I came home Monday to a house full of puppies. :-) Debbie is on spring break this week and drove over to return the puppies and Picabo. They came home with twice as many toys as they left with.
They are doing well! Debbie provided them with wonderful experiences. I’m trying to keep them busy too.
It seems my whole house is now nothing but a series of x-pens. I took the crates out of the dog room, layed down a 6' X 9' vinyl floor remnant, and set up my big plastic x-pen. That is where they stay during the day and while we sleep. For the first time ever, I took down my dining room table and set up my compost bin/x-pen there. That allows them to see all the action going on in the house in the evening. I’m trying to cook more for my dinners. John is convinced that Crockett’s fear of the stove comes from a lack of exposure to one at a young age. Ha ha. Outside my patio door, just off the deck and under the tree, I have two metal x-pens clipped together. This is a great place to put awakening puppies to pee and poop. Then there is the 12' X 12' dog run that has been converted into the puppy run. The weather still isn’t great but it is good enough for 6 1/2 week old puppies to be out in for a little while each day. All these x-pens give me places to put the puppies while I clean all the other places they’ve been! LOL
I take puppy socialization very seriously. Three things have influenced the way I socialize young puppies:
1. I have owned unsocialized dogs. There is a difference between loving a dog and being happy with a dog. It is hard to be happy with an unsocialized dog.
2. The “Rule of Sevens” socialization guide that I first heard about years ago at a Pat Hastings seminar. In a nutshell, puppies should be exposed to seven different things in seven different categories by the time they are seven-weeks old. For instance, under the category “surfaces", my puppies have experience with and are confident on: carpet, linoleum, newspaper, wood decking, gravel, concrete, and grass. As a bonus, they will also walk across a fallen baby gate. The gate fell on Yellow Boy this morning, he crawled out from under it and proceeded to make several trips over it as he and his littermates traveled in and out of the dog room. Didn’t phase him a bit.
3. A National Geographic video about gorillas. One of the segments in this program shows a study done on captive gorillas to help them with their boredom. Every day they went into their exercise room, there was something new and exciting. Like yards and yards of butcher paper draped on everything. The gorillas loved it. They were excited to go into the room every day and played with the new stuff until they were exhausted. I try to do that with the puppies. Little things intrigue them. A big fluffy blanket with lots of folds to explore, a toddler’s tunnel, or a big pile of shredded paper. They have the traditional toys but every day I try to give them an untraditional toy. An empty water bottle, a cereal box, and scrub brush top their list of cool toys.
They are also at the age where they need physical challenges. They can go out the patio door and down the deck stairs. They can come up the deck stairs and Pink, Yellow, and Purple can come in through the patio door. Going out the back door and down those steps will be a different challenge.
My biggest challenge is to provide them with a lot of opportunities to relieve themselves in appropriate places. Yes, they are peeing and pooping all over my house but they are also peeing and pooping outside or on papers. The more time I put into this now, the easier it will be to housetrain them later. That means hauling them out in yesterday’s rain and this morning’s snow. Thanks to yesterday’s rain, I will probably have to mow my lawn this weekend. :-( BUT the sound of the lawn mower (or me cursing it for not starting) will be another good experience for the puppies.
Next week is their temperament test and the following weekend is their structural evaluation. Everything is happening so fast…
Sheila Miller
Wolftree Acres
Nevada, USA
sdmiller@the-onramp.net
http://www.wolftreeacres.homestead.com
No comments:
Post a Comment