Big dog bones!

The babies have their first "big dog bones" tonight. Small beef soup bones. There's a lot of happy whimpering going on in the puppy pen. I was able to pet all of them while they were chewing, and even remove bones....no growling, no freezing, no snapping, no trying to run away. Exactly what I like to see. We'll do this a few more times before they leave for their new homes. Below are some pictures of them with their bones.

Lots of visitors!

Busy weekend for the puppies. Early Saturday afternoon I took the puppies down to the "forest' for an outing. They ran through the underbrush, climbed over logs and checked out the fenceline. Then we had a long, disorganized "walk" back up the pasture to the house. Later that afternoon Jodie & Will Dobie from Grande Prairie dropped in for a visit. They own Boomer, Morley's brother from this spring's Josh/Chime litter. They brought their little 2.5 year old nephew, Aiden, who had to spend a lot of time on the couch to save his toes!

Today Cassie & Sheldon Young from Prince George were down again, and they played with the puppies for a long time, getting them very, very tired! During that visit my co-worker Janine came for a short visit with her two kids. In the early afternoon, my friend Amis came by with his four boys, and we took the puppies outside to play with the kids.

There are a bunch of new pictures from this weekend, starting here: http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2757438380037483664ENjcza

More Adventures

Monday night I took the puppies outside in my arms to see and hear the big, diesel tractor running. I invited them to sniff the tires and the bucket. They were a little apprehensive, but nobody tried to jump out of my arms. Yesterday I took them outside when I got home from work, as we had a nice warm afternoon. For those that don't know/realize, I'm now using up the balance of my vacation to work shorter days, so I have more time at home with the puppies. I'm going in at 10, and home at 3:30, which gives me some daylight and extra time.

Outside, was fun, they were a little quiet to start with, then they became more brave and we did a fair amount of walking around. I'm hoping that Saturday afternoon will be warm enough to take them down to the wooded area on the north side of the pasture. Lots of logs to jump over and stuff to run through.

They all play a mean game of tug (great for those of you looking at doing dog sports!) and they're doing quite well with the whole potty box thing. They'll all take treats from my hand, which lets me reward them for using the potty box. They're very wild and fun!

New pics at the Webshots page: http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2439167850037483664NqhKCi

Visitors

As you can see the puppies had visitors again this weekend. Saturday afternoon saw a group of six kids in to cuddle the crew. My friend Don Zwicker from Grande Prairie was also here overnight, with Nemo, Parker's brother from the first Dalry litter. Don took loads of photos, so hopefully I'll have some to post soon. This afternoon Cassie & Sheldon Young spent a few hours, along with my friend Linda and her daughter Megan. Cassie was here last Friday and really noticed the differences this week. The puppies are very, very busy now, and they can run, rather than stagger around like a bunch of drunks. They are all starting to play a mean game of tug, and they're packing toys around in their mouths. They've spent lots of time playing with Morley who is very gentle with them. Nina is spending very little time with them now, she comes in to feed them 3-4 times a day and never for more than 5 minutes. She's spending her time with the rest of the dogs now, and I'm feeding her regular rations and will just let her dry up now. I'll post some more pictures to Webshots later tonight.

New Skills

This morning I started feeding small treats from my hands to the puppies, in preparation for our next trip out of doors. With seven of them, it'll be a lot like herding cats if I don't have some tools to convince them that I'm worth following. So, I give them bits of food every time they come to find me, call them as a group (they're actually getting pretty good at that) and reward them for finding me. If I keep doing this while they're rampaging in the puppy room, they should be much easier to manage outside.

Orange and Yellow are the greediest and caught on the quickest, followed by Black and Purple. The other three were off doing their thing a lot of the time, so I didn't get as many repetitions in with them as I needed.

I'll likely pair all of this with a clicker shortly, but the mechanics of it all were sort of eluding me at 6:30 this morning!

