Day35 HAPPY 5 WEEKS!!! Can You Believe IT?!!

Pics to come......

What to expect this week....

First Car Ride

First Visit to some areas outside of the yard!

Visits from more people

Starting individual crate experiences

Start to weaning

WoW

LOTS TO EXPERIENCE IN ONE WEEK!

Day 34

Kids day!

Puppies had kids kids kids today. Too bad the weather was cool and drizzly or we could have been out in the yard. Despite that we had a fun time entertaining the first batch of kids... or I should say the puppies entertained.... in the usual puppy fashion. They played hard for about 30minutes and then crashed. They ate lots of chicken snacks (as did Laine :) Anne and her two kidders Keeler and Laine were first to see the pupperonies. They were nice and gentle with the pups and even left their socks for the puppies to play with. So far we now have a T-shirt and socks. Pretty soon the puppies will have a whole outfit!

Here are the videos that Anne took. I'll work on a few photos and videos that I have too.

Day 33

Lavena visited today and helped me get 'stacked' pictures of the puppies.

Purple/Leo- Top

Green/Greenie- Bottom

Orange/Poppy

Pink/D'Lay-Top

Blue/Lizzy- Bottom

Day 32

Very quiet day. We all needed a day of relaxation after all the excitement of visitors over the past two days. Corsa and Vita have their Therapy Swims so all the (big) girls exept TinTin and Ico went. There's a great grassy area that they can play while the session is going on. Afterward Eureka and Corsa FINALLY came home! Corsa was very excited about the puppies. She surprised me by trying to play with them. Eureka (who was auntie to Ico when she was a puppy) was rather growly. I think she was worried about Ico getting upset that she was near them. She hasn't seen the puppies at all and her last encounter was with TinTin's litter. I remember that she avoided even *looking* at the puppies until they were about 4 weeks old. She was respectful to Mama dog almost to a fault. I'm sure over the days she'll relax a little. She is my worry-wart after all :)

We're all relaxed out on the deck and watching the last of the sun go down. The only thing that happened to puppies today is that they discovered the ramp down into the yard and they got the base of their tails shaved. Hopefully this will facilitate clean bottoms.

Here is the lastest from the book on Applied Dog Behavior:

"From 3 to 5 weeks the puppies are in what is considered the Primary Socialization Period.

Due to increased sensory and motor abilities, an extra ordinary new interest in social interaction takes place. A constellation of interrelated behavior patterns and emotional tendencies appear at this time, heralding a lively social awareness and responsiveness. Puppies begin to exhibit more intense signs of distress (e.g., vocalizations and physical efforts to secure contact) when briefly separated from the mother and litter mates. Kinship recognition and preference is evident from an early age....

Allelomimetic (group coordinated) activity and social play begin to appear around this time, with the litter behaving like a miniature pack. Playful aggressive and sexual encounters occur frequently between litter mates. Various predatory components appear during play, including stalking, pouncing, and shaking. These behaviors are exhibited toward litter mates as well as inanimate objects that invite such curiosity and treatment. Additionally, a great deal of sparring takes place between siblings, but the dominant-subordinate roles are unstable, with social status shifting from moment to moment. Puppies spend large amounts of time mouthing and biting each other but appearing to take care not to bite too hard. This period may be a sensitive one for the acquisition of bit inhibition or a soft mouth. Some puppies that have been weaned too early in this period tend to bite more vigorously and harder than the norm (Fox and Stelzner, 1967). This inhibitory effect over had biting may stem from feedback reactions from the mother if a puppy bites to hoard while nursing, or from reactions elicited during playful jousting with litter mates.

This period is especially important for the development of a stable emotional temperament and affective tone. Many social and emotional deficits observed in adult dogs are believed to result from removing pupppies to oearly from the mother andl itter mates."

Day 31

Great to see Janet and Andy and Burkley today. They drove from Spokane to visit puppies despite the fact that Andy had worked until 3am. Luckily Janet did most of the driving but as you can see by the pictures... Andy still had a hard time keeping his eyes open ;^)

We had a wonderful visit. It started off a bit chilly and rainy and despite the fact that I'd put the canopy up on the deck, we ended up spending a few hours in the puppy room snuggled in puppies. Later that evening they returned for one last visit and we were able to hang out on the deck wrapped in puppies.

Here is the new set up for puppy land. They are doing so well with potty training (so to speak) that I was able to remove the paper from the floor and leave just one potty pad next to the door. Believe it or not... several of them are pawing at the door to go out! Most of the day the door is open for easy access for them so it doesn't impinge on their progress. Purple Leo is the winner for determination since he crawled through the cat door today, determined to get outside to potty. The most amazing thing about that is that the cat door is about 10 inches off the floor and he *really* had to work at it to make it up and over the frame.

This is a video showing the new puppy (human) living area:

Here's Andy and Janet relaxing with the puppies. They were smart enough (since I forgot to tell them) to bring a T-shirt from their home with Burkely's smell on it. I gave them a blanket that's been in the puppy crate for them to bring home. Unfortunately they wont be able to visit the puppies again until the day they pick their boy up.

Day 30

Day 29

NEW RELEASE!

Puppies have their faces clipped today!

I just did a rough and quick job and they sat in my lap calmly so I'm quite pleased. D'Lay was a bit of a squirmer. Next will be rough feet and bottoms. It was fun to see little poodle faces emerge from beneath all that hair. Some of them are showing a faint lightening of the hair around their noses. Their eye rims look a bit light too. Definitely D'Lay and Leo are turning silver already as their faces have blue/plum glow about them. Surprisingly Lizzy has the most lightening of the other puppies. I thought she'd be the darkest. Just goes to show you what I know!

We had a little time outside today since the weather is just beautiful. After a snack at the milk bar everyone dozed except Leo and Poppy who followed mom into the grassy yard. They were much more comfortable there than their last visit. As a matter of fact Leo ran laps around the yard.

What has been very fun for me is that each puppy seems to have his/her day. One puppy each day seems to say, Carpe Diem!!! and explores, sleeps alone out on the dog bed on the deck or ventures down the hall way. It's nice for mom too since she has a change to nurse the pups individually. On these occasions she tends to let them fall asleep while nursing instead of kicking them out 'at closing time.'

Here is a little info from my favorite book, "Applied Dog Behavior and Training:"

One of the outstanding changes in behavior at the beginning of the period of Socialization is the tendency of puppies to respond to the sight or sound of persons or other animals at a distance. The 3-week-old puppy approaches slowly and cautiously toward a human observer seated quietly in its pen. It finally comes close and starts nosing his shoes and clothes. After this, it may start to wag its tail rapidly back and forth. The tail wagging itself appears to have no directly adaptive function, but is simply an expression of pleasurable emotion toward a social object. What effect it has on other dogs is difficult to tell, but it seems to have the same effect on human observers as the smile of a child: i.e., it is a reward for the person who has initiated a social contact. (Scott and Fuller, 1965:104).”