Oakley was supposed to have her babies a week before Amber and Raven. But apparently she “took” from the last breeding and that’s why she ended up delivering around the same time as the girls.

Which put me in a predicament. I only have two of the smaller puppy pens that we use in the living room (and actually only room for two anyways). Usually when each litter is around three weeks old, I move them from their big, cozy crate to the small puppy pen. This is where we introduce them to the litter box. The first one I use is the commercially made UGOdog which is a flat plastic tray with grates on top. It fits on one side of the pen and I put a big, fleecy bed on the other side. At this stage in the puppies’ lives they like to move off their bed to potty, which puts them right onto the UGOdog. It works great!

But now I had three litters that needed to move to a puppy pen around the same time. My plan was to move Oakley and Amber with their babies first into the two available puppy pens since their babies were already trying to crawl out of the crates. The best option I could come up with for Raven was to set up an exercise pen or Iris pen with a waterproof pad underneath to protect the floor then add the bed and litter box. Not the best option, but we would’ve made it work.

But here’s where the perfect timing came in. My son called the other day and was cleaning out his garage. “Mom, do you need this big crate?” They had a large wire crate for their Boxer. She never uses it anymore because well, she’s a princess and gets to sleep anywhere she wants now. 😉 I asked him to measure it. It was 3′ x 2′ which is just 1′ shy of the same size as the small puppy pen. Perfect! I told him I’d be happy to buy it off them. And I was able to swing by their house and pick it up when I meet the Poodle families.

A few days before I moved these girls, Joy and her puppies moved into the puppy room into their own bigger puppy pen and were introduced to sleeping in a crate.

And now we’ve got these girls all settled into their new quarters in the living room. And since the crate was one foot narrower than the puppy pen I was able to fit it next to the stove where I normally wouldn’t have been able to fit a puppy pen. Perfect!

❤️