We block off a little space with our hand from the bigger ones so that even the smallest puppy can eat. The interesting thing now is that she is strong enough to take in the mother’s milk on her own.

We are living through an exciting period — it’s rare that so much of our focus converges on one subject. Our whole team and those following us eagerly await news about how Topáz’s puppies are developing. Out of the nine puppies, eight have already reached one kilogram: “this is a perfect Labrador litter, uniform — all are equally strong and large,” described their foster carer. But the most interesting is the ninth puppy. The last-born little girl was celebrated by her family and our foundation staff when she hit 300 grams. About the most cherished one-week-old, Gizella Ménesi said:

It’s no coincidence she’s talked about the most, because since her birth we knew how much depends on the first weeks. We do everything in our power so she can survive. Compared to the first days, her progress is huge, but we are not yet past the hardest part.

The big change means that now the little one — nicknamed Nova — no longer needs to be bottle-fed; that was necessary at first because she was too weak to draw milk from the teats on her own.

The supplemental feeding was successful, and Gizi and her team quickly invented a method that also seems to work: when the older siblings start stimulating milk flow by nudging, milk begins to flow from all teats, and teamwork can begin:

We have one reserved nipple that we block off from the others with our hand, which only Nova can access, since she’s now strong enough to suck the mother’s milk on her own. I measured, and I was happy to see she gained 13 grams from a single feed.

Because she is so small, and would get pushed aside by the three-times-larger siblings, Gizi’s daughter made her a warm pillow filled with rice; Nova uses it during feedings and can settle on it comfortably during long naps.

Each week, the mother dog is delighted when the puppy-raiser, József Elekes, visits for a few days. He still lives with them and helps out with the puppies. The loving owner is even there at night, happy to help in any way around the puppies.

As always, after frequent feedings the litter dozes off deeply, then awake 3–4 hours later with hungry stomachs. One more thing we reveal: we call Topáz’s team the “N litter,” and with that letter we will ask our followers on social media to suggest names — so that the naming rights are chosen from among those suggestions.

Next time we will write more in detail about them here on the site. In our weekly newsletter we also publish interesting little facts about them that won’t appear elsewhere.

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We wrote about Topáz’s puppies previously here.