We are in a very busy season of puppyhood these days! Very busy and very adorable. 🙂 The puppies are now fully weaned, and they are enjoying their delicious Life’s Abundance Puppy Food. Since coming off momma’s milk, they have also started on NuVet Plus Immune System Supplement. This helps bolster their young immune systems which go through a very vulnerable stage after the effects of momma’s milk and colostrum wear off. As always, they are doing very well on their new diet! Lots of energy and no tummy or digestive upsets, which means all is well on the inside. They have bright eyes and beautiful coats, which means all is well on the outside, too!

They puppies have had their health exams, got their first vaccinations, and got to experience their first baths and ear cleanings! (They were less than enthusiastic about that last one.) It has definitely been an exciting few weeks.

The puppies are reaching the point where they have SO MUCH energy! Running, jumping, sniffing, and chewing are some of the most important things for these little guys. Watching them explore and experience new things is so much fun! I love to introduce my puppies to as many things as possible during the two months that they live here. The more they see, hear, and experience now will help them adjust more easily to new homes. They have gotten to hear normal household sounds- vacuum cleaner, children, doors, banging kettles, and music. They have gotten to see and hear normal outside things, as well- lawn mower, traffic, other dogs, chickens, etc. I’ll continue to broaden their small horizons as much as I can in this last week that they are here.

I briefly mentioned chewing… Puppies love to chew. Just like teething babies love something to gnaw on, chewing feels amazing to little puppies. This litter has been burning through my supply of Porky Puffs and Buffalo Bully Sticks. They absolutely LOVE them. (It’s either the treats or my toes. I’ve opted for the treats.) Doxa, as the biggest puppy, usually manages to get control of a Porky Puff by shoving her smaller siblings out of the way and then running away with it so she can chew it all by herself. (In these pictures, though, it’s Saba who got her own Porky Puff!)

When you bring home a new puppy or if you have an adult dog who still loves to chew, you will thank yourself for keeping good, healthy chews on hand! It keeps them occupied and busy, it keeps them from chewing or destroying things they shouldn’t, and it’s very good for their dental health. Chewing helps puppies to lose their baby teeth and work in the adult ones, and chewing is an excellent (and easy) way to keep adult teeth clean.

But I always give this suggestion with a word of warning. Not all dog chews are healthy- or safe! If you have an aggressive chewer, plastic or rubber chew toys can be questionable. (My Golden Retriever hasn’t yet found a toy she can’t rip apart and eat.) And not all “edible” chews are healthy. Many of them, especially raw hides, are very hard on the digestive system. Buy with caution. I suggest edible chews with healthy ingredients and no preservatives or artificial colors or flavors. My favorite Life’s Abundance products, hand-down, are their chewing treats- Porky Puffs, Buffalo Bully Sticks, and Buffalo Lungs. Safe, healthy, and AMAZING. The Buffalo Lungs are in a big bag (great value for the price!), but they are a slightly softer chew. The Porky Puffs and Bully Sticks are harder treats that will keep a puppy busy for a few days. You can see all the different treats and chews here.

Crate training is also a big deal at this age. I crate the puppies for short periods to help them get used to the idea of a crate and establish the habit of not going potty in the crate. Usually when I first put them in the crate, one of two of them will cry and whine piteously for a while. But a good dose of tough love wins out. Within half an hour or so, all of them give up and snuggle together to sleep. Relaxation and rest is what I like to see for crate time. The crate is supposed to be a place of peace and quiet, where a puppy (and older dog) can go to rest and take a break. In my opinion, crate training is the best way to work at house training a puppy.

Although, this is undoubtedly a very busy stage with puppies, it is probably my favorite. There is so much to teach and practice, and they are simply a lot of fun!

I hope you are all having a wonderful week! I’m going to head outside and enjoy some enthusiastic puppy kisses before the afternoon is spent!

It’s been one month with this litter already! And they are all doing fantastic! Doxa still leads the pack in weight. She’s over five pounds, while her three siblings are about four and a quarter to four and a half pounds.

Now is the time that the fun really begins. In the past week, the puppies have really begun changing and becoming aware of the world around them. They have gone from sleeping nearly all the time, to exploring their whelping box and playing with each other. They still sleep a lot, but they are certainly reaching a new and more active stage of puppyhood.

We have been spending some time working on potty training now that the puppies are able to get around. I gave them access to a small area outside their nest filled with shredded newspaper. This gives them a place to do their business away from the sleeping area, which is a natural instinct puppies have. I try to harness this natural desire to leave the nest to pee and poop and teach them the habit of going in a particular place. By doing this, I give them some foundational crate training skills, and it helps to keep their sleeping area much cleaner. In another week or so, I will give the puppies access to a large play area. I will wait until I feel like they have a good grasp of the potty area, so that they will continue to use the designated potty area and keep the new play area clean, as well. It’s always a work in progress; but the more they learn now, the easier crate training and house training will be for their new families!

Here you can see the puppies exploring the whole pen. I labeled each section of the pen, if you can read my chicken scratch. Also note the wet newspaper in the potty area- that’s a mark of success!

