Week seven
Week Seven (Days 43-49)
DEVELOPMENT OF THE PUPPIES
+ Total hearing/visual capacity
+ Will investigate anything
+ Can't respond yet to name
CARE OF THE PUPPIES
+ Pups should be weaned and on regular puppy food
The pups are six weeks old now and this is the last full week they will spend together as a litter before going to their new homes. (sob) We can see that the puppies are crying out for the individual attention of their new owners as we struggle to do it for all 9 of them. Each one wants to be out of the pen playing with you and taking your full attention!- impossible!
Last night, Friday, was the puppies last feed from Saff. Although the pups have been weaned and solely reliant on puppy food for a while now, they been suckling from Saff morning and night for the last week or so. It will be hard for Saff as she still feels she has to clean up after her babies and lick them clean. When saff goes in then pen, she's mobbed by them and they manage to pin her down and suckle. So she will not be able to go in this week, although she can see, smell and lick them through the bars. Poor Saff!
As you can see Saff has to feed them standing up and even then its still not easy, you have to hold her back legs as they slip apart on the floor!
The puppies love food and drink! They have a phenomenal sense of smell and can smell food and drink a mile off, even wine! Naughty Baloo!
The pups love visitors, they like to jump up and lick faces! They use the power of the pack to jump all over a visitor and finally over powering them onto the floor where like can lick them all over! Its their favourite trick! Lavender showing us that she doesn't need the other 8 to bring a visitor down!
The pups love brushes and things with hair, so I put a troll in there, Bo seems quite impressed.
Molly doesn't like puppies. I think its an old dog thing, when she was younger she was great with them. But today she took a liking to one. Candyfloss. Molly allowed Candlyfloss into her basket to sleep with her! Amazing! Rusty tried to get in too but got growled at. I think this is because Candyfloss is a low energy pup and very submissive where Rusty is high energy and boystorus, not looked highly upon in a pack.
The lucky Candlyfloss.
I introduced a mirror into the playpen today. All the pups rushed over with waggy tails and said hello to their strange friends which did not smell of anything! This is Blondie, playing with his "friend".
Rusty reducing all of my mental activities to something to chew!
Pups playing with the mirror.
Blondie's very interested!
As usual, the simplest thing, string, is more interesting than all of this stimulation I have provided for these pups!
The pups have being doing a bit of training for the last week. I do not think the pups are associating "sit" with the action as of yet but they are getting used to performing a behaviour for a treat. All the pups have tried a sit and done it well, Bo, like I thought is the brightest, picking up sit quickly and also managed a couple of downs! I have a video of Rusty working, just the luck that he wasn't as good as some of the others! He still did it in his own special way!
The pups have been in the car again. This time they went to watch and listen to a road with cars zooming by. Although it may not stop the pups from being scared of road noise the next time they hear it, it will hopefully create a more confident pup overall, with an attitude that says that I have smelt, touched, heard or seen something similar to that before and it didn't scare me so this doesn't scare me now. Unfortunately the pics didn't come out great as the sun was going down, but you can make the road signs!
These all happen to be of Rusty! Just because he was last to go and there is a lot of pups and not enough hands!
All the pups watched the traffic go by and were memorised by it. However when a loud motorbike shot by, Bo wasn't so keen, although it was very loud!
Today (Monday) the pups met their first dog other than Molly or Saffie. They met Zara a short hair collie cross from dog training. All the puppies found her very interesting, she on the other hand was not so impressed by nine bundles of fluff licking her all over!
Tuesday saw the puppies being assessed for show potential. We had the dads owner and breeder Anita Deadman and Marlene Sillence (resume can be found here at the bottom of the page) who bred and owns Saffs dad Canina Royal Request. They thought that the overall quality of the litter was very good. Usually in a litter you are lucky to have one good show quality dog, but in ours there was four, Tiny, Candyfloss, Beefy and Rusty. Marlene's pick of the litter was a hard decision but in the end she went for Rusty, who is going to stay here with us. This is quite a surprise to me! Although the others were also of high quality, these particular four stood out for her!
I tried to put them all in the show stand, it didn't go very well:
Beefy, who is now known as Charlie
Tiny who is now known as Xander
Candyfloss who did very well, is now known as Chilli
and Rusty the star, who's name is yet to be decided upon.
Its been very busy for the pups in the last week or so as they have been meeting and greeting many different people, today was the turn of meeting another four legged friend. Bill a young black Labrador came over to play. He was great with the pups and even played chase with him. They remembered the manners that Zara had taught them and respected Bill. They loved chasing Bill around, especially Bo who could not control his excitement!
These are a series of photos from Monday to Thursday.
This is Blondie, now known as Remus, helping with the tidying up, they all love the brush but run a mile when they knock it over! You thought they would have learnt!
Baloo also chewing the brush, they can pick it up and carry it to different parts of the house! No brush is safe!
Baloo with the big dogs bone, both the dogs and puppies love these!
I think its Bo being indecent. Bo's new name is Bailey .
Baloo is demanding attention or he will pounce! Baloo is very cute he pounces everywhere rather than walking.
Chilli (Candyfloss), she was in the pile of laundry, now shes acting all innocent.
Ripple also helping with the clean up.
Bailey (Bo) also wanting to be petted!
Baloo watching TV, and Rusty thinking he's mad!
I think its Rusty after his own foot, typical.
Somebody playing tug o war with the curtains. They have teeth marks in now!
Lavender showing us how great the tunnel is!
A pile up in Molly's basket!
Rusty.
Charlie (Beefy) saying that he wasn't just trying to dig a whole in the door mat! He was!
All the puppies have been "smiling" this week, this is Chilli (Candyfloss) showing us a beaming smile!
Ripple and Chilli saying jumping up to say hello!
Baloo jumping up to say hello!
and Bailey (Bo) also trying to reach me!
I hid bits of cheese around their playpen. Some was in this bag, there was a couple of heads in it!
I also added some plastic bottles which they were carrying around the playpen.
Naughty Lavender, today she has been stealing coals from the fire!! I suppose if your encouraged to pick something up, how can you distinguish between picking up good things and picking up bad things, a true retriever, willing to hold anything! There a theory that because a retriever has a soft mouth they can carry fresh eggs without breaking them.
Rusty in mid flight, about to pounce on Bailey (Bo), Bailey looks worried doesn't he! At the moment they run around like mad things all around the house. They seem to play a form of tag by bashing into someone who then chases you back!
Then there's the game where you just hold onto the other pupz tail for as long as possible.
Remus (Blondie) looking cute!
The pups have also been out in the garden again and are being given carrots and apples daily, to chew. This is on top of having visitors to play with them most days and evenings this week!
They spent a couple of hours playing in the garden today. Saffie enjoyed her time playing with her pups as you can see!
Xander (Tiny)
Lavender
Baloo
Charlie (Beefy)
Bailey (Bo)
Bailey (Bo)
Bailey (Bo)
Remus (Blondie)
Bailey (Bo)
Remus (Blondie)
Baloo and Remus (Blondie)
We had the Sainsburys delivery man come in to see the pups today. He wears a bright yellow workmans vest. The pups saw him and all said hello nicely to this luminous man!