Not a very good start to life but I am a fighter and I was the sole survivor of a litter of 13.  Tomorrow I will continue my saga.  See you then...

Hi,  My name is Phoenix and I am now an 8 week old golden retriever puppy.  My life so far, short as it is, has been quite a journey and I would like to share it with you.  My mom, Ginger, became really sick toward the end of her pregnancy.  She went into labor right on schedule but things didn't go well. The first 5 puppies were all stillborn.  I was number 6 and I was born kicking and moving.  Dot, who was assisting with the delivery, was thrilled. The next 2 puppies, numbers 7 & 8, even though not moving at birth were able to be revived.  Numbers 9 & 10 were stillborn, 11 & 12 were able to be revived and number 13 was stillborn.  So after 32 hours of labor Mom had given birth to 13 pups-8 were dead and 5 were barely clinging to life.  Over the next couple of hours the 4 puppies that had to be revived at birth also died leaving just mom and I and we were both very sick.