Saturday, January 05, 2008
22 Days, almost ready to move to a bigger place,
Prince, looking all cute
Today I brought the puppies out to their new temporary home in my office so they will have more room and more exposure to the household routine, the other dogs and also be closer to where I spend more time. I carried them all to their new area, then put down two food bowls for them to make their new experience a good one. It is amazing how big these puppies are already, they don't all fit around one bowl anymore, so I am now dividing it into two bowls and 5 puppies each bowl, there is enough room on each bowl if another puppy or two want to check out what's in the other bowl. I supervise every feeding, it really only takes 5 minutes anyway for them to inhale their food. I want to make sure that nobody bullies the other puppies when it comes to food, offenders will be removed from the bowl to allow the others to eat in peace. I will bring them back after a brief timeout and they will have a chance to eat if they will mind their own business and eat instead of trying to intimidate their littermates. So far everybody is peaceful and just happy to fill their belly. After everybody finished eating they all went exploring, and after 10 minutes of it I started to move them back to their whelping box so they wouldn't be overwhelmed. After moving the first puppies I came back and only saw Samantha hanging out near the crate, so I took a look into the crate and there were Prince and Teddy contently napping inside. 
Samantha is such a pretty girl, she looks so feminine
After they finished lunch everybody was eager to check out the "fence". I will increase the hight of this lower area very soon, I want these puppies to accept a "fence" as a boundary that cannot be overcome. I am hoping that if they never experience that they can get out of something that they will never be a challenge to contain in the future if their new owners continue to make sure that the puppies' experiences in their new homes is also such that a fence is a boundary that must be accepted.
Puppies having lunch, watch Panda in the back checking out the tunnel
she took a few steps inside and I was pretty sure she would back out
but no, she was a brave little puppy and walked all the way through, fearless little girl
partial view of their new pen, all the pups and their mom were wormed today, the puppies' teeth are coming in so their mom is getting less enthusiastic about nursing them. I fed them 3 meals of goat milk with yoghurt and alternate between adding some raw egg yolk and babyfood meat. They all weigh about 6 lbs now. This evening I noticed Dottie bounding back and forth in the whelping box, she wasn't running, it was more like a bunny hop, but she seemed to be extremely excited about her newly aquired skill and just went round and round for several minutes, what an experience it is to watch these puppies grow.// posted by ZaltanaAnatolians @ 7:52 PM 
