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Cammie x Sting Puppy Blog April to May 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 The puppies all left for their new homes on Memorial Day weekend — two on Friday, one on Saturday and one on Tuesday. The fifth one, the red collar boy, is staying with me. I could not possibly be more delighted with the families that are giving these pups their new homes. They are all previous poodle owners, and all very committed to their puppies. Lucky puppies to have such great families and lucky families to have such great puppies.
May 22, 2014 The pups will be 9 weeks old tomorrow. Most breeders let the pups go to their new homes at 8 weeks. We keep them for an extra week. It has been interesting to see that during this last week, the puppies have naturally begun to separate from their siblings. Instead of sleeping in a pile, always touching each other, they are often sleeping by themselves. They just seem a bit more independent. All of these pups, except for the one I am keeping, are going to single dog families, so I am glad that they had the extra week with their mom and siblings. Their final grooming before going off to their new homes was today, and they are all clean and beautiful.
May 16, 2014 The secret to house training young pups is to give them access to the outside every 3 hours or so. They seem to have a natural preference for going to the bathroom outside. The newspaper in the puppy room is their second choice. Giving access every 3 hours means getting up twice in the middle of the night. Cammie seems to think that that is exactly what we should do. She sleeps upstairs with me and wakes me up in the middle of each night and again very early in the morning to go check on her pups. It is very cute to see her serious little face staring intently at me to let me know it is time to go check on the pups. So we go downstairs and take the pups outside where they all pee. Cammie often lets them nurse briefly before we go back to bed. She is quite the little momma!
May 6, 2014 We have settled into a nice routine. The pups sleep for about 3 hours, safely enclosed in the bathroom/laundry room. When they wake up, I open the gate and we all run for the back door. Puppies run outside and pee. Sometime I see all 5 peeing at the same time. Then the run around chasing each other and playing with whatever they can find — sticks, an old dog food bag, a plastic flower pot, etc. Cammie still lets them nurse sometimes, but they are not getting much milk from her. Cammie loves playing with the pups. They trot around the yard after her. Sometimes she will start playing with just one pup, gently biting and holding him and even getting down into play posture to invite him to come play. After some active play with each other and with their mom, the pups are ready to go back to the puppy room (aka my bathroom/laundry room) and sleep for a few more hours.
The pups are visited regularly by a wide range of adults and children. Friends and neighbors are constantly stopping by to see them. Of course, all of this exposure to different people is very good for the puppies. Early positive experiences with lots of different people prepares them for a future filled with new experiences.
April 28, 2014 We had a jail break this morning. The little white girl was not the first one to get out of the whelping box, but she was the first one to learn that she can consistently do it in less than 60 seconds. She was very much enjoying her new-found skill, but I did not particularly enjoy having a puppy with free access to everything in the house. So I had to drop everything and get the pups set up in their new home which is the first floor bathroom/laundry room. That’s when I discovered that the bars to the dog gate are too wide. The pups can squeeze right through them. Sigh. So now the bars are covered with cardboard and duct tape and I wasted a whole morning getting everything set up and puppy proof.
April 23, 2014 The puppies went outside for the first time today. I have 3 arborvitae trees nestled between a fence and a retaining wall and they quickly adopted that as their den and playground. Very cute to see them running around under the low tree branches and then darting out into the open yard.
Cammie has been eating about 3 pounds of meat a day and it all flows out of her and into the puppies. Even with her huge appetite, she has lost some weight and is very thin. Her teats are very full and sometimes so painful that she doesn’t want to nurse. Who can blame her? The pups have teeth and claws and their pushing and pulling on her engorged teats can’t be comfortable. My poor girl! We are giving the pups a diet of soaked kibble, cottage cheese, yoghurt, and ground turkey and this will begin to take the burden off of Cammie.
April 19, 2014 Today the pups were groomed for the first time. Michelle brought her grooming table and clippers, groomed each pup and commented on their structure, as one as one of the puppy buyers and I observed. Very cute to see their different reactions to being groomed. One of the boys protested loudly at first, but then looked up at Michelle as if to say, “oh OK, this isn’t so bad” and then he relaxed and went along with the program. So cute. Early grooming gets the pups accustomed to hearing and feeling the clippers and prepares them for a lifetime of being groomed. They will be groomed again before they go to their new homes.
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