Day 36--Week Five

Wow, where has the time gone? Just three more weeks and these babies will be heading to their new forever homes. Here are all eleven taking an afternoon nap together. We had some big changes in their environment yesterday. One change was new neck bands for everyone. You may notice that the bands are now wider and each has their name. That saves me when people visit and aren't sure who is who.

 

I know many of you scour the photos looking for one puppy or the other but today is more about the big change to their play yard. For weeks now the puppies have spent their life walking around on hospital pads and other soft material. That gives them good footing early on as they are learning to walk, run and play. The pads are also very absorbent for all of the pee and poop that happens. That also makes for a HUGE amount of laundry on my part. I was willing to do that because Puppy Culture teaches that by keeping their environment very clean that they will more easily learn to use the potty boxes. I was getting a bit frustrated because as they get bigger so does the amount they eliminate each day. I turned to my Puppy Culture DVD's to watch again about week five. WOW, was I happy to be reminded that this is the time to remove all of those pads. They are getting around very well now. All pads were removed yesterday and I did five large loads of laundry and most of it will be stored away. I keep a mop with disinfectant close by for accidents. So here is a view of the new play area. I have also removed one crate and replaced it with a dog bed. 

Another change was to add another potty box. You may also notice  that the pellets have been removed and replaced by low dust pine shavings. I have also removed the rubber matting that I had placed on the ramp. Our resident escape artist Findlay was able to get out of the whelping pen in the night on Tuesday night, so I thought the removal of that rubber mat would make things a little more difficult for him. The puppies all sleep in the whelping pen at night with the ramp closed. I wake up each morning to clean puppies as they use that potty box at night.

Speaking of Potty boxes, I am so proud of these babies and how well they are learning where poop happens. I fed all of them 45 minutes ago, then they played hard and ran around. I could hear they had all decided to go back to sleep so I went and checked the pen. Not one poop in the pen. That means that all eleven made it to one of the potty boxes this morning.

I'm not silly enough to believe that we have this down 100% but this is huge progress.

 

I will be interested to hear from those of you that will be getting one of these puppies to see if any of this makes housebreaking any easier for you.

Here is our little Eve showing how it's done. Good girl Eve.