New Video

New video taken tonight during another round of playing with 9 month old Morley. Puppies followed Morley, played in the tunnel, trashed each other (yes, the screeching does make one cringe!) and running like maniacs. They had a lot of fun. I'm really hoping our cold spell doesn't last for long so that I can get the little beasts outside.

Enjoy the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsZ-LX9pDXA

Whew!

Where is the time going??? Can't believe these babies are nearly 5 weeks old. How cute is this picture?

Marie is looking after the puppies and Nina on Mondays for me, so I can work a full day, and she was just telling me how wild the group was today. Lots of growling, snarling and snapping going on now, along with little games of tag. They're really darn cute.

On Saturday night, 9 month old Morley finally got to see the puppies up close and personal. I'm not certain the thrill was quite what she has been anticipating, the puppies were pretty nosy and she wasn't sure what to make of them.

They had a few visitors this past weekend and I've posted a few new pictures on the Webshots page: http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2389366990037483664dnSXJf

Wow, four weeks already!

This photo is part of an unintentional series of upside down puppies tonight. They had lots of visitors today, since it was dog food day and I had customers coming to pick up their orders. Then a co-worker and her daughter Emma and Emma's friend Carmen came to visit tonight. The puppies got lots of loving and then fell asleep all over the pen. These toes belong to Miss Green, who was asleep in my lap.

They had visitors last night as well when our friend Bill arrived with his two boys and another of my co-workers also came out.

This afternoon all the puppies tried some chicken parts that Nina hadn't gotten around to eating. Mr. Black was heard exclaiming "Num, num, num" while he chewed on his piece.

All the puppies are starting to pack soft toys around the box and they're very good at getting over the obstacles that I've got in their pen. There is even some toy shaking going on. As well, they're very good about doing their business if we can get them into the potty box quickly. They do seem to be using it overnight as well, so we're on our way to a cleaner pen!

There's a new video that I did on Tuesday: http://youtu.be/tA3pSiKcFoM

New pictures start here: http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2798817950037483664LWuyOj

Days and Days

Seems like days and days since I last posted....huge changes in the puppies. They are all getting teeth (poor Nina!), and they are even more stinking cute tonight than they were when we got home from Victoria on Wednesday. They are very, very interactive, playing with each other, climbing all over Darryl and I and snuggling. There's been a lot of barking and growling, and a few of them have picked up the soft toys that I put in the pen today. Tonight they met 9 month old Morley, who has been fascinated by them since she first became aware of the puppies.

I set up the new pen configuration this morning, so they have a sleeping and potty area as well as a play area. I also gave them a bunch of new things in the pen this afternoon. There is bubblewrap just outside the sleeping area doorway to give them a new surface to walk on. They have a tunnel, pool noodle, some soft toys and a Rubbermaid lid. As well, I installed the official p0tty area, and there have been a few successes so far. They're still more "miss" than "hit", but we know that will change shortly.

They're all drinking out of the water bowl and they've all tasted Nina's ground chicken, which seems to be a hit, but I'm not allowing them to have a lot of it, just a little taste. I'll introduce more solid food next weekend. Awake lasts about 20 minutes, followed by about 2 hours of sleep. Nina is spending more and more time outside, coming in every 2-3 hours to feed the babies.

New pics start here: http://pets.webshots.com/photo/2297949100037483664vXFaET

Big Changes

Darryl and I were out of town for 5 days, arrived home this afternoon. The puppies have changed so much, and they're so stinking cute! I did a video right before we left, and another tonight, so you can see how much they've changed.

Puppies last week at 2 weeks of age: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnyJ8-D-rSs

Tonight, puppies will be 3 weeks of age tomorrow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vEXraPvsUo

With the cuteness quotient going sky-high, we're also having a lot of barking and growling. All pretty cute. I also introduced them to goat milk tonight, which they got everywhere! On each other, on their blanket, they walked through it, bobbed their noses in it and blew bubbles. They also have pee pads in the pen now and all of them have used them, although not with any deliberation.