9 WEEKS OLD

This is me at 9 weeks old. By this time all of my sibs have gone to new homes except for my little sister, Nala, nee Little Girl. She has a new home ready for her with a college student attending the university in Pullman, Washington. We have to wait till Christmas break to meet Nala's new mom in Utah, half way between her and us, and deliver Nala to her.

You can catch a glimpse of Nala out of frame in this video. We are sharing a condo (dog crate) that's way too big even for the both of us, though it will fit me fine when I'm fully grown.

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8 Weeks Old

At 8 weeks old most of my brothers and sisters are gone to new homes. I still have a little sister living with me because she has yet to be delivered to her new mom at Washington State University and we play hard, sometimes too hard and Cocoa, our mother, has to separate us.I also began to chew for real, as you see in the video. I'm only just learning to use my paws as hands to hold things I'm chewing on, so they get away from me some times. I'm starting to get the idea that relieving myself in the house is frowned upon by the humans who live here, too. I mean, they get to pee inside but we have to go outside? How fair is that?

7 Weeks Old

In week 7 my brothers and sisters and I are all living outside in the puppy pen our human, Kevin, built for us. Yes, it's November in Colorado but this pen includes a very nice and cozy weather-proof dog-house complete with thermostat-controled heat. In short, less a doghouse than a luxury condo for dogs. We all loved it in there, and we especially loved the freedom to go outside or inside at our own whim. None of us soiled inside the dog house, we all instinctively went outside to do it.

These pictures show you how curious I was about the camera they took pictures with. In fact, though I'm a little timid of new things, I'm a puppy after all, which means curiosity is endemic to my personality. We are all also still rather orally-fixated, having only recently been weened from feeding from mother's milk, so a lot of how we express ourselves is by biting fingers, hands and toes. But we are all already learning how to do it gently - human's aren't as tough as dogs are.

6 Weeks Old

At about 6 weeks old me and my sibs were getting too big to be kept in the inside pen where we were born...it was time to move outside to a much bigger pen built by my human, Kevin. Sure it was winter time (November) but we're St. Bernards after all, a hearty breed of dog bred in the Austrian alps. And even so Kevin'd also built a large doghouse big enough for all eight of us and heated. It was so much fun living outside, sleeping in a dog-pile with my brothers and sisters inside a cozy heated house, that I would often play until I dropped from exhaustion.

Here's a picture of me so sleepy I'm almost about to fall over.

5 Weeks Old

Here's a video and a pic of me after I've been alive for 5 weeks, eyes and ears wide open now, actively playing with my littermates, and now exploring the world around me. At this age we're all still pretty fearless, without a care in the world and, having experienced no pain or misfortune yet, willing to dive headfirst into anything that catches our eye.

Also at this point it is pretty clear I'm going to have what they call a "rough" coat. In this context "rough" doesn't mean coarse, it means my fur will be long and uneven. "Smooth" coats, which most of my brothers and sisters are, have relatively short, even fur. Smooth coat St. Bernards are often eroneously referred to as "dry-mouth" dogs, but there is really no such thing. All St. Bernards drool, but nowhere near as much as you've been told by TV or movies. We mostly only drool right after drinking. There are breeds who drool much more than we do.

3 Weeks Old

At three weeks old my eyes are only just opened, and my ears too. I still can't see or hear very well but I am starting to lift up onto my feet and walk around for a few steps at a time, instead of pushing myself along on my belly. I still don't do a lot more than drink milk, sleep, and go poop. But I am starting to play a little with my brothers and sisters, now, too.

My First Week

My eyes stayed closed for the first ten days or so of my life, my ears as well. But as you can see I was healthy and strong from birth. I wasn't the biggest in the litter, but I was by no means the smallest, either. It is hard to tell at this point what sort of coat I'm going to have, rough or smooth.

"Rough" coat does not mean coarse, it only means long, shaggy and uneven. It is actually the softer of the coat types. "Smooth" coat means short and even. There are also medium length coats covering a full spectrums of coat lengths. I should also mention that, while you've heard many people refer to a "dry mouth" breed of St. Bernard, there really is no such thing. On the other hand St. Bernards don't typically drool as much as you see in movies or on TV. If your Saint drools that much take him to the veterinarian - he isn't well. St. Bernards will drool most after they've drunk water, and they can drool while waiting for a treat, but other than that their drool typical stays in their mouths.

At any rate, at 1 week old I'm not drooling much. I mostly just drink mother's milk, sleep, and poo! :-)