George and Hercules need a home

George and Hercules are very smart boys. They love to play together and are very alert.

Hercules is the only one with ears like his mom so far. He keeps them up all the time. He looks like a little fox to me.

George looks exactly like his mom. The only difference so far is that his ears do not stand up like mom's do. They may in a few days though.

Lefty and Ranger still need a home

These two would be great living togeher. They are both sweet and love to cuddle a little bit more than the rest of the litter.

Lefty falling asleep

Ranger loves to play fetch and he is only 7 weeks old!

Yahoo!

Little Hazel and Odie found a home with lots of room to roam!

Little Hazel and Odie get to live the rest of their lives together and I am so happy!. We will be meeting the new owners the first week of March. Aggie and Priscilla may have a home together as well! We will be meeting the people who want to adopt them the first week of March too. Oh Boy they have a farm too! We need to find homes for Ranger, Lefty, George and Hercules. Jon has fallen for Diablo and wants to keep him as our pet.

New behavior: Bite Inhibition

Today a couple of the pups seemed different. It seems like they want to hang-out more than use you as a chew toy. Not sure what caused this, but they will chill out and not bite at you constantly. When they do bite, you can say "No!" and they seem to remember it for longer than 5 seconds.

eating

eating

Getting ready to eat

outside play time

Pups now have a place to play in when its warm. Thanks to Mom and Reg for helping to clean up the side yard. They love it! They have been spending a few hours a day playing out side. Hazel enjoys playing with her pups in the play area too.

Link to pics

More cute pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/brigettelowe/NewCoatsForThePuppies

Ears UP!

Hercules has his ears up now. He can move them in different directions too.

New behavior: What's my name?

Today 2 of the pups actually turned around while they were digging/chewing at something when I called their name. I wasn't sure if it was the name, or just the sound, so I called each one a couple more times to see if I could get alternate/individual responses. It worked, so I think they know their names (or at least 2 of them do, others will not be long behind). It usually takes about 3-4 days for some newly learned skill to distribute through the litter.

Here's a really interesting paper that explains some pups could more than a week apart in development based on a couple different things:

One finding extremely important to the mystical (mythical?) 49 days time frame was that pups in a single litter can vary in developmental age by a week in each direction though all are born within a few hours. This developmental variation arises from several sources- conception can vary two to three days due to super fetation, delay in implantation of fertilized ova in the uterus may be another two to three days, location in the uterine horn, blood supply to the various embryos, developmental arrests or speedups, differential delay in parturition all can contribute to developmental variability. There is also differential post partum development especially during the first few weeks. This means that by the time the pup reaches 49 days since birth, it can be anywhere between 42 and 56 days old developmentally relative to all other pups in the total population of pups whelped on the same day, even to pups in the same litter. And it is the neural, physiological and physical development, not the exact chronological age, not minutes elapsed since popping into the cold, cruel world that is important in the behavioral stability or lack of it in pups and later when the pups reach adult status.

Note the part I made bold. There are definitely some pups that are ahead in some skills, but I don't know that it's always the same pups -- some get one skill fast, some might pick up the next skill faster. Plus, they are not at training age, just skills like name recognition, affection, recall, etc.

funny puppies

funny puppies

Aggie attacks!

Ranger

New behavior: Affection

The pups have started responding to affection. Previously, you could pet them, but they would just bite, nibble, and fulfill whatever instinct they were thinking about. Today, 3 of them actually pushed up against my hand to get a pet and seemed to actually recognize and enjoy getting rubbed.

Sleeping and eating

Sleeping and eating slide show

Little Hazel learns to escape

Little Hazel was the first one to learn how to escape. I was at the computer in the next room and heard a thump. I looked into the puppy room and found her out of the condo. I ran and got the camera. She came into the room and found her Mom and Meika our pug to play with. It was so cute!

Mornings

Most mornings I wake up and make coffee with the sounds of hungry puppies. Hazel tries to settle them down and feeds them a bit. She is not feeding them for as long as she has in the past few weeks. When I feed her breakfast I feed the pups food.

Growing up

The pups are growing so fast. It seems as though they grow 10% more each day. The white on the Odie, Ranger and Aggie is starting to get freckles. All of the cute little noses are getting longer too.

1 month old

The pups are one month old today. They have become quite active and are having so much fun. They learned how to bite and are practicing on everything. Hazel is starting to give them little bites to teach them that biting hurts. She is very gentle about it. It is so cute to see the pups play with Hazel and I can tell she enjoys the play as well.

New food!

Hercules Says: "This stuff is good"

Over the last week, the pups have started teething and Hazel has started to wean them. They seemed a bit hungry - crying more than usual when Hazel would approach the puppy condo. It was time to feed them some food besides mom's milk. I decided to feed the pups Embark Dog food because, in my opinion it is the best dog food you can buy from a store. Most of you know that I make dog food for my dogs from scratch. I have started supplementing the food with a little Embark. I do this for a few reasons. First, to make sure that the dogs are getting a variety of nutrients and second because I get a little bit lazy sometimes. To entice the pups to eat, I had Hazel lick some of the food to get her smell on it then put the bowl down for the pups to try. They still nurse on Hazel just less often. We have successfully been feeding the Embark a couple of times a day for the past two days.

Play Time!