11/4/01- This week has been a blast but also a lot of work. The puppies are much more active and the cleaning up after them is much more intensive. They are being weaned totally from Phoebe now, and we are keeping them away from her to help dry up her milk. She thinks she is starving since we have to cut her food way back to decrease the milk production. She stole a hot dog off the counter and broke a soup bowl trying to lap up it's contents. This will be the not so fun part for her, and for us until the babies are weaned.
All of them are exploring their surroundings, and as you can see with the shoe, personal items on the floor are fair game. We have let them play on the patio now for hours at a time because they have so much energy they need the extra space. They run back and forth barking and pouncing on each other sometime sliding in the wet spot from the water bowl. They also love to play with the myriad of toys on the ground to their little hearts content.
Mr. Red was the first to figure out how to get out of the whelping box, followed by Ms. Silver and Mr. Black. We keep the x-pen around it now to prevent escape and to keep Phoebe out.
Riley has finally decided they look enough like dogs to play a little with them. He definitely did not like it though when they tried to nurse off him! He will growl at them when they become annoying (which is often), but he is always gentle. The cat also puts up with them, but only up to a point. When the pup is behaving himself, my cat will go up to it and give it a head butt. When they start to get ruff, she gives them a warning hiss and they usually heed the warning and leave her alone. Smart puppies!
I kind of went picture crazy this week so I am going to put the rest of them as thumb nails at the bottom of the page. This way it won't take so long to load on your computer. Just click on it for a bigger view. See you next week!
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