Next week begins a very fun part of raising puppies- weaning! The puppies will be ready to begin eating solid food. As always, my puppies get nothing but the best food. Nutrition plays a HUGE role in puppies’ health! My adults and my puppies very rarely get sick, and I attribute that to excellent nutrition and healthy activity levels.

These cute little guys will be starting on Life’s Abundance Small & Medium Breed Puppy food.

A few of the things I love the most about this particular kind of food (and I have tried several brands in my years as a breeder) are:

*It contains only high quality proteins. Protein is essential for all bodily functions (brain, heart, muscles, skin, coat, bones, etc), and not all protein is created equally. Life’s Abundance has quality controlled protein sources of chicken meal (which is more nutrient dense than whole chicken) and eggs.

*It is enriched with DHA and contains guarantee probiotics, prebiotic fiber, antioxidants, and a complete array of essential vitamins and minerals.

*It hasn’t been sitting on a store shelf for months! Life’s Abundance makes their food in small, weekly batches. This means when I order food, I know it is as fresh as possible, and fresh food is more nutrient rich.

*It has all of the good stuff and none of the bad! No artificial flavors or colors. No corn or wheat or corn/wheat glutens. None. Ever. Corn and wheat are very difficult for dogs to digest, meaning they can irritate the digestive system and provide very little nutritional benefit.

This isn’t just “puppy food.” This is a top-of-the-line, nutritious diet. I have seen the positive effects of good nutrition, and I simply cannot overstate the importance.

The other fun part of this age is that my daughter finally gets to play with the puppies. She has been able to hold them briefly, but now the puppies are able to interact a little bit. This also means, I hear her pleading, toddler voice ask me about a million times every day, “Mommy, let’s go play with the puppies!” And thus begins the puppies’ socialization with children. 🙂 The rough little hands, unpredictably loud and shrill voices, and the fast movements of children are excellent experiences for puppies! Not only do they learn to tolerate it, but they grow to love it, too! Eventually, my job changes from protecting the puppies’ from my daughter’s excited play to protecting my daughter from the puppies’ excited play. 🙂

I hope you all have a good weekend, and remember to be thankful for each new day!

I’m pretty sure each litter we have grows faster than the previous one. Our sweet setter pups are already nearing five weeks old! These sweet red babies are becoming so energetic and fun! They still sleep a lot, but they are slowly demanding more and more attention and interaction. It’s such a fun time!

Here is a recap of the last two weeks.

1. The puppies are beginning the weaning process. Yay! At this point, the care of the puppies slowly shifts from Mama Duchess to me. In the last weeks, I have been caring for Duchess, providing clean bedding, and monitoring the puppies’ growth. Other than that, Duchess has done the rest. As the puppies begin to wean and become more independent, I’ll take over a lot of the care- feeding, cleaning, training, socializing, etc. This is where my work truly begins! I always start the puppies off with raw goat milk with a little bit of softened and mashed kibble. Goat milk is a really amazing thing! I’ve heard it called the “universal milk replacer.” Many kinds of animals are able to digest and live off goat milk. It’s much gentler on the digestive system than cow milk. When bottle feeding a puppy, I chose to use raw goat milk over store bought puppy formula, because it’s easy to digest and it contains good bacteria that a store-bought formula would not have. To help puppies learn to eat solid food, I soak kibble in goat milk for the first while. They love the taste, and the liquid is easy for them to lap up while they practice chewing the harder kibble. This insures that the even the puppies that are a bit slower at picking up the chewing part are getting plenty of fat, protein, and nutrients. It also helps keep them hydrated as they transition off of mama’s milk.
2. Socializing also starts at this age. I am trying something new with this litter. I found a playlist of videos on YouTube specifically for desensitizing dogs to noises. Each video focuses on certain sounds, like rain and thunder, cars and trucks, vacuums and household noises, fireworks, crying babies, and other noises that dogs may find frightening. The idea is that if you play these kinds of sounds at a low volume it helps to get them used to it, making it less likely for them to startle or be frightened when they experience these sounds in real life. So for an hour or two a day, I am playing some of these sounds tracks to help get the puppies used to a variety of different noises.
3. We are working hard on potty training. Right now, the puppies do excellent with not peeing on their bed, but they still often pee anywhere in their play area. I’m trying to get them to use a certain area for bathroom needs, so that the play area stays dry and clean. That’s going to take a few more days of messy work, but we will get there!
4. The puppies got the chance to venture into the great outdoors for the first time this week. They were THRILLED! However, the weather has turned cold and snowy again, so it will be a few days until the puppies are able to go outside again.
5. Remember the little sweetheart with the torn ear? That was April. This is what her ear looks like now.

If you look closely, you can tell her ear is not quite perfect. The stitches only stayed in a day or two, but the glue the vet also put on held fairly well. The end result is an ear that is MUCH better than it was right after birth, but not totally perfect. The back of her ear has a slightly uneven edge. However, as the feathering comes in on her ear, I don’t think it will be very visible (if at all) as an adult. Even now, if you didn’t know anything was wrong, you would never notice. At any rate, I am very pleased with how her ear healed.

Other than that, we have just been playing with the puppies and enjoying the brief time we get to spend with them! Five of the seven puppies have homes, which is so exciting! We still have two boys that are available. I hope you all have a wonderful day, and I hope all of my north-eastern friends are enjoying the snow!