YLE STREAMS HILKKA AND SIX PUPPIES AROUND THE CLOCK

Finnish public broadcaster Yle is streaming a dog named Hilkka and her six puppies around the clock on Pentulive. The Lagotto Romagnolo puppies were born on 10 October and comprise four males and two females. Yle’s sixth season of the programme has attracted millions of viewers. The project gathered more than six million social media views in less than two weeks, according to audience figures cited for the programme. Cameras follow the litter’s early development, while updates cover milestones including weigh-ins and first nail trims.

The brown-and-white puppies each weighed about one kilogram on Thursday. “They are just opening their eyes and their ears,” said Pirjo Koskinen, the Yle science journalist who conceived Pentulive. Three interactive chats each week let viewers follow the puppies’ progress with their breeder and Yle’s science journalists. The programme also includes a podcast and articles about the dogs’ growth. Yle plans to follow the litter for eight weeks.

Viewers have voted on names for the puppies ahead of a naming ceremony scheduled for Saturday. The suggested names include Martha, Timo, Ronja and Dante. The puppies are due to leave Hilkka in mid-December and join new families. Pentulive is also being broadcast in Sweden as Valparna live, and Yle says it has sold the format to a broadcaster in the Netherlands. The programme follows other Nordic slow television broadcasts, including Norway’s seven-hour Bergensbanen train journey and Sweden’s Den stora älgvandringen, which follows migrating moose.