You will notice immediately a new sense of alertness in these little gems! This week, they became aware that a world exists beyond their whelping box. Here they are at 3 weeks old: They are now sporting some eye-catching Lupine collars. Lupine, a company based in New Hampshire, makes top-notch pet products, such as leashes and collars. Their collars come with a chew guarantee, which we've tested and found accurate here at Russell Homestead. Below are the puppies' collar colors to help you identify them in photos and when you come visit, if you are one of the families that is going to bringing on these puppies home. The puppies are all growing beautifully. Their weights at three weeks are as follows: James & Gordon - 2lbs, 1oz; Peace - 2lbs; Benny - 1lb, 15oz; Eddie - 1lb, 14oz; Grace & Mercy - 1lb, 10oz; and Theodore - 1lb, 4oz. Their sole source of nutrition is Tachi, and that will begin to change in the upcoming week. In addition to packing on ounces, they are developing rapidly. Though they mostly still crawl (see James below)... ...they are taking tottery steps and sitting occasionally (see Eddie below). With their added mobility, we turn our attention to beginning house training. Yes, house training at 3 weeks old. We believe house training begins as soon as the puppies are mobile at 2-3 weeks old. (You can read more about our house training process here and here.) We use the Misty Method to train our puppies. The premise of the Misty Method is to capitalize on a dog’s God-given instinct not to soil the place where they sleep. The puppies now have two areas – a sleeping area in the blue box with a towel and potty area on newspaper in a plexi-glass box. They cannot yet access the rest of the whelping area. We change the towel in the sleeping area several times a day to teach them it’s a clean area and transfer sleeping puppies from the potty box to the sleeping area. (Yes, the puppies do sack out in there at first, but my children are good at catching them and moving them.) When the puppies do eliminate in the potty box, we cover it with fresh newspaper to keep it clean while preserving the smell to make them come back again. We also eliminate the smell in the sleeping area by cleaning it with Bio-base Biodeodizer, which works naturally to eliminate the source of bad odors by using viable bacterial cultures (read more here), and it smells amazing! This is hands-down my hubby's favorite Life's Abundance product because spraying on biodeodizer immediately makes the odors begin to dissipate. You can see below to the left the potty box. As the puppies begin to use over the next week, we'll give them access to a larger play area. The above picture also shows how the puppies spent the majority of week three - sleeping. However, they are beginning to play for short spurts of time. They may tumble over each other and play for 5 minutes and then sack out for over an hour. They did show interest in a stuffed moose we added, especially in snuggling with it to sleep.
Since the puppies can now see and hear, they are already being socialized to the normal household sights, smells, sounds, and sensations. They are in a room off our kitchen and near our washing machine. They already are familiar with a myriad of household occurrences – doors closing, washing machine running, coffee pot brewing and beeping, happy voices (and grumpy voices), hands touching them, soft surfaces, hard surfaces, cool surfaces, radios, and on and on – and all of this without any real purposeful socialization on my part because they are part of our daily routine. This week, they also got to hear a leaf blower and lawn mower from a distance. As they grow, I intentionally socialize them to as many things as I can, while being conscious not to overwhelm or overstimulate them. We always, always let them get plenty of rest because that's an important part of puppy growth and development. I’ll close my post today with snapshots from the week. As you can probably guess, the cuddle sessions are getting longer! Notice we took them into different rooms of the house to experience new sensations. Thanks, as always, for stopping by!
3 Comments
Laura
10/17/2020 02:46:55 pm
Without a doubt, this blog is the highlight of our week!
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Randy D Stilson
10/17/2020 03:37:22 pm
Thank you. I have been anxiously waiting for an update. you are awesome.
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Colleen & Mike
10/19/2020 10:26:29 pm
These weeks are going by so fast & what beautiful pictures of the Puppies & children. They really love & enjoy being with these new additions. We always wait for your update as we enjoy reading & seeing everything you do in so much detail. You should be so proud of your work but then you do enjoy every bit of what you do & so does your children. Again, our special thanks to you.
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AuthorVanessa from Russell Homestead. Follower of the Lord Jesus, wife of my knight in shining armor, mother of 5 wonderful children, and joint-keeper of the Russell homestead. Thanks for stopping by! Archives
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Vanessa Russell
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