Ellie was being a little camera shy today, so no good pics of her.

More after “the jump.”

After finding good homes for the other puppies, Senfronia, Lyndon and Maddox are the remaining “children.”

Lyndon, by virtue of size, I guess, seems to have replaced Senfronia as the natural leader of the maurading heard. For a while it was his sister, since she could literally jump as high as my shoulders and all the puppies followed her on her frequent trips at times she managed to lead escapes of the patients from the asylum, so to speak. Anyway, this is Lyndon, jumping.

This is Maddox, with his paws on the lawn table. That stuff in front of him is crushed red pepper. I was sitting outside eating a pice of pizza with one of those packets of crushed red pepper, and the little punk stole it off the table and ate most of the packet (wrapper and all) before I could get it away from him. What’s left on the table is what remained of the crushed red pepper. He’s also a bit of a biter and likes to pick on Senfronia, for which he has been sent to “time out” numerous times. Well, there is actually no “doggie time out,” I just made that up. But, he does get yelled at when he’s naughty.

Here’s one of Senfronia. She’s also standing at the table begging for pizza.

She was really, really fuzzy in her “younger days,” but has become more sleek. However, before winter, I expect her to have another full coat.

Here’s another one of Lyndon. Tell me this dog doesn’t look like he has an attitude just like his namesake. (I assure you, he does). He’s being a bit more calm here, just sitting in the chair. If you look closely (click for larger image), you can see that Lyndon is blessed with an extra toe on each back foot. It costs $225 to have ONE extra toe removed. Maddox also has the extra toes. Evidently, it’s a common anomality in dogs, or so I’m told. I blame their father (whoever he is). It could also be that Ellie was hit by a car when she was pregnant and given morphine. I’m sure that a pregnant dog receiving morphine doesn’t do anything like cause puppies to develop extra toes.

If you all are really good and very lucky, the Official Mascot herself, Ellie, might even make a brief statement for the press. Or, at the very least, I’ll just post a podcast of her barking.

Very much like a Republican, I’m promising you one thing, waiting way too long to deliver it, and, after it’s delivered, you’ll be dissappointed.

However, six lively Junior Official Mascots are becoming a bit too much for me and Ellie to handle. So, I regret that I must part with three of them.

Although I know my dear readers are spread around the state, I though I’d at least make the offer and, if someone was in Dallas or Tyler or something I could come up there or meet someone half-way or something.

After much soul searching and hand wringing, I regret that I have decided that Maddox, Lyndon and Senfronia will stay in the Capitol Annex family while Briscoe, Jordan and Laney must go to other loving, (preferably Democratic) homes (that will keep the puppies current names, but not a requirement). Ellie would probably prefer that all six go to loving homes, but I cannot bear to part with them all. (Or, at least, all at once).

It is with great reluctance that I offer up the puppies that my friends and family refer to as my “grandchildren” for adoption.

So, if you’d like to adopt Briscoe, Jordan or Laney, please email me at Vince_Leibowitz-at-cox.net.

Anyway, on July 4th, the puppies enjoyed some outdoor festivities during the Capitol Annex July 4th Extravaganza (no, your invitation didn’t get lost in the mail, you were not invited), to wit: (pics below the jump).

(left to right) Jordan, Briscoe and Lyndon try unsuccessfully to fish ice cubes out of one of my friends’ drinks, which was Sprite. For some reason, the puppies like the smell of Sprite. They are wierd.

Jordan (who was previously listed as a female but is a male,though he keeps his name as does his sister… Lyndon…yes, I totally have given my dogs gender confusion) laps up Sprite off the cement after dogs end up spilling the glass they are fooling with in the first pic.

Mattox struts his stuff across the back porch. (Yes, that is a Coke machine…on the porch…don’t ask why…yes, it works).

Senfronia and Lyndon lap up the spilled Sprite while Maddox wanders by.

 Jordan, Briscoe (whose hair has been deliberately wet and spiked by one guest) and Maddox attack ice cubes from the Sprite.

I’ve got more pics, because I just noticed Laney isn’t even in this set, and that Briscoe is shown only a couple of times. Plus, I have some very funny ones of Briscoe in another drink-spilling episode, where the spilling of the drink was actually caught on film!

At any rate, they now all have names, are eating “real” food since they have sharp teeth and Ellie has no desire to nurse a bunch of cannibals and are generally raising lots of good-natured hell.

