The puppies are growing and learning by leaps and bounds!
This week they got moved into the puppy room and a bigger puppy playpen. They are at the age and stage that they needed more room and the bigger puppy pen just doesn’t fit downstairs in my house. They also had a wire crate added to their puppy area, so they are getting used to sleeping in a crate (with the door open).
They are away from mom all day now and eating their soaked puppy food just fine. Although when mom comes back in at night to snuggle, they latch on to her and nurse like there’s no tomorrow!
Playtime is divided between playing outside in the garden or yard under the fir tree (depending on the weather) or the kitchen. I can block off my kitchen into a nice “puppy daycare” with lots of toys, obstacles and a couple litter boxes and they will happily play until they wear themselves out and crash for a nap! Mission accomplished!
We’re introducing some larger obstacles and challenges like the tunnel, a wobble board (aka a garbage can lid), a skateboard, Iris panels with crinkly bags over them; whatever we can think of to help the puppy learn to be comfortable with any strange thing they may encounter.
We are continuing with noises too. They were outside one day when hubby had the weed-whacker going nearby; no problem. Inside we used that annoying popping children’s toy, the dog clippers (since the Cavapoo is a groomed breed, that is something they will hear often), the vacuum, more classical music and continuing with some different sounds on my favorite sound app.
They got to meet one of our cats. Zeus is a large, black floppy kitty. He likes to walk into the midst of a pack of puppies and flop on his side. The puppies are happy to attack him with wiggles and kisses. And they got to see the chickens pretty close and personal while they were out playing in the yard. And we had more visitors, my friend and her kiddos and also the FedEx man drove in one day while the pups were outside playing.
We took a walk around the front yard and worked on following (the precursor to leash training and going somewhere with the puppies’ human) and also the puppy recall; calling “puppy, puppy!” so they learn to come quickly and happily when called.
Clicker training continues. We’ve moved from the box game to what is called, “Manding”. We’re trying to teach the puppy (or help the puppy learn) how to communicate to his human. When a human is present, puppy learns to sit in front of the person to “ask” for attention (instead of whining, barking or jumping on said human). We don’t’ teach the “sit” at this point, but help the puppy figure out that sitting by his human gets him what he wants (attention). It’s a process and might take a few short training sessions, but it sure is fun to watch the wheels turn in puppy’s head and then “click” when he gets it!
So that kind of gives you an overview of some of the week’s happenings and what goes on for a six to seven week old Pinewood puppy!