One Week! (Updated)

Mary-Ann Sontag June 11, 2025

Happy One Week Birthday to the Bright and Sparkling Gems 💎🎂

In honor of the day, we are currently having a thunderstorm.

Puppies do not hear before about three weeks — their ears are sealed shut. They also do not see. But when a big thunderclap happened, every puppy reacted by squeaking and rolling/squirming from their (above) puppy pile. Capella was not in the box with them — they must have felt the vibration of the thunder. Very interesting.

Puppies are so flexible — like Gumby! Do you remember Gumby?

Topaz 💙

Who needs a collar when you are: 1) the only girl; and 2) so cleverly marked.

It is always a relief to get through Week One. The first week has the highest puppy mortality rate for this neonatal period. All puppies are thriving 🍀 and on track to double their birth weight tonight or tomorrow 🎉🐷

Official one week photos today — this will be easy peasy with just four 🎂

❤️

Enjoy!

Evening Update

We have a winner — Jasper is officially double his birth weight! He started life at 17 ounces and is now 34 ounces!

He was also the first to find and engage with the whelping box birthday present.

The other puppies are close behind and should double their birth weight tomorrow.

Here is their official one week photos.

It is so easy with four!

🩷💙💙💙

Day Six (Updated)

Mary-Ann Sontag June 10, 2025

They are like small works of art.

Capella continues to do very well. She is relaxed and happy. Here she has Star Garnet on her right leg and Topaz on the left. Puppies love to drape!

💙💙💙🩷

(Later in the Day)

The puppies had visitors — Kira and her husband, Jay, stopped by ❤️ I did not get photos — darn it! After getting a puppy fix, Kira and Jay then ran around sending off various puppy DNA swabs — Fed Ex for the France samples and the post office for the AKC DNA test kits. Much gratitude to them 🙏

Can you believe that the France samples will arrive in just two days?! That is faster than if I mailed a letter to Utah!

These puppies are so charming and beautiful! And small — look at Jasper’s tiny paw compared to Capella’s paw.

Doesn’t Capella look so proud and happy?!

Six Days Old — Puppy Pile!

Sapphire — love his ears in this photo.

Topaz is super sweet and loves to be in Capella’s fur or on her leg.

This is Sapphire and Star Garnet — and check out the beautiful whelping box!!! The rails are hickory and the sides are Sapele, an African hardwood. It was a team effort, but special thanks to the Team Captain, Logan (Bright Star Atlas’s human brother).

This is Jasper. And yes — I know. It is an epic photo.

He was taking a 30-minute solo nap to make sure his DNA did not get mixed up with his littermates (or mom) before I swabbed his cheek, and I looked over to see him doing that. SO CUTE.

Star Garnet is also super cute, but not quite as Zen in her poses.

This is Sapphire.

Thanks for following along with us ❤️

Day 5

Mary-Ann Sontag June 9, 2025

Puppies are increasingly mobile. They have a drag/lurch mode of transportation but it gets them where they want to go.

Jasper is especially active and busy, and has been since the first day. He is constantly on crawlabouts, and you can hear him doing directional sniffing around the whelping box from across the room.

Noses are starting to darken up — I call this time the Smudge Puppy stage because the puppy noses look dirty and smudged for a while ❤️

This particular fleece makes for a pretty background.

I love this photo of Star Garnet 💖

My cats are quite confused. Apparently, night time is when they do their important cat work and these all-nighters are interfering with that. Even the elusive Nikki Summer Dawn has been appearing to try and figure out what the heck is going on.