Here they are: (after the jump)

Senfronia is sitting here in an old faded patio chair. This is primarily because she is scared of standing on the picnic table like the rest of the puppies. She is the most regal of all the pups. When the others lay leisurly to sleep, Senfronia sleeps very properly. She’s also the unofficial “leader” of the group, making sure everyone is outside the shed and gathered around the two pie pans of food when dinner time rolls around. This is, of course, before she actually climbs into one of the two pans with all four feet to eat, which she is quite prone to do while the other puppies just kind of eat around her. She’s also the biggest puppy. And, she has the longest coat and will grow up to look like some kind of a very beautiful sheppard or terrier mix. Again, no idea who her daddy is.

If ever a dog had the mannerisms, carriage and look of one who should be named after LBJ, it is Lyndon, shown at right. Lyndon is the fiercest of the dogs, and he plays fairly rough with his littermates. But, they also stay pretty close to him when they venture out into the yard behind Senfronia, evidently realizing he’s going to defend them.

Here we have Mattox, who has the most unique coloring of any of the puppies: he’s a mix of everything, evidently. But, he is quite the handsome dog. He is somewhat shy, though.

Next comes Jordan, who is not as fiesty as her near-twin Lyndon, but who bears the same facial features. Jordan is one of the more playful puppies while also being one of the ones who likes to sleep—a lot.

Now we have Laney, who is sadly (like her namesake, the former Speaker) picked on by everyone in the litter. The other dogs pick on Laney the way Republicans used to pick on our former Speaker. She has longer ears than everyone else by just a smidge, and those ears are a terribly tempting target for the rest of the brood. However, Laney is quick to defend herself. Last night, Lyndon ended up rolling about two feet into the water dish after Laney popped up and head-and-paw butted him after he had her down on the ground trying to chew on her ears. Laney, by the way, is the firstborn of the litter.
Last but not least, we have Briscoe. Briscoe, while as big as Senfronia, is quite the little mover. Every evening when they are fed, Briscoe runs from the puppies’ room to the food dish, to the water dish, to wherever his mother may be and back to the shed before ever touching a drop of food. He is also content to sit under the spigot where the hose is while the hose is running to fill water dishes, clean off the poorch, etc., even though it sprays water all over him and the ground like mad. He seems to enjoy his daily showers. As you can see from the blurred photo, he jumped from the table to the bench seconds after this photo was shot. He’s lightening fast. He also defends Laney a good deal from the other puppies.

As you can see at left, Ellie is a very attentive mother. The puppies are quite agressive nursers and the one she is trying to corall or clean in the photo had just finished walking on top of all of the other puppies trying to steal their nursing spots. There are actually enough spots for them all to nurse at once, but that puppy (along with the one shown below) likes to tear through the rest of the litter and seems to enjoy taking other puppies’ spots just for the general principle of doing so making me suspect he may have some Republican genes.

Starting Monday, a few had one eye open and by Tuesday night all had their eyes open. They’ve beel roaming around a bit and a couple have learned to “bark,” inasmuch as a nearly three-week old puppy can bark.

The little female shown at left is the most vocal of the bunch and also the most rambunctions. She eagerly wanders away from the rest of the litter and then yelps in hopes the others will follow her. A couple have gotten to the point where they will follow her after a few minutes. Of course, by the time they get to where she is, she’s ready to come back. She’s the unofficial leader of the litter and the most vocal. This puppy is also the one who likes to be “handled” the most. Whenever I’m around looking at the group or checking on them, she will come over and yelp to have some attention paid to her.
This little male shown at left is one of the more docile ones of the bunch. He was also the first born (that lived, making him technically the second of the litter). His little brown ‘eyebrows’ are very quite unique. Although I think their father is a Rotweiller, a couple of the dogs have very “terrier-looking” features, if such a thing is even distinguishable at this early of an age. The black and white ones especially look like terriers.

To track the puppies’ progress through the weeks, go here.

By way of a puppy/junior mascot update, today I took mother and babies outside for a little picture taking. They will be two weeks old on Monday night/Tuesday morning. Thus far, Ellie has been more than accomodating in allowing me to examine and hold her puppies. In fact, I think she welcomes that, as nursing seven puppies (another was lost in the first week) can likely be very tiresome.

Ellie has a little “photo phobia,” though, as as soon as she saw me getting out the phone to take photos, she eased out of the way of the ‘line’ of dogs I tried to line up in that first photo. I think she has some “vanity” issues related to the fact that her breasts are a little saggy and large at the moment. She rolled around in the grass a few feet away while I fooled around trying to get the puppies to lie still in a row. As you can see, none have this task down pat (a couple went to sleep) yet, though an earlier blurry photo I took did have all but two in a row. The puppy one each end decided to try and climb over its brothers and sisters, causing total disruption as evidenced in the first photo.

