Cottage Doodles

Celebrations and Dopplegangers

 

We had lots of celebrating this week.  Sugar had her babies, and Honey’s little, round bellied, butterballs of cuddliness just turned one week old.

I made the doggie moms a special treat, of milk, cottage cheese, pumpkin, and canned puppy food topped with chopped Tums sprinkles.

They need lots of calcium and calories, plus pumpkin for tummy issues after giving birth.

And they love it when I sing to them, so they got an off tune “Happy Birthday” from me.

At one week, Honey’s pumpkins have about doubled their weight.  Time to change out the bowl.

Although, it is just right for the newborns.

Speaking of newborns, I am glad I started this sketches of the red pups when they were tiny.  Studying their spots to paint them helped me to learn which was which.  

And the new families they will go to, don’t see them at this age.  So maybe they would like to have watercolor sketches of the first few days.

There are no amount of paintings that will help me with Sugar’s black babes, though! Oh my.  They are very similar.

As everyone grows, it gets easier.  Sugar’s pups seem to have different coat textures, even if they are the same jet black, I’ll know how to tell them apart from that, and a couple white spots.  The problem with the red pups, was that the spots were too similar.

Then I learned that some have freckled bellies, one has angel wings, another a T, one a butterfly.  A couple are blobbity splotches that still throw me off a little.  I have to get my diagrams out when I weigh them.  But once they start showing some personality, that will change.

Pup Pops

To celebrate the possibility of puppies arriving  (and because quarantining means lots of baking - and eating!) we made cake pops in pup shapes. 

Some look like Sugar.  Chocolate cake with chopped up KitKats inside, dipped in melted Geradelli  milk chocolate chips.

And some like Honey.  Hers are peanut butter  chips melted to dip them in. The cake is dark chocolate with Reese’s Cups chopped up in it.

We put some styrofoam with holes punched into it in a cute, golden retriever cup I’d found at the Goodwill a while ago.

Then we wrapped that cuppa-pups up to deliver to Anette at Free State Pedigrees as a thank you for keeping Sugar there for a few days for the with Wally.