The Terrible Two's

This is the stage that I compare to our 'Terrible Two's".  The pups are no longer nursing from momma and although they have been eating kibble and soft for the past few weeks, they have decided they are holding out for Mom. That's not going to happen....!!

As a result, the pups are very vocal as they crave Mom or human company. We are now teaching them they are not allowed to be demanding....I'll tell you next week how that's going :-)

They are all playing with tug toys and chasing after balls or toys tossed very short distances - approximately half a meter. They are also playing tug together which is great as they build their personal strengths.

They are going to the outside pen more and I'm consistent with lunch hour and evenings weather pending. When time allows I also go out in the morning for a quick playtime and potty break. All the pups are very comfortable playing outside and are easily transferring potty time to the grass.

Leash training has started with putting harnesses on puppies in the evenings to get them used to wearing something. At this point no one accepts the harness and will either manipulate it to escape or crawl into the tunnel to sulk.  It won't be long as they are much too playful to let the harness bother them for long. Soon as the puppies are tolerant of the harness we'll start taking them outside on a zip line and follow them around allowing them to lead the way or follow Mom.

They are all comfortable with the agility equipment they have being the tunnel and the table. We'll now introduce a 'bridge' which is a 2x4 about 2' in length. We'll also introduce a 'wobble board' which is small 2'x2' square piece of plywood with a paperweight underneath to make the board unstable. The Teeter or Seesaw is probably one of the hardest pieces of agility equipment for a dog to get used to so introducing the wobble board to babies is a great confidence booster.

They have grown so much in the past week that we have noticed huge differences. We are still weighing them and here are their weights from 6 weeks. Can't believe I'm almost a week behind again...... :-)

	Birth Wt	At 6 wks	% of Gain
Milo	272	1531	462.9%
Nalu	193	1010	423.3%
Chika	253	1350	433.6%
Amiga	224	1205	437.9%
Ahi	271	1409	419.9%