July 28, 2021
We feel strongly about raising our puppies inside our home. During the time they spend with us, we adjust them to being part of a human family. Our puppy routine has been going very well and puppies had been sleeping through the night. We are not naïve, we know that this is not the norm and that these puppies are still quite young, and this morning at 4am they reminded us of this.
Lexi decided in the early hours of the morning that she wanted to feed her pups again. With a large litter, there are not enough spots at the buffet for everyone. For the puppies, this means patience and sharing, something these puppies are great at-- JUST KIDDING! We were woken to a choir of unhappy puppies wanting their turn NOW.
This means before we could think straight, we were doing our whole puppy routine. while the sun was rising