Week 7 - Yeeha!!!

I love this litter.  I absolutely love these puppies.  They are all so smart and feisty and active.  Not to mention, pretty darn easy on the eyes!  This week I was once again pleasantly surprised when another first happened unexpectedly.  On Monday night, I was transferring the puppies from their outside kennel run into the basement.  I had carried the first puppy down and turned around to get the 2nd and there was Zoomy!  He had come down an entire flight of stairs all by himself!  Not a whimper out of him either.  The next day he not only came down but he went back up without coaxing!  With all my previous litters, I have taught the puppies how to do stairs by placing them 2 or 3 from the bottom and calling them down, then gradually increasing the number of steps until they have done the entire flight.  And then we do the reverse going up.  Not this bunch.  By Friday night they all could go up and down with ease.  They are smart and brave and totally amazing!

And they are completely wild when outside.  There is no rock too big (well in their minds), or grass too tall, or hole too deep, for them to negotiate.  I really have to keep an eye on them now as they will go quite a distance without me or Jacqui for support.  Life is one big party to them!  Fortunately they all have fairly good recalls!

Thursday we made the 1.5 hr drive each way for eye checks.  Not only was it a good experience with the long car ride, but everyone's eyes cleared, including Jacqui's, with no notations.  Yay!

As for diet, the week started out with whole chicken necks and saw the addition of chicken livers, gizzards and lamb.  So far the pups have eaten turkey, beef, pork, chicken, cornish game hen and lamb.  No digestive upsets with any of it.  A fecal check at my vet's came back negative for any parasites.  I am so tickled with this as this is my first litter to not have any worms.  Being 3rd generation raw fed has paid off!!!  Already at this age they are resistant to parasites.  Go puppies!!!

I have also started individual training sessions with the puppies.  I've only had a chance to do 1 session with 3 objectives in mind.  First I wanted to see how each puppy acted away from their littermates.  2nd I wanted to introduce them to a cooked treat (chicken breast in this case) and eating from my hand without eating my hand.  LOL.  And 3rd, I want to solidify the association between the sound of the click and food is coming.  Next I will start to click for eye contact.  Some of the puppies are so toy motivated I may use tug for a reward instead of food.  Some did have a very hard time not eating my hand to get to the treat.  (Very determined little dogs they are!)  It is so interesting to see how they each react.  I love training puppies!