You would not believe how squirmy five week old puppies can be… Connelly play bowed at the treats, Aniston tried to run off the table to see Jim…
Aniston
Aniston
Beals
Beals
Connelly
Connelly
Donnelly
Donnelly
Esposito
Esposito
How did this happen? They are five weeks old already!
Here are their weights as of this morning (they are guesstimates since they are too big for the scale and the numbers jump around):
They have gained an average of about 20% since last week. Their combined weight is 20.84 pounds, which means Nina is feeding more than her normal body weight (she is normally 19.5-20 pounds at her good agility weight) in puppy!
Individual pictures to follow, and the puppies will have more visitors today!
If you were watching the puppycam just now, you might have seen a certain little stinker puppy wearing a blue collar climb out…containment measures will need to be adjusted!
I knew it would be soon, but…
I just booked the puppies in for a litter swim at Canine Splash the day after they turn 7 weeks old (Monday the 24th)!
I hope this will be a great new experience for them to have before they leave for their new homes (sob). My adult Vallhunds love to swim, and I hope that getting the puppies some good water experience early might set them up to be the same way.
It is far too wet and rainy (YAY! We need rain!) for outside time today, so the puppies took turns spending time out of the box free in the house for their daily individual enrichment time. It’s good for them to learn to be away from their littermates and find their own feet a little bit. Nina is definitely getting serious about weaning them, she fed them one good meal this morning, but she has been keeping them away from nursing otherwise. Tish is learning about mothering, Nina was licking a puppy’s butt (ah, the glamor of motherhood!) and Tish was right in there studying and learning and helping…
Donnelly is the dish of the day
I fed them a mush meal this morning (ground kibble, canned tripe, warm water), but I gave them straight kibble for lunch. They are really interested in it and have managed to eat almost all of it. I don’t think they are ready for straight kibble for every meal at this point, so they’ll get Honest Kitchen or mush for dinner, but they are getting very close to being able to eat whatever the big dogs eat.
They are full of beans, pouncing and play bowing and wrestling and making ferocious puppy noises at each other. Rakki is tolerating them very well but he does NOT like it when they try to nurse on him, he grumbles at them and moves away exactly as a good boy should.
It is likely a matter of days before they escape from the box, so the second x-pen will have to go up around the box very soon. This morning also greeted me with the first true poop disaster of this litter…they’d considerately moved the bedding out of the way so they could grind it well into the linoleum underneath…it was a 40 minute clean-up job, and this will only get worse. They are using the turf really well for urine, but they haven’t quite 100% got on board with using it for poop. People ask me all the time how I can stand to let them go at the end of 8 weeks…it’s the poop that does it!
The puppies had two sets of visitors today!
Stephanie came first, the last time she saw them they were wet and giving Nina a hard time about being born. They were still pretty zonked from their outside time so they were pretty boring (other than Beals, the Energizer Bunny).
Then Dr. Stein, Mrs. Stein and their daughter plus granddaughter came. The puppies were much more active then, and got lots of cuddles and pats.
They have a tunnel in with them off and on now – I don’t want to leave it in all the time since it takes up a lot of room, but they have fun playing with it when it’s in there!
Soon a crate will go in as well.
The puppies have new digs again!
They finished their lunch al fresco in the back yard while I got their new deluxe accommodations set up:
Nina and the puppies outside
Lunch al fresco!
Expanded puppy digs with ensuite bathroom!
Renee, and her children Jacob and Alecia came to visit the puppies today. Tish and Nina were extremely happy about this (Rakki was happy, but then barky), as were the puppies. Wagging tails and licky/bitey, and they got to eat Jacob’s ears and pull on Alecia’s pigtails!
They were all very friendly and outgoing. And they are now completely flaked out.
The puppies have been doing a stellar job of using the turf, as it turns out, since I just cleaned it!
They also had a bit of whelping box aroma about them (which is a nice way of saying that they smelled like pee), so I decided to give them their first bath! Warm water and a blow dryer on low heat and low setting. My friend Diane who breeds Rottweilers says that she can learn a lot about temperament by the way a puppy handles a bath. I thought they all did very well, but here are the specifics:
Nobody was too worried to eat, everyone ate quite happily. They got the sillies after they were done like most dogs do! They smell MUCH better now.
Oh, and you may notice a measuring cup and wooden spoon in the box. The puppies have not taken up cooking, that is so that they have different materials to explore, and those are what I had handy (thanks for the suggestion, Jan!).
The puppies have had an AWESOME last few days. My wonderful cousin Stephen, his lovely wife Gina and my dear Auntie Sheila, all from England, are visiting the folks in Canada, and they came here on Sunday and stayed until today, along with my mum and my sister Jennifer and her two enormous Irish Setters.
So the puppies not only got a TON of handling and socialization and listened to new voices and smelled new smells, they also got to meet two big friendly dogs. I was VERY impressed with how level-headed and confident the puppies were. Sullivan the setter poked his head right into the box and the puppies all approached him eagerly with happy wagging tails. They are getting very confident about their abilities when it comes to moving around too, they are running and bounding and play bowing at each other, they are playing with toys and even starting to learn to tug a little bit with people. They are also barking and howling and making happy panting dog laughter. They are real little dogs now.
They are eating three meals a day, and eating well!
They now have a patch of fake grass in with them to help them with housetraining, most are already using it for urinating, and many are using it for poop. They’ve only had it for 24 hours, and some are napping on it too…oh well! This is an experiment instead of litter, the litterbox worked okay, but some never got the hang of it and it was a bear to keep clean.