Day 30: The puppies were four weeks old Saturday!


They are up and running, eyes wide open, lapping up a thicker gruel in their community dish and still nursing Kamea. Oh brave Kamea!


Their little personalities are blossoming and yet as consistent as they are in body they are similar in behavior.  We call "Puppy, puppy, puppy!" of course they come running.  

They teeth on toys, ex-pen bars, our clothing if we let them, and enjoy pummeling one another by pouncing and gruffly eeerrrrring at each other.  To interrupt a puppy death grip on a pinch of our skin, we gently, roll the loose skin of their lips over their sharp little teeth to loosen their bite.  That shows them it is not comfortable to us or them!  "Ah,  ah!" we say and hand them something they can chew on.  So we are teaching them it is fine to chew ( please do!) , but chew here, or here, or there and with this instead of that or me or you!

After a full meal they lie around in groups of twos and threes and nap.  Fat little short stacks.

Separately, they each enjoy being held, rolled over, rubbed clean with a damp, soft microfiber cloth after eating from their community bowl.  The snack hit of the weekend is a tiny bit of honey off a fingertip.  For honey they will stand still and pose like they did this weekend for their 4 week "stacks."

I had lots of help with the photo shoot!

Puppies handed to me, puppies taken from me and cuddled before being put back with their litter mates.  Daughter Claire oversaw her tripod and camera and lenses to good effect.  Husband Tim kept us on track which puppy still needed what angle shot.

We tried the grooming table loop around the puppies necks (not Connor's!) that worked rather well until I got a better idea of what to do.

A quick dip of a fingertip into a small bowl of honey worked best of all to get the puppies to stand and allow me to position them (somewhat!)

Please go to the reorganized menu bar of the website (link is at the top of each blog page) and click on the "Puppy Page" for the new 4 week stack photos. The link to the puppy page from blog sometimes doesn't work; then click on home page from blog and in menu click on puppy page!