Exploring the Great Outdoors

Gamine's puppies have turned 5 weeks old, and man are they pistols!! Our outside adventures started three days ago. Here's a little clip of their first minutes in the grass.

 

They are now going outside to "air" once they wake up. It's much easier to work on this with only 3 puppies. While we would have liked to have more, there are definite advantages with a small litter....for the Puppy Wrangler, anyway!

Now that they have had a taste of the Great Outdoors, we all hear about ourselves anytime they are awake and locked up behind the Bars of Torture! Yesterday, I was quite sure I heard something about "yo' momma" and "combat boots" in the grumblings and rather persistent, ticked off barking!

The first day outside led to the discovery of a prized possession! This resulted in much discussion (read: tussling, tugging, body slams to get said prize) as to whom should be the bearer of such a treasure.

In the end, it was the Nanny (Big Sister, Playground Monitor, among many other job descriptions) who decided to keep it "safe" for her siblings.

Puppy Agility

Whether it's the Nanny or the multitude of feline playthings, these puppies are set for exploring their world! At three weeks, they are Weeble Wobbles, very often falling down or over, but they bounce pretty well! This video shows a compilation of their adventures from 4 to 4-1/2 weeks. While hubby rolls his eyes at the obstacle course in the whelping room, it serves a purpose and keeps them away from his stuff!!

They are becoming vocal and have SUPER acute hearing (read: tiptoe through the tulips, or the hallways, if you don't want to wake the monsters!) This is the week they are starting to crunch on food, as well as fingers and toes. For the life of me, how such little creatures end up with such powerful jaws and needle sharp teeth at this age is beyond me! I have a feeling Gamine would agree with me! They have morphed from hampsters to puppies that like to party. I love this age!

Cat toys are the bomb!

Okay, so the whelping room looks like a total mess, but it's actually a carefully orchestrated mess! That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

I had one of the new puppy owners bring a WHOLE bunch of toys and things with different surfaces to introduce the puppies to as they grow. The look on hubby's face was priceless when very large garbage bags were handed over to me! Christmas in May!!

I don't think I ever would have thought to cruise the cat aisle, but these are fantastic! Great for trekking over, under and through, we have fearless puppies at this point.

The little ball with the feathers dangling from under has now become a prized possession and the puppies have figured out that it pops off with enough pulling. The appeal are the feathers....these are bird dog puppies, after all!

At 4-1/2 weeks, the puppies definitely have their feet under them and life is now a party!

It's almost like we have a miniature agility course set up. They'd do great, though the down stay needs some serious work!

The only thing missing with all of the cat toys is a cat! I can only imagine the WWF Kitty Smackdown... or probably Puppy Smackdown!

Stay tuned for more adventures ahead!

Puppies, puppies and more puppies!

Welcome to my Puppy Blog. I decided it would be easier to have an area where you can learn about our puppies, how we whelp and raise them and follow current litters as they grow up. My next project is completely making over our website when I'm not sitting around eating bonbons (and we all know how distracting a good bonbon can be!) Stay tuned for pictures, video and information. Our Gamine puppies are currently 4 weeks old.