Good morning! Good morning! the little dogs said. They went to bed at 11pm last night, I settled them in, turned off the light and sang the 3 bedtime songs. They settled right down and didn’t get up until 6:30ish (daylight is my deciding factor.) I came downstairs and took them outside and they all made it out of the house and even off the deck before the pottying started. They must’ve been holding it because we immediately got 6 poos. We had a couple of pees in the paper pan but that’s not bad at this age with this many of them. I have noticed that when I am around, I can tell when they are about to pee so it shouldn’t be too difficult with vigilance to housetrain them individually.
After time for a healthy breakfast, they came back in pretty well this morning, it was as cold as predicted but I still wanted them to come back in for the first morning nap. When they woke up after that nap, I let them outside to play.
They were happy to be outside and found all manner of things to amuse themselves. Someone managed to poop on the teeter. I have no idea which puppy and can’t decide if that’s a good thing in terms of balance (it’s on the middle so they couldn’t have done it on the ground) or awful because it’s on the equipment. I’m going to assume it’s not a huge agility training problem yet ;-)
Speaking of agility, the puppies’ baby daddy finished his Novice Fast agility title last weekend.
We got a good AKC registration number. Another set of numbers in my head, this one seemed easier to learn than the last one. They are also now microchipped. I won’t try to learn all of theirs by heart though ;-) The girls didn’t make a peep. One puppy whined a little but one puppy had rhino skin and gave a little squeal for a second. Poor baby but it stopped immediately. They all ate string cheese and thought that made it worthwhile.
I had color coded the microchip packages before the vet arrived so I will be able to keep track of which puppies chip is which. They were outside so I brought them inside individually and put them in the pen after the chip was inserted. After her turn, Turtle insisted she wasn’t done yet and climbed up on the small crate in the pen to try to reach us. I shouldn’t have put the table that near the pen, I guess. Anyway, after she repeated that performance (much like CarreraBoo from the last litter), I took that crate out and will only replace it at bedtimes.
After reading about puppies that grab stuff and run away, I have noticed today that these puppies don’t try to run away from me with anything (they do run away from each other.) They grab stuff and come running. They also don’t always drop what they have when I call them, they bring it with them. I’m sure that’s partially because I don’t often leave contraband within their reach but I think I might start rewarding it. I think it’s probably something that would be good to be reinforced.
They have no qualms about having metal objects in their mouths. I let them play with the spoons and the play with the bowls. I think maybe I’ll put some of the metal dumbbells in with them. We’ll see if they like obedience articles as much as they like water articles. They are so cute getting the bumpers out of the toy basket and dragging the float line all over creation.
So far, my new defenses have held and none of them have gotten out of the yard. They have been playing with the garden hose though. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing over there and then they all had wet muzzles. They had managed to turn the nozzle a little and were drinking /playing in it. I’d try to be annoyed if I didn’t like that so much. I will have to remember to turn it completely off at the spigot in the future.
They’ve been outside to play in the dark. I will let them play out in the dark in the evening but I don’t want them in the habit of getting up before daylight. I wonder if they’ll understand the distinction. Anyway, they aren’t at all bothered by the dark even if I turn the light off. Turtle had been standing on her hind legs at the door to the ex pen screaming her head off. Since they are quite good at sitting politely for petting, I thought maybe she needed out. I took her outside and she promptly ran out into the grass and pooped. Since all of the others were pretty lively when we went back inside, I took them all out.
When it was time for them to come back in, I had my 5 year old nephew who was visiting stand at the far corner and call them into the pen. We got 9 out of 10 in through the gates for that. I closed the door behind them and lifted the last puppy over the side.
I’m going to go listen to television until it’s time for last call and then we’ll all go nighty, nighty, nighty.
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