Week 4

Time is going by so fast. The pups are already 4 weeks old. This week has been another week of changes. One of the biggest changes is that their hearing is developing rapidly. I can no longer sneak into the room unnoticed. Several heads will rise and turn their dark eyes my direction and at least one pup will usually let out a small bark, signaling my presence.

They still spend most of their time sleeping and they love to snuggle together.

When they are awake, they love to play.

This week we added toys to the pen and the pups have been enjoying dragging them around and chewing on them.

Ditto (Mom) likes the toys and regularly steals them from the pen. Last night I gathered a dozen of the toys upstairs and returned them to the pen, only to find several of them back upstairs by morning.

Another big change this week is that the pups are learning to eat solid(ish) food. I soak kibble, add puppy formula, and grind it up into a watery paste. The first few days, most of their attempts at eating amounted to sucking the mixture off of my fingers (or off of their paws after they stepped in it, or off of each other), but they are rapidly learning how to lap it up out of the pan. (They are still really messy though. The pen will never be neat again.)

Ditto didn't appreciate me adding the food to their pen and the first few times I tried to feed them, she came into the pen and laid down next to the bowl so that they would leave the food and nurse on her instead.

Lately, as their teeth continue to grow, she's much more accepting of them getting food elsewhere, and has even taken to often nursing standing up

One nice thing about having pups in our TV room is that the pups get plenty of socialization. The pups love to snuggle with us every chance they can get.

Even our grandbaby got to enjoy the pups for a few minutes, until he decided he was hungry and tired. Then even a puppy wasn't enough to soothe him. (The poor pup had no idea what was going on.)

We did have a couple of escapees this week. Orange was the first to figure out to escape. She, at least, did it during the daytime. That same night, Dark Green decided to escape at around 3 a.m., and Ditto had to come and wake me up to rescue her. Since that escape, I made the step into the pen higher, so they should be contained for a while more. I like to leave the gate of the pen open until the pups are totally weaned so that Ditto can come and go as she pleases. We'll see how long it takes for them to figure out how to get out again.

All the pups are growing rapidly. We wormed them this week and they were all between 4 1/2 to 6 lbs. They all seem to be quite healthy and happy.