We are having what I will call a partial rest day. The puppies would be ready to go and do a whole bunch of things today, but we do have a good bit of plans for them over the next few days, so giving them extra time to decompress made sense to me. We have been working with the vacuum a lot with them. After all, the vacuum is typically your households loudest and most scary thing for a dog.

I don’t think that fear of vacuums is going to be a problem here!

Big time rest day for the puppies… and us too! After a weekend filled with fun, company, and testing, they are ready for this much needed relaxing day. The puppies seemed to like the quiet day that went back to the roots of being a puppy. Sleep, eat, play, sleep, repeat!

Everyone had a bunch of fun with the tunnel. It is a new tunnel for this litter as the last one that we had to be retired. They seem to like the tunnel filled with infinite shapes and different ways to play with it!

Today was a very important day, possibly the most important day for any litter of Dalmatian puppies. All of the puppies had their Brainstorm Auditory Evoked Response (BAER) testing done. We have a friend named Sam who is an audiologist and certified to test canine ears. She is a traveling audiologist and comes right to our house.

She checks their microchips, puts the puppies in a thunder shirt, and applies all of the “things” that are needed to do the testing. In the photos, you will see the lots of wires coming from the puppies heads… yep, all of that is necessary to see which ears hear.

We actually had one puppy (Chessie) that was almost sleeping during the test and another puppy (Brooke) that did fall asleep during their hearing test. That was a first!

We have 6 bilateral hearing puppies!

A few hours after the testing, we had some more visitors who were loving all of the puppy kisses. Enough love to go around for the everyone! A total of seven visitors on top of the humans that live in the house!

Happy 6 Weeks!

Along with taking a new set of headshots and stacked photos, the puppies also had their microchips implanted today. Microchipping dogs is very important because it is the most reliable way of returning lost pets back to their owners. The microchip is a small chip that is about the size and shape of a grain of rice. It is placed underneath the skin in between the shoulder blades. The hearing test is tomorrow and a form of permanent identification is mandatory for their hearing to be tested.

We had a very special visitor today. The puppies had the pleasure of meeting one of our mentors and longtime friends, Barb Allison. She was very happy to see the puppies as they come down from her dogs. Barb has many decades of breeding and showing experience and gave us great insight on which puppies had show potential.

All of the puppies represent the Dalmatian breed very well, but she mentioned the two specifically that we have also had our eyes on. When we are evaluating the puppies for show potential, we are looking at structure, movement, and personality. Time will tell where everyone will end up!

Now that Tipsy is completely done feeding the puppies, we have taken over full time. Over the past few weeks, we have gradually been adding more and more puppy responsibilities onto our plate.

At night, we close up the puppy pen so that they don’t have the entire area. We take the space back to being just potty area and sleeping area. We have found that this helps keep the pen cleaner at night and makes for a much quicker morning clean up. I will add before and after photos of our nighttime routine. We also close the crate for safety as they are still pretty small at this age.

One of the best things about feeding in individual bowls is being able to put the puppies into their own shapes. I know that that sounds funny at first, but we are bale to put then into a circle like they were still eating out of the saucer, a square, rectangle, a straight line, pretty much anything that you can imagine is possible.

Another one of my favorite things to introduce the puppies to is the ramp. The ramp can be a useful tool in certain situations. Everyone had a blast and loved running over it. We typically like to see which of the puppies is the first to try the new obstacle or explore the new object. Over the past few weeks we have really been watching and realized that we really don’t have just one adventure seeker, we have 6. Unless someone is sleeping, they all seem to rush to the new thing!

We took a few steps during the introduction of the ramp. Step one: lay it down flat and scatter feed treats all over. Step two: slightly raise one side of the ramp by a few inches on one side while continuing scatter feeding. Step 3: Let the puppies explore on their own!

Big visitor day for the puppies! Trish and part of her family (they own Jill – now Méabh) from our Charlie’s Angels Litter) came for an afternoon puppy fix. Then another long time friend came for some puppy love a few hours later. All 6 puppies loved to crawl all over their new friends and even enjoyed a few tugs on their clothes here and there!

We also switched out their plastic kennel for a wire crate. There really isn’t a big reason why we did this other than to get the puppies used to a different type of crate. When we originally put the plastic kennel in their area, I don’t think that I went into the important of crate training. The crate is never a punishment and always a safe place for the puppy/dog. That is their area to have for themselves and somewhere that they can go when you are not able to keep an eye on them or need to run some errands.

When we have a puppy, we crate an area that is partially gated off with a crate attached. This allows for them to have extra room to be other than their crate but still be in a confined place where they cannot get into trouble. It look very similar to our current puppy pen, but on a much smaller scale. We do continue to use their potty in their small area during this time and one by the door to start to nudge them to eventually go outside to do their business.

Today we have another rest day or the puppies. We will continue with our basics of sticking our hands in their bowl while they are eating, making sunny noises, toy/obstacle changes, and general household things happening around them.

We decided that this was a good day for a day of resting because we have had a good bit of new things happening around them the past few days and have a lot planned for the next few days. Tomorrow a slew of visitors and then our weekend is also pretty filled with all things puppy!

The new thing in town, or at least the town of our kitchen, is the umbrella. We introduce this to the puppies here because we want for them to understand that the use of an umbrella is just something that happens. Most of the time, an umbrella isn’t going to be part of everyones day to day thing with a dog, but the time that you do need to use one while your dog is around, making sure that they are comfortable is very important.

None of them really had an issue with this one, and it is a pretty large umbrella to boot. They were more interested in chewing it and trying to pull it across the floor. This is pretty much what we expect from our puppies at this age, so nothing too surprising, although very comical!

They get lots of puppy play time in the open kitchen where they can run, jump, pounce, you name it. Hoping that we can get them into the living room for some new exploring to happen! Time will tell when that happens. Every once in a while we do spend some time with a puppy or two on the couch if were watching a show for a little in the evening.

Since it it much too cold to go outside with the puppies, we decided to bring the outdoors in. I took a sheet pan right off of the patio, and let some snow collect before bringing it in for the puppies to explore. They thought that it was a bit cold at first, but then realizes that it was fun to eat the very bland snow cone!

Everyone was happy to give the snow a try, with their paws and with their mouths, but the girls are the only ones who happened to be in my photos.

Tipsy has significantly cut down on her nursing. She is down to about once a day in the evening before we head to bed for the night. Nursing sessions typically take just a few minutes these days. It is always interesting to us to see how different mothers like to nurse when their pups are older and on the cusp of being completely weaned. Kimber was often the type to lay down with occasionally sitting, while Tipsy likes to stand.

Happy 5 Weeks!

Of course we took new headshots, stacked photos, and updated weights for everyone!

All of the puppies are within a pound from one another. Not that that is super notable, however by this age, they are not all usually so close in size. They nurse 1 or two times a day still and eat kibble 3 times a day. We haven’t decided just yet, but we will be switching to individual bowls soon! The Bridges are not looking so little anymore.

I forgot to mention on the blog post from yesterday that we removed the white box from the play pen and are just sticking with the Regalo gating. It did open the area up just a tad, but nothing huge. The reason that we left that box in there was because they were too small, although these puppies are some of the biggest that we have ever had, and they fit between the bars. Due to this, we have to keep the white box in our setup.

During this transition, we typically move the puppies to another safe place so that we can move around and do anything that we need to do without thinking about the puppies being in the way. However, when we started, most of them were asleep so we decided to leave them. There were no real issues or complaints from the puppies.

We had a visitor today! Aunt Tammy came with a ton of fun toys for the puppies to play with. So much fun was had and a great time for catching up on all things dogs! The puppies were super happy to see her and ran right over when the gating opened. She happily sat in the puppy pen!!

No big changes today. We just kept with the same small changes of switching out the obstacles and toys. We do still keep the obstacles that they have already seen in rotation. We also have a nice mix of new things in the coming days.

I realize that I never talked much about why we added a crate to their area. This is the first step to crate training. We add a crate to the puppy open for them to get used to and explore on their own. I will admit that part of it is also for us, it adds stability to the play pen when the connectable box is not longer in there.

We are continuing with resource guarding and allowing for them to listen to all sorts of things on the TV. We go from classical music when we are wanting the puppies to settle to pop to country to TV shows to hockey to football, you name it, we have probably had it on the TV! The more noises that the puppies hear and the more things that they see and get used to with us, the more that they will be set up for success with their new owners!

Not much happening today other than puppy cuteness. All of the puppies have a good amount of confidence overall with no concerns with anyone. Just like every litter, we have a spectrum of who is calmer, who is more vocal, who likes to play more, who likes to… fill in the blank! That is what we will be seeing over the next few weeks. We will also use the APET temperament test to show us the little things that we cannot see with each individual puppy.

Manding has been going well. Nine times out of ten, the problem with manding is human error. Let’s face it, they are too cute to wait for them to sit to pick them up! They are also responding very well to the puppy call and enjoy eating and following underfoot when we are walking in the puppy pen. Great boxes to check for their milestones!

Puppy of the Day

Brooke loves to play with her littermates and is often found in the crate. She enjoys food just a bit, and seems to be eager to please. When we are waiting for puppies to mand for attention, she is usually one of the first ones. Her name comes from one of the bridges in New York City. She is Chalet’s Brooklyn.

Over the past 4.5 weeks, we have used both the vacuum and broom to clean up around the kitchen. When they are very young, they will not be able to hear the vacuum because their ears are still closed, but they will be able to feel the vibrations on the floor. Once their ears are open, it is very important to make sure that they do not hear a terrible noise coming from something that is running back and forth on the floor and get frightened. That is a concept that can be very scary to such young puppies and can make or break their attitude towards a vacuum.

Another thing that we do is putting the big machine that moves and makes a terrible noise in the puppy pen (turned off) so that they can explore on their own.

We have used it a few times in the past few days. The first time they definitely hear the noise, we can tell because they were looking around to see what that was, but didn’t show fear. Then today we had this as our reaction. It is very important to condition them to be ok with the vacuum now and with their new families. Our adult dogs are so used to the sound, that they are literally in the way during its use. Sometimes we even have to ask them to move so that we can clean where they are standing.

It is also time to start to introduce something that is called manding. It will take a bit for the puppies to get used to the concept of it, but once they do.. they do! The basics of manding are that the puppy has to be sitting to be touched, picked up, or basically have any interaction with humans. This is one of the hardest things for us to teach ourselves, but it extremely beneficial in the ling run for the puppies. This is great as a base for not jumping up or really a majority of anything that you would like to teach.

Puppy of the Day

Sky is our puppy of the day. She is energetic and loves to cuddle with us and her siblings. She easy to identify because she has the most markings on her face in the litter! She is pretty vocal about what she wants and isn’t afraid to let us know either. Her name comes from a bridge in Florida. She is Chalet’s Sunshine Skyway.

Today we worked on resource guarding as an introduction to the basics. This is something that they will start with us, but will need to be continued on with the puppies as they become older. Even now, with the adults and senior dogs in our house, we still work on resource guarding. We don’t do this because we have a problem with any of them, we do it because we don’t want there to be a problem.

During their meal time, we will stick out hand in the bowl from time to time when they are eating. This shows them that nothing bad happens when they see a hand during their meals. We will eventually transfer this to adding something high value to their meals as they are eating. They will then start to associate a hand with extra food or good treats.

They were introduced to the fish today. It is really a cat toy, but puppies LOVE it! It is activated by touch, or in this case landing on the floor int he puppy pen. This was the first time that they have seen it some with out a care for it and others who wanted to know what that thing flopping around over there was!

Puppy of the Day

Goldie is a very sweet girl who is ready to go! Her favorite pass time is playing with her siblings and napping. She enjoys a good meal too! Her name comes from one of the most well known bridges in the United States. She is Chalet’s Golden Gate.

There has been a bit of commotion going on the past few days, so nothing new for the puppies. This is what we call a rest day around here. Similar to people who lift weights take a day off for their body to heal, but instead of physically exercising, we are giving them a mental exercise day. This will happen form time to time if the day(s) before had a lot happening. When they are on a rest day, they are not doing absolutely nothing, we are still switching out their toys for them to see something new, there are just no drastic changes happening around them.

I did happen to catch Brooke cuddling with her duck toy and snapped a picture of her. It is my favorite photo of the any of the puppies so far! Just so CUTE!

Unlike the puppies Grandma Kimber, Tipsy doesn’t seem to have a favorite nursing position. Kimber really only was in the laying positions during nursing time. Tipsy will sit, lay, and stand. Here she during one of her nursing sessions today. She might look disinterested, but I assure you, she ran in there just to nurse them!

Puppy of the Day

Seven is a curious boy. We see his cuddling with his siblings often and he likes to play with his toys. There are no requirements on where anyone sleeps around here, but he prefers a bed as he almost always wither in the crate or in the bed while some of his siblings don’t seem to have much of a care. He is named after a bridge in Florida. He is Chalet’s Seven Mile!

Happy 4 Weeks Old!

Time is going by so quickly! we took a new set of headshots and took some stacked photos too! Stacking is a show stance that show the structure of the puppies and is a good predictor for how they will look when they are adults. It is also important for puppies to be structured properly to be able to live a happy life and perform the tasks that they were bred to do – For Example: One of the primary functions of the Dalmatian is to trot 25 miles a day. If they wre not structured properly, they would have a hard time completing that task!

Puppy of the Day

River is a fun boy. His favorite pass-time is chewing on his siblings and running aorund the puppy pen. He is a curious guy and likes to try the new obstacles that we place in the puppy pen. His name is derived from a bridge that we often travel over when on the way to dog shows. He is Chalet’s New River Gorge.

Our last real expansion happened today. I call it a real expansion because there will be some changes down the road that will happen, but we will mostly be keeping the same size to their area.

They did pretty well during the move. We typically wait until the puppies are sleeping to alter their “world” but they timing was right for us humans. They did fall asleep about 15 minutes after we started the renovations, which helped. The only issue with them being awake for part of the alterations was watching out for their little feet. The puppies are so quiet and very fast, so they sneak up on you when you least expect it. With this nice and big area, they will start to see more obstacles that will challenge them in a good way. They now have more room to run and play; overall it was a huge success!

We have not decided if we will keep the potty area this big or not, but for now they are liking the size. It also seems to help encourage them to potty there. Although they still have accidents not in the potty, they are good for their age at using the patches!

A lot of the time when I am trying to get some up close photos, they come right up to the camera and.. well.. are up close and personal to say the least! Here is Sky demonstrating.

Everyone has pretty much recouped from a busy few days and was happy to have the day off from anything new. We did add another potty for them to use. There is no real tell for when we need to expand their grass patch area. We decided to add another one because some of the puppies were walking around a good bit on the patches before actually going, so we thought hat they would benefit from some more room.

Tipsy is still nursing them regularly, but is happy to have our help with some of the feeding times. She has been a great mother and is very attentive to her pups!

We had a busy day here with a few new visitors and a full day of cooking. I’m sure that the puppies were able to work up an appetite with all of the good smells coming from a few feet away! They met my nephew who will be 2 years old in a few days briefly. They are starting to make plans for their personal New Years Eve Party! They involve playing, sleeping, and eating!

We are getting more active! They have started to play bow, jump, and run backwards and forwards. They are also still working on finding those little puppy voices of theirs. They are not quite ready for another expansion yet, but it is right around the corner!

Goldie was the first to put her paws up on the opening of the box, but the others are not too far behind!

Big day for the puppies! They had their first meal that was not provided by Tipsy. Since they are still very young and not able to chew yet, we heated up some water (hot water seems to soak into the food faster) and added in the kibble to create a mush-like consistency. As the water soaks into the food, it also cools down some. Once it completely soft and room temperature, we added some plain yogurt for probiotics to aid incase there was any GI upset. We don’t typically see any issues during this time because the transition is so slow, but we are happy to report that there were no issues. Overall, they were a pretty clean bunch!

Over the next few weeks, Tipsy will start to feed the puppies less and we will start to feed them more. This is the very beginning of the weaning process. Tipsy will be ready for visitors soon for both friends who need a puppy fix and anyone who is interested in a puppy. We have a busy few weeks coming up between vet checks, vaccines, microchips, hearing test, APET temperament test, and so much more! Let us know if anyone is interested in visiting and we can pencil you in for a puppy fix!!

We also saw the puppies shaking the toys during play time and taking the toys to the potty… I can’t even say that I am remotely surprised as the puppies in every other litter of ours have done the same with both the kill-shakes and taking the toys to the potty. We do our best to keep them out of the potty by tossing them back into the play section when the are left in there, but someone always sneaks them in there when we are not looking.

The puppies have been quite a bit more playful today. They have even started to bounce around and play bow the other puppies and toys. Speaking of toys, our small change today involved some smaller toys. They drag them around the box and chew on pretty much all fo them. We haven’t see any of them squeak them… yet!

When a puppy is having trouble getting somewhere or moving around something, we are not supposed to help them unless they are in clear distress. The reasoning behind this is to allow for the pups to be able to think for themselves and develop problem solving skills. This concept is similar to human development. We want out dogs to be able to manage any issues that are thrown at them and this is the first step. If they are always used to problem solving, they will not think twice about that when they are adults.

During the first few weeks, we use a heat lamp because the puppies cannot regulate their body temperature. Around 2.5-3 weeks of age, they start to be able to regulate their body temperature on their own, so we have been phasing out the use of the heat lamp. That makes me very happy because it casts a yellow tint on photos even thought the bulb is not red like some heat lamps.

Happy Three Weeks!

As usual, we took a new set of headshots! I think that it is just so interesting to watch them develop during the weeks that they will spend with us.

Today when I did our puppy call as Tipsy was getting ready to lay down and nurse them, the puppies jumped up and were looking for their food. Although that are not as fast as they will be in a few days, they are definitely catching on!

Their startle response is basically non existent after hearing all of our commotion in the kitchen paired with the work that we have been putting in. All of this is to be expected for their age. They are right on track with being the perfect companions! As we are entering the socialization period, they will start to see some low obstacles and different toys.

Today was nail trim day in our house for all of the adults and all of the puppies. The pups are doing better with the Dremel tool and starting to understand the process. We usually grind our dog’s nails once a week to keep their joints healthy and happy by allowing for proper movement. Just because I have pretty good photos, I am going to add Kimber’s nails before and after trimming them with her third litter. They were the longest that that had ever been during this time because she had more important things to do than get a pedicure – Motherhood!!

I will also add a very informative video and article regarding nail length below:

Our new item today was the water bowl. There are no specific cues that the puppies are ready for water, as they are still getting all of their nutrition and hydration from Tipsy at this point, but it is around the time that they start to lap liquids and learn how to drink on their own. All we do is put a low disk of water in their box. They will do everything you can think of with it until they eventually start to drink it. All normal for their age.

Seven was the first that we had seen interested in the water today. Chessie and Sky were not too far behind to investigate, but everyone has been over there checking it out.

As promised, this is Goldie showing off her before and after of her teeth. They are starting to make their appearance! December 15 vs December 20!

Nothing new happened today, we just continued Startle and Recovery (which they barely have any reaction to , Puppy Call conditioning, and basic toy changes. The puppies are developing and starting into their next developmental period that is called the socialization period.

The socialization period is extremely important for all dogs. It typically lasts from 3 weeks and closes around 16 weeks. That is why it is crucial to introduce them to the basics with us and continuing on with anything that they might encounter in your day to day life. For example, one puppy might live in a home that has horses or livestock while another might reside in a metro region.

This is the just the start of it! The puppies are beginning to act and look like little puppies, wagging their tails, making all sorts of “Fun” sounds, and working on their gross motor skills. The fine motor skills will come later, usually around 12+ months old is when they learn the precise placement of their limbs.

For now, this is our 2 AM fun!

When we are starting to see the puppies use the potty patches pretty well and generally seem like they could use a little extra space, we decide to open up their box. We knew that it would be happening sometime soon, but hadn’t chosen a specific day. Well, today was that day! We collected all of our supplies, moved the existing box out of the way, rolled out our vinyl flooring that we use to protect our regular floor, and built up the other side fo the box. Now it is twice as large! I am also happy to report that they are still using the potty pretty well for their age. If they do not make it there, they are usually on their way.

Here they are in their new area!

Although none of them seemed to mind the expansion at all, we didn’t think that it was a good idea to change too much at this point. Everyone thinks that it is a hit, including Tipsy as she now has much more room to stretch out during feeding time and often takes naps with her kids.

They seem lo love to lay on top of pillows and toys. This is a photo of the four girls on what I like to call Pillow Mountain.