Our I litter puppies are eight days old. It’s 11:30pm, and I’m just enjoying a relatively calm few minutes. The only sound is the soft whir of our heating system and rhythmic tic-tock of our cuckoo clock (from Bavaria, I’m told, which seems appropriate, given our breed).

Every now and then there is a sound from the whelping box which is directly in front of me, separated by five or six feet. A little grunt, happy nursing noises, the sound of Lyric’s feet softly scraping the box while she dreams. There are ten dogs in that box. One momma, just over a hundred pounds. And nine babies, all at least two pounds now. Combined, they already are about 20% of her body weight. Likely, in eight weeks time, they will collectively weigh close to double what she does. That’s a lot of growing. A lot of food. A lot of energy for everyone involved.

For now though, they are ridiculously soft. They already have puppy breath. They have a very limited repertoire of life choices. Nurse. Scoot/drag themselves around the box (walking isn’t really a thing yet), sleep, make noises to get attention of some kind. For instance, the plaintive, “Mom! I’m lost!” the groany “Mom! I need to poop!”, the general grunty “Hey! Why are you crawling over me!” to a fellow littermate.

There is a particular sound of a colicky puppy, too. One of the staples of dog breeding is Mylicon. If you have ever had an infant, you probably just nodded knowingly. If you’ve never raised an infant or a litter of puppies, you probably have no idea what that is. Mylicon, for the uninitiated, is given to babies who are gassy. For us adults who have full control of our bodily functions this condition represents an inconvenience mostly. For babies or newborn puppies, it is the cause of much distress. Mylicon helps get rid of the gas and the discomfort and allows the adults caring for those beings to get some peace, too. Thankfully, this litter has not used much Mylicon.

Holding these neonates is a little piece of heaven. I call it the “potato” phase. They are about the size of a baked potato, able to be cradled easily in your arms (or hand, if you’re Nick and six feet tall). When they let you hold them, which isn’t always. Sometimes, despite their limited choices, they would prefer to not be held. They let you know pretty definitively and no, they cannot be reasoned with. But sometimes… sometimes, they will fall asleep in your arms or your lap. You can feel a little sigh come out of them and then their whole body just relaxes. They start to active sleep, so you know they are, in fact, sleeping. It’s magic.

That close, you can study the little wrinkles on their muzzles, the tiny little nails that will one day be claws that require extra large clippers to trim. You see easily that their eyes and ears are still sealed shut, not yet ready to take in the world. You can feel each little jerky movement of active sleep, those small electric impulses that help with muscle development because these guys spend nearly all their time sleeping if they aren’t eating.

This is a special time in their lives, no doubt, and fleeting. A time most people will never experience. In less than a week their eyes will be open, they will see littermates for the first time and consider playing — mostly just opening their mouths and falling over, really. It is astounding to see how quickly they develop, day by day.

For us as breeders, caretakers of this unique and special time, our basic job is warmth, sustenance, care of momma, cleanliness of the whelping box. They had their nails trimmed already, too. But we’re also thinking ahead and taking advantage of this period where their nervous system is making connections (early neurological stimulation), giving a new novel scent each day to take advantage of the sense they do use (so far we’ve done thyme, sage, lavender, apple, orange, and blueberry) and acclimating them to being handled gently and stroked so hopefully humans can be an ingrained form of comfort.

It’s all so simple but so important. And it will be over before we know it.