I also tried to randomly group the puppies to get some photos; for the most part, that worked OK, except the solid black ones kept turing around and trying to crawl blindly through the grass while sniffing around. In the photo at left, you can see the two dogs will turn out with that nice brown color Ellie has. The one at left was as dark as the one at right last week, and has lightened up considerably to look more like Ellie. However, Ellie doesn’t have quite as distinctive markings, nor does she have a ‘patch’ of black over one eye. The one on the right, though you can’t see it in this photo, actually has one black ‘patch’ over each eye with the little white strip down the middle connecting the nose. Also, something you can’t see, his mouth-area coloring is quite wild, with small and large black dots of fur and skin throughout.

These two were asleep almost as soon as I brought them outside and, through all of the commotion of other dogs running here and there and to and fro and waking them up briefly now and again, they just seem to have decided “screw this,” and passed out.

The puppies’ eyes aren’t open yet. I don’t know how long it takes for dogs’ eyes to open after birth. I’ve been told two weeks and, if that’s the case, then anytime after monday, we can expect some eye opening. That will no doubt be followed by tremendous mischief.

The puppies are also getting very, very plump. The biggest one is the one on the left in the first photo.

And, names have been decided upon, although not awarded, pending definate determinations on their genders. (I’ve tried to check, but the dogs don’t like being rolled on their backs, so we’ll just wait until we see the vet week after next. The names used will be as follows (some are ‘generless,’ so that’ll help): Jordan (after Barbara Jordan and a reader recommendation for boy or girl); Lyndon (after Lyndon Baines Johnson, for boy or girl); Laney (after Pete Laney, another genderless name); Senfronia (after Senfronia Thompson, clearly for the most outspoken female puppy that exhibits leadership skills early on); Leland (after Mickey Leland, another reader recommendation, thinking we’ll go genderless with that one, too); Mattox (after Jim Mattox, going genderless on that one too), Stevenson (after Coke Stevenson, has to be for a boy), Briscoe (boy or girl, after Dolph Briscoe) & Houston (a boy’s name, after Sam Houston). Hopefully, we’ll be able to use Senfronia and Stevenson. If not, Briscoe and Houston are the alternates.

Of course, since not all of these dogs will be saying in the Annex Family, I’m sure others may be inclined to change their names, but I’m going to discourage that by claimiming it is terribly traumatic to change a dog’s name…or something.

You really can’t see them all in this pic as they are nursing and one is kind of sleeping by Ellie’s chin (do dogs have chins?) but here they are.

It has dawned on me that most women would not want their birthing experience blogged about complete with photographs and graphic detalis, but thankfully, Ellie has not complained because, well, she’s a dog. And, animals who lick their offspring clean aren’t usually too overly modest.

In about six weeks, most of these puppies will be needing new homes so, if you’d like to have a Capitol Annex Junior Mascot of your very own, let me know.

Earlier the vet pronounced everyone in good health. The nurse took several photos she’s supposed to save for me. And, of course, I couldn’t resist whipping out the camera phone and showing the two elderly ladies in the lobby of the vet’s office ALL of my Ellie photos. They were enraptured with the dog and her puppies. And, I’m worse with dog photos than anyone could ever be with kid or grandchild photos. I’ll try to curtail that, but no promises.
I grew somewhat alarmed, though, when the clerk asked one of the ladies why she signed “Lilly” on her check instead of “Sarah” which was evidently her real name. The poor woman replied, embarassed to the clerk, “Sometimes I forget and sign my sister’s name.” Luckily, someone who appeared to be her son came in shortly thereafter and helped her and her very large Golden Retriever (who was all about trying to smell Ellie’s business) out to a waiting car.

Later, after a conference call, I’ll be off to the store to get Ellie some new food. It turns out that the only food she refused to reject several years ago when I got her, “Ol’ Roy,” is crappy pet food. She turned her nose up at Pedigree and all the good brands. Now, though, I’m going to have to mix the crappy stuff with the good stuff until I can get her used to it because the vet says “Ol’ Roy” is like the Cheetos of dog food: it tastes good but has no substance whatsoever, and too much sugar. I believed him because he didn’t try to use that as an excuse to sell me that expensive Science Diet stuff, which her first vet did when I got her. About $50 worth of that went to waste because she refused to eat it. Well, it didn’t go totally to waste. I fed it to the stray cat who used to hang around my other house.

I do feel bad about having to switch her food, though. She’s totally addicted to that new “Ol’ Roy” Cheesburger flavor.

The vet even said that, when vets see skinny dogs or somewhat malnourished dogs otherwise in good health, it’s often because they eat “Ol’ Roy,” and that his colleagues have taken to calling such conditions “Ol’ Roy Syndrome,” because it’s so popular given that everyone shops at Wal-Mart and that’s their house brand.

I’m also told to expect that, with so many puppies, it may not be uncommon for her to quadruple her food intake, and to feed her whatever she wants, whenever she wants it while she’s nursing. So, given that she was eating two cans a day, I guess she may be eating four now…fun, fun, fun.

