The puppies are 40 days old today, and we did the first barrier challenge today. This is relatively easy, with the bowl of food (canned tripe) and the puppy both near the edge of the barrier (a piece of ex pen). It’s interesting seeing how differently some approach it. They were hungry (it was time for a meal), so this was a really good exercise in both problem solving AND learning to deal with frustration. Each puppy had two chances at the challenge, and I did make it slightly easier for a couple of them the first time if they were getting TOO frustrated.
The puppies are right at the start of the socialization period, so they had their first visitor! Melanie, who owns their half brother Enzo, came to see them!
I usually start offering food around three weeks of age. They’re 20 days old today and everyone except Green Boy tasted some Royal Canin Puppy Mousse today! Green Boy said no thank you today. I will start offering them a little food every day, gradually increasing it as they get older. Eventually I will start offering them food before Alice goes in with them, but that will be after they move to The Big House. Right now Alice can come and go as she pleases.
They went on a field trip to the living room too! And listened to agility sounds from my videos (one heard Zhora barking on the video and barked back!?) as well as some thunderstorm sounds. We also dropped some things and slammed a door.
They are growing and changing quickly now! Today I will try offering them some real food for the first time (Royal Canin Puppy Mousse). Everyone got a dose of probiotics this morning (BeneBac). They are taking turns coming out into the living room one at a time for individual snuggle time, and we have started making loud noises. Alice has started interacting with their faces instead of just their bottoms now, and they have started approaching her head and face instead of just the milk bar – she’s now more than just a meal ticket to them.
Orange Girl with Jim and Grandma ZhoraNot just lunchCuddles are all well and good, but need to stay on top of toileting too!The expression! Day 20 – the first time I’ve seen Alice nursing them standing up, this means they’re getting big and efficient
They continue to get something new in the box every day, and this will continue until they leave. I don’t leave toys in there for more than a couple of hours, since they are learning how to walk and they don’t need more obstacles than absolutely necessary. The pink bunny was yesterday’s victim:
And the blue ball was back today (it’s ok to recycle the same things since after a couple of days, it’s new again!):
The puppies have a startle reflex as of this morning! So now they are listening to Mozart on Spotify, and we will start the Puppy Culture sound desensitizing protocol! They’ll also be getting something new in the box for a while every day! Now the fun (and work) really starts! You spend the first couple of weeks just making sure they stay alive and grow, but the dam does all the work. Now it’s my turn!
They change SO QUICKLY now! Just as of today they are able to see well enough to really interact, play bitey face, walrus over to see new fuzzy shapes like my hand in the box. They’ve been trying to move away from the sleeping area to urinate and defecate to some extent, so today I added a litter pan even though they really won’t be able to use it yet. They’re getting better at almost-walking. They’re basically drunk toddlers right now, moving in slow motion.
Mr Pink is first to have eyes! A couple of others look like they will open their eyes in a day or two, but he’s first:
Soon the super fun “Mr Magoo” stage will start. We’re also checking a couple of times a day to see if they can hear yet. One of the most important things I learned from Puppy Culture is that there’s a period of about a week when puppies have a startle reflex to sound, but don’t have a fear response yet, If you can trigger that startle reflex several times during that period, the puppy may grow up to be less sound sensitive. Anything you can do to help a puppy have a better life is worth doing!
Now that they are quite mobile, I have added a little bumper mat as a bed for them. It’s also something novel in their environment!
From days 3-16 I perform Early Neurological Stimulation on my litters. This is a “can’t hurt/might help” thing, since they get a lot of handling anyway, but I’d always rather err on the side of having done something than wish I’d done it later. Orange Girl didn’t start until day 5, because I felt she had enough stress just gaining some weight.
There are five exercises designed to stress specific things and hopefully help the puppy develop a more robust response to stress as an adult. It’s like astronaut training for puppies, although we usually call it their ritual abuse. Tactile stimulation (a Q-tip on the pads), vertical position (head up), head pointed down, on the back, thermal stress (a damp towel that’s been in the fridge).
Orange Girl is caught up now, she’s big enough that you can’t immediately pick her out of the group. Alice went for her first walk today since they were born. We’re continuing Early Neurological Stimulation. Their vocalizations have expanded, until the last day or so all their sounds basically boiled down to “help I’m stuck” and “damn this milk is tasty”. Now they make a wider range of sounds, including what sound suspiciously like proto-barks.
The PuppyCam will hopefully be up and running tomorrow!
I weigh puppies twice a day for the first couple of weeks. It’s “noisy data” as Jim says, so you get the overall trend much more clearly with more information. Ideally you want an average of a 10% gain every day, the average and the trend are more important than the single details.
Here are this evening’s weights and trends:
Red girl: 283 grams (16.94 % gain)
Orange girl: 150 grams (!!!!!!) (20.97% gain – I can’t even tell you how much this makes me happy, and this is WITHOUT supplementation, just with some private nursing time)
Yellow girl: 208 grams (7.77% gain, but she had a 12.21% gain yesterday)
Green boy: 297 grams (16.93% gain)
Blue girl: 281 grams (17.08% gain)
Purple girl: 311 grams (CHONKETTE 13.50 % gain)
Pink boy (AKA Mr Pink): 286 grams (13.49% increase)
Alice makes very good milk, and I supplement her with mother’s porridge, which is steel cut oats, whole milk, Karo syrup, eggs, and whole milk yoghurt. She is being an excellent mother.
Finally, here’s a cool video of “activated sleep”. Baby puppies pop like popcorn in their sleep as their muscles and nervous systems come on line (you can see little Orange underneath Purple here, and you can see that she is really filling out and developing a bit of pudge, everyone else turned into beanbags quickly, while Orange looked like she was at lean agility weight until today!):
Tiniest puppy Orange Girl finally made back her birth weight plus a gram. I didn’t tube feed her yesterday because she was holding her own, and she not only held her own overnight, she gained a gram!
She’s energetic and feisty, just tiny.
Here are biggest puppy Purple Girl and smallest puppy Orange Girl at the milk bar this morning:
