Wednesday, April 27, 2011

4 week Individual Pictures and Weigh-in

Fully updated!
Girls
Blue girl
3#  1.4oz


Red girl
3# 11.5oz


B&W girl
3# 6.1oz



Green girl
3#  1.1oz




Pink girl
4# 2.4oz


Boys

Blue boy

3# 4.9oz
Although I only have this one side picture of Blueboy, I'd like to note that he was very cooperative and I was able to take this by myself with the self-timer. He has no patches other than his tail patch.
Red boy
3# 14.8oz


B&W boy
2#  14.2 oz



Green boy
4# 0.4oz




Purple boy
3# 13.1 oz




Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Week 4

I can't believe they are already turning 4 weeks old today. They are eating solid food (still softened), and really getting into playing with everything. This week we will continue stand, sit, here, and up, and will be adding in the very early "whoa" introductions. Also we will be starting to indroduce gunfire this week, starting with a kids cap gun during feeding time and moving to a 22blank pistol. We will start taking longer walks and add in some new places, incuding taller grass, and woods. We may start some pond visits depending on the weather -- if is stays warm and sunny. If it's cool we will work with warm water here in the yard. The puppies have moved out of the whelping box and into "half crates." The bottom half of a crate is placed on papers to start to develop habit of sleeping in a smaller space and getting out of bed and off the blankets to use the "potty." We will also start adding in a few short car trips when they are sleepy, and see how that goes.



The video posting is proving to be extrordinarily time consuming. I will still continue to post lots of comments and videos, but feel free to ask if you don't see a puppy you are interested up yet. Often I have the footage, but the uploading and editing to keep them short enough to post takes a while.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Explorers

At 3 and half weeks old, the puppies are really starting to play and explore.






Baths






Friday, April 22, 2011

Photo shoot

Archer takes charge of the camera for a photo shoot with the puppies...




Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Puppy Progress - week 3

The first puppy out of the puppy box was Pink girl. Red boy also climbed out today. :)
The first puppy to get through the dog door was Purple boy. Followed mom though.

First puppy to bark at a person... red boy.
Everybody is walking off their bed to "potty" on the papers almost everytime.

Small Trials and Tribulations
Sky is still very concerned about the puppies and keeps them clean, but is not wanting to feed them. She has "spring fever" and mostly just whines to go play or brings me a toy. So, I have had to make her lie down and then pet her while she feed the puppies. She enjoys the petting, for the most part but gets bored. 10 puppies is a lot! Also, Sky wants to steal ALL the puppy toys and take them all outside to play. So I have to pick up all the toys toys too little for her, when she is around the puppies, and I give several times each day with her away from them for several hours, so they can play with their toys.

Early learning at 3 weeks
    The puppies can see and hear, but they are still learning to locate souds and their vision is immature with closer things more clear and farther things less so. Their coordination is rapidly developing, but they are still "toddlers." They are beginning to mouth toys and pick them up, play with and chew on each other and bark at each other. It's time to introduce lots of toys for them to explore and play with.
   This is also the ideal time to start work with many future commands. If we get the actions coordinated now, then all they will have to learn later is the signal/voice command associated with it.  They are being introduced to "conditioning" by recieving positive rewards (food and petting) when they are working with me. Sit and stand are begun with luring with food, allowing the pupy to understand the motions early. You may be surprised how quickly they start to associate the signals and commands too. When teaching stand, I do start with using the command "stand" as an action moving from a sit or down. Later we will add "whoa" which is a non-action or STOP command. The two will be joined and become one command (That's called chaining, but I am not sure if 2 is enough to count.) Next is "up." This a precurser to getting in the car or truck, up on the grooming table, at the vet's, onto a waterfowl boat stand or lots of uses in the future. As soon as the puppies are walking well, and hearing sounds we introduce "here". At this point I want to see the puppies beginning to undertsand that call means food and attention. I also want them to listen for the location and learn to pinpoint sound. We keep these very short in distance because the puppies cannot see well far away, and need very quick rewards to gain confidence. So if they do not find me right away I move closer to try again.
   We are exposing everyone to water and grooming, with daily "sponge" baths (this is a must when eating solids starts!!) in warm water, and standing in shallow warm water. We are trimming nails and touching the ears, mouth, feet, and tail every day. Puppies should be used to and excepting of grooming, though the holding still can be more difficult than anything.
   Starting today we are introducing solid food, as ultra softend puppy food mixed with puppy formula. Everyone loved it and made a great big mess!




Week 3 Weigh-in
Blue female - 2#  2.0 oz.
Red female - 2#  8.7 oz
B/W female - 2# 8.2 oz
Green female - 1# 15oz
Pink female - 2# 13oz

Blue boy - 2# 4.0oz
Red boy - 2# 14.2oz
Green boy - 2# 11.2oz
B/W boy - 2# 1.6 oz
Purple boy - 2# 13.7oz

Videos (I will have to add them as I get them uploaded)

Blue girl

Red girl

Pink girl

Green boy

B&W girl

Green girl

Blue boy

Red boy

B&W boy

Purple Boy

Sunday, April 17, 2011

2.5 week videos, boys

Blue Boy


Red Boy


BlackWhite Boy


Green Boy



Purple Boy

Saturday, April 16, 2011

A few extra pictures


Puppy pile...


Red boy (bottom) blue boy (top)
you can see the ticking coming in...



Friday, April 15, 2011

2.5 week videos, girls

These will have to come in stages. The computer takes quite a while to load and the SD card will only hold so much at a time, but I will work as quickly as possible. I know you are all anxious to see.

Each video has a just a bit of exploring, and the introductions to "sit" and "stand" positioning. Stand is a precurser to learning to stand still.

Blue Girl


Red Girl


Green Girl


Pink Girl



Blackwite girl will be coming soon. We had technical difficulties with her video.   And the boys will follow this afternoon in a seperate blog.

Now, Blackwhite girl's video is here:

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

2 week old weigh-in

Boys
blue -- 1lb 11.6oz    eyes not open
red -- 2lb 1.1 oz      eyes open
b/w -- 1lb 12.8oz     eyes half open
green --  2lb 0.9oz    eyes open
purple -- 2lb 2.6oz    eyes half open

Girls
blue -- 1lb 11.2oz     eyes open
red -- 1lb 13.1oz      eyes not open yet
b/w -- 1lb 13.2oz     eyes open
green -- 1lb 12.3oz   eyes open
pink -- 2lb 4.4 oz      eyes half open

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Eyes opening

Green girl's eyes are opening today
Pink girl's eyes are not open yet
Blue girl's eyes are not open
Black/White girls's eyes have tiny corners starting to open
Red girl's eyes are not open yet

Blue boy's eyes have tiny corners starting to open
Black/White boy's eyes are not open yet
Red boy's eyes are opening today
Green boy's eyes have tiny corners open
Purple boy has one tiny corner on the right eye open

Ears are starting to open also Green Girl will respond to the sound of a squeaky toy by twitching up her ears, no one else responded, but visually they are opening.

In two days or so, they will be living in a world full of sights and sounds :)

Positional Learning - phase one

Technical sounding? Yes, too much so. Phase one is simply getting a "treat" or "positive re-inforcer" started that the puppies like, that I can give them without mom's help. So at 2 weeks old there is really only one thing they should be eating or taking in -- thus we will use an oral syringe with supplemental puppy formula. We get them used to eating it and make it gentle and rewarding. We use a syringe to better control how much forumula they recieve and give about 1-2 ml of formula. To give a comparison I woulgexpect the average puppy of their age and size to eat about 15-20 mls per feeding. So of course most of the nutrition is still coming from mom. We will continue offering these supplemental "treats" every few hours throughout the day.

We started with the following puppies:
Blue girl - excited about the formula the second time
Red girl- excited right away, no hesitation
black white boy- after three tries interested, but still a bit hesitant

Next we have
Red boy - eager on first taste
Purple boy - hesitant, but accepting by second attempt

then
green girl - loved it right away
pink girl - not to sure about this after 3 times she is still not sure

then
black/white girl - loves it!
green boy -  eager on second taste
blue boy - eager right away, also loved it! (he is the smallest and perhaps is more often last to eat, when I do not intervene)

Monday, April 11, 2011

Saturday April 9th (posted late...)

Puppies are still working on the art of walking. Interesting how they could pull themselves around when crawling so easily, but now that they have started to walk it is nearly all they try and they are pretty slow at it. So for a brief few days they are actually a bit slower ;)
The weather is warming up and warm sunny days are allowing some short trips outside on a blanket. Their noses go into full gear sniffing and snuffling away for a few minutes and then they seem to settle quickly into  a sleepy stupor in the sun. Their eyes are not open yet, but they certainly seem to enjoy the natural warmth.
Sky also knows it's spring and is getting more and more restless. I think my arm is sore from all of the games of fetch to keep her happy.
Tuesday we will add in some positioning to their daily routine and see how that goes. They are also nearly big enough for their collars now so you should notice those on in most of the pictures soon, helping you tell who is who.

Oh, and the ticking is tsarting to come in. Both the solid liver puppies with white feet will have ticking on their feet, and the patched and ticked puppies have some undertone ticking showing through. In about 4 days we should be able to see who is going to be brighter and who is going to be darker.



Thursday, April 7, 2011

Standing up

Today is the first day for some serious efforts at standing and walking. The puppies are pushing up off the ground and getting their legs under them. Green girl, pink girl, red boy, and purple boy are best at this so far, but everyone is giving it some solid work. Momma Sky is enjoying the spring weather and a bit tired of being momma. She still worries over them, but more often sneaks away when they are sleeping. She is happy to be playing fetch again, and very eager to get attention.  Auntie Mabel (our lab) is trying to see what is going on, but keeps her respectful distance with that labby tail going all the time.

Though the ENS (stimulation) methods are all very gentle, the puppies learn to tolerate mild restraint and have to handle this while being alone and away from other puppies and mom for the "very long" span of about 2 minutes. ;)  In the beginning it seemed that some puppies handled this better than others, but now,  it's pretty obvious that the puppies with full bellies are the ones that are more relaxed. Their are a a few too many puppies for Sky to feed them all at once and she often feeds in a rotation usually 6 and 4 or 7 and 3. Those last puppies to eat are the most content during the positioning/stimulation. Across the board everyone is much more quiet and tolerant now than on the first day. Each puppy is being rotated through "play" or "holding" time with the family also, with just snuggling and cuddling. I hope this helps them to learn to associate positive calming influence from people, without other puppies around. Plus who doesn't love sitting with a 1 week old puppy for a cuddle!?


But still, everyone returns to the puppy pile....


Wednesday, April 6, 2011

1 week old weigh-in

Boys


Blue boy 1# 2.3oz

Red boy 1# 6.6oz

Black white boy 1# 3.9oz

Green boy 1# 7.5oz

Purple boy 1# 8.3oz

Girls

Blue girl 1# 2.9oz

Red girl 1# 6.5oz

Black white girl 1# 4.4oz

Green girl 1# 4.9oz

Pink girl 1# 8.2 oz

Monday, April 4, 2011

6 days old indiviual pictures

Boys
blue boy

red boy

black/white boy

green boy

purple boy

Girls
blue girl

red girl

black/white girl

green girl

pink girl