Cocoa's 2016 Puppies - Week 3

Cocoa's puppies are 3 weeks old today!  They are all over a pound with Jake leading the pack at 1lb, 10 ounces and Strawberry the smallest at 1lb, 5 ounces.  As you can see from Jake's picture above, the puppies are perking up!  They are beginning to try out their legs and waddle around the whelping box.  They still spend the majority of their time eating and sleeping, but they are definitely becoming aware that there is a world around them.
I took their photos this week on a brown blanket in an attempt to show the difference in Jake & Misty's chocolate color and Strawberry & Violet's black color.  Click on their individual photos below for more pictures.

One of the biggest highlights from this past week for our children was that we let them hold the puppies.  Our children were so eager to get their hands on the puppies, but we made them wait until the puppies were over 2 weeks old to give the puppies some time to grow and get strength before meeting little eager hands.  Below are some pictures from the first very supervised handling session.

AJ & Misty with JJ & Holly in the background

MJ & Jake (She was completely thrilled to finally get her fingers on these puppies!)

CJ & Violet

JJ & Holly

AJ & Strawberry

MJ gives Jake a kiss & hug

On a different note, this is the time that we begin thinking about house training.  Yes, house training at 3 weeks!  We have found that the Misty Method works very well for preparing puppies for house training.  We will begin that process in the next few days by rearranging their whelping area to give them a designated sleeping area, play area, & potty area.  I've already watched as a puppy crawls away from the group to "do business."  We want to show them the correct place to go to do that.  This new arrangement of their whelping area lays the foundation for teaching them that there is an appropriate place to sleep, play, & go potty.  We don't want them to learn at this young age to soil their bedding area.  Thus, we give them a designated place to go.  Will they catch on immediately?  No, but even at this tender age puppies are learning!
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Lastly, for your smile of the day, a mothering tip from Cocoa: when you're feeling exhausted in your mothering duties, just lay down & relax!

Cocoa relaxes with her babies