First Time Puppies: Week 4 Experience
The puppies are getting out about ten times per day (either with us inside the house or outside the house). Our kids are on summer break, so this is much easier to accomplish. We imagine that if it was winter the outside trips would be much fewer.
This is the season of exposing the puppies to new experiences:
Sprinkler hose with water
Odd objects like camping chairs, tarps, clocks, calls, etc.
Anything that makes loud noises like mowers, cars, trucks.
Rocks, sticks, bugs, leaves, etc.
Little kids, old people, other dogs from our own (at a distance)
All of our puppies are really enjoying these experiences, and very few that have been startled or hesitant. When they are, we do not force them, but we keep whatever is concerning them going while we comfort them so they can learn it isn’t problematic. They all love playing with toys, climbing the slide, and being under or on other objects.
Most of the puppies are willing to explore further away from us, so we have to watch them more carefully. They also love wrestling with each other and playing “bitey mouth” (their way of grabbing each other is with their mouths…super funny to watch). They are chewing on most anything, so we are teaching them to avoid the couch, furniture legs, and shoes!
The puppies are feeding and lapping more water on their own, and beginning to wean slightly. We won’t begin to limit our dam until next week, but it seems like the puppies need their additional food and are happy with it (though they will easily tackle mama for food each time they see her!).
We bathed the puppies this week. It is funny to see already which dogs will love water (we have several) and which ones don’t prefer it (but tolerate it). Super fluffy after their first experience with the blow dryer.
New and exciting is that the puppies can get in and out of pen on own and follow us outside. The steps down to our patio are still difficult, but they are largely using the outside for urinating and almost never poop in the pen. Potty training going well!
Very fun season. We can leave them alone for 2-3 hours in their pen without mama and do errands or family things. If it is longer we need to make sure mama can get in still. We are sure this is not how larger breeders do it, but we love having our puppies with the family.
