Six weeks old!

Phoenix’s babies are now six weeks old!! They are still super cute! Now that they have lots of pokey little teeth in their mouths, Phoenix is not so keen to nurse them because it hurts!! We have already been feeding them puppy food for a few weeks, to supplement the milk they get from mama and to get them used to eating out of a dish. At first, before their teeth came in, it was mushed up puppy food (kibble soaked in water). By now, we are just giving them straight puppy food, as they have teeth to crunch it with. They already know the sound of the food dish hitting the floor! When it gets put into the puppy corner, they all come running!

They are a lot more work for us now that they are this old. When they were little, mam would clean up after them. (In fact, when they are first born they can’t pee or poop on their own – mama licks them to stimulate them, and that makes them do their business. It’s a good way to keep the whelping box clean!!) Now that they are big and rambunctious, and eating a lot more, mama doesn’t do that any more, or not very much. So they do their business on the floor and we are the ones who have to clean up. We set out pee pads and they are pretty good at going on the pads, though they definitely do have misses. Dog poo is quite stinky (a lot stinkier than cat poo, for some reason), so we try to pick it up whenever we smell some. Thankfully, with the warm spring weather we can keep windows open too, to help keep the smell down. Over the next couple weeks we will start sending them outside and encouraging them to do their business there.

The next two weeks will be a time of big changes for them. First they will have their first doctor’s appointment, then get assessed for temperament, have surgery to get neutered, and then go to new homes. Wow! What an exciting (and kind of sc