Needless to say, I fell asleep right after that and just woke up and have to take the entire brood to the vet. More photos and what not later this evening after things have calmed down.

At any rate, I don’t think there are any more puppies waiting to come out, but we’ll see. I also find it odd, having never been around dogs giving birth (cats only), that the pups sound like human babies the way they whine. At times, they also sound like baby kittens. Also, I’m a little tired so I may be wrong, but I didn’t think you could distinguish their sex this early. But, it appears three may be male. Like I said, I’m quite tired, so, I may be wrong.

Mother and puppies are resting comfortably, inasmuch as possible given that Ellie doesn’t quite have the hang of nursing yet. I know there’s a lot to be said for instinct, but she keeps looking at me as if to say, “Can you do something about this? I’m not the breastfeeding type. Just grab a bottle for the puppies and strap some frozen peas on my nipples and stop this silly business.”

I got the frozen peas thing from a friend who told me that, after giving birth, the nurse told her to use bags of frozen peas to eleviate nipple pain and swelling if not breastfeeding. I don’t know if that’s just healthcare in rural Texas or something people actually do, but I’ve always found that funny.

Anyway, I’m off to bed. Ellie and the puppies are about four feet from the bed, and hopefully she won’t try to move them somewhere else in the middle of the night. Under the bed has been one of her favorite hang-outs, and if she starts heading there we’re going to have quite a discussion about what constitutes an appropriate place for nursing newborn puppies.

The one just born a few seconds ago makes a total of five, of which four have survived. I’m quite concerned about live puppy number one, though, as the nearly two hours he spent stuck in limbo between birth and being pushed back in by Ellie seem to have made him weaker than the others.

One has markings very similar to Ellie on the face and neck, except it is gray/black and white as opposed to Ellie’s color.

It appears as though she mated with a very dark dog. As for breed, who knows. A couple of the pups share Ellie’s facial structure, while the others have faces like pugs. Of course, they’re not even an hour old, so who’s to say. One of the pups has facial markings almost like a calico cat. I’ll try to get more pics soon.

Finally, a piece of advice from the all-night vet clinic nurse/receptionist that would have been nice a couple of hours ago:

“Watch out for that stuff, you know it’s kind of green and gets everywhere, because whatever it gets on, it will not come out of.”

Cleaning and then turning over the cushions on the little love seat to hide the stains: A real pain.

Four healthy puppies: priceless!

Anyway, the puppies are coming out. Sadly, the very first one did not survive, but the second one (shown at left in a very bad camera phone pic, click on image to enlarge) seems to be fine. It had difficulty coming out, though, as she literally kept pushing it back in! I was forced to step in and assist because she seemed not to know what to do (although she literally had the first one in the closet in the bathroom without me knowing until it whimpered), and her pushing it in caused a small rupture in the uterin wall (I kept saying “vaginal wall,” but the vet corrected me over the phone). So, it was actually coming out in two different places. Somehow, though, it came out through the second hole it ruptured, and a little bit of skin/uterin wall got caught on its forehead that I had to very delicately get out. So, whatever the term for it is, the baby actually was birthed through the hole/breech/rupture.

Luckily, only a spot of bleeding, and the third one (second live birth) is on its way now. Given it took an hour and 45 minutes for the one shown above to finally get out, it’s going to be a long, long, long night.  That, and, during the birth of the one in the photo above, Ellie decided the bathroom (where she’d been nesting since yesterday) was not where she wanted to give birth and abruptly moved to the sette/love seat in front of the bed in the bedroom. So, I had to cover it in every blanket (a Christmas one is in the pic) so as not to have it permanently disfigured. Who am I to argue with a dog in labor.

It was funny, though, that she moved to that couch, which is in front of a TV right about 11 p.m. That’s the time we usually watch re-runs of “Southpark” on the Dallas UPN affiliate. So, I turned on the TV. I think, perhaps, the birth took so long because South Park is often not shown on Mondays, and Ellie was forced to watch some inane sitcom. I’m blogging this from my laptop on the bed, making sure everything goes OK. I’ll keep everyone updated!

She then went off to the couch for another nap, but did have to be helped up as she couldn’t make the jump. She seems alert, awake and doing OK except for a very sprained right front leg.

After drinking all the water, thought she might want to go potty, but she turned back after having difficulty navigating the porch steps. I carried her down and sat her in the yard (under my constant watch), but she did not want to be outside, and tried to climb back up the steps. So, I carried her back in. Hopefully, her trauma about being outside will abate after all the meds have finally worn off.

If she is agreeable, I’ll take and post a pic of her post-accident later on tonight.