This week, the puppies have doubled in size—except for little Dewi, Dotty, Desperado, and Dash. With such a large litter, the smaller pups often get pushed aside by their bigger siblings. To help, we’re giving these four extra time with their mom and closely monitoring their weights to ensure they continue to gain.
The puppies are starting to toddle around, potty on their own, and their eyes are beginning to open. Feeding time is now more vocal and voracious, but Braya and I are getting a bit more rest between nursing sessions. We’ve created a cozy bed for the puppies to sleep in, and I love how they pile on top of each other. Their natural instinct is to move away from the sleeping area to potty, which we’ll use to help with potty training as they grow.
On day three, we initiated Early Neurological Stimulation(ENS), which involves applying gentle stressors to young puppies for short periods. This is believed to improve their stress responses later in life. There are 5 stressors and each one we do for 5 seconds. They include holding them head up, head down, held on their back, tickling their toes, and placing them on a cold surface. We’re also introducing different materials into the whelping box to help the pups get used to various textures under their feet. So far the puppies seem to like the fleece the best.
This is our fourth litter at Island Bound OES, so we’ve chosen the letter “D” for our puppy nicknames, keeping with tradition.
