Five weeks old!

The "Illicit Love" puppies are five weeks old today! We have photos taken at the beginning of this week on Picasa and Facebook. At this age, they are really, REALLY cute.

They've been weaned onto solid food -- we start with a mix of mostly cooked hamburger meat blended with canine milk replacement formula, then slowly move them over to kibble that has been soaked in warm water and pureed. We'll puree it less and less as the days go by, until they are eating soaked solid chunks of kibble, then eventually dry solid kibble.

As we begin feeding the puppies solid food and they nurse less, their mother (Juliet) gives over the cleaning-up duties to us -- bring on the newspapers! A litter of puppies goes through a truly shocking number of newspapers. We keep the whelping box and later the puppies' room very clean to teach them to keep their "den" clean, and make housebreaking a little easier. At this age the puppies are already gravitating to the back of the whelping box for bathroom duties, so that's where the newspapers are. This teaches them that there is an appropriate place to go, and it's not where they sleep.

Their puppy play has gotten a lot more exciting as their teeth have come in! They have little tussles with their siblings and it is hilarious to watch the little "puppy wars" that start so quickly and then fade off as one combatant falls over or loses interest. The puppies and their mother are teaching themselves "bite inhibition" -- as in, when you bite me, it hurts! They quickly figure out that when they bite too hard, the game ends. We also reinforce this idea when playing with the puppies -- when they bite, the game is over and we remove our hands. As the puppies age, their playful bites will get lighter and lighter as they learn this concept.

A few people have inquired about this litter -- all of these puppies are spoken for at this time, but sometimes plans change, so it's possible we might have a puppy available closer to the time when they go home (when they are 10 weeks old).

Unfortunately since we breed so little, we don't have enough puppies for the inquiries that we receive. We are happy to refer you to another breeder who might have puppies, though, so please feel free to inquire. We also have a couple of older puppies who have been waiting for their perfect homes, I will post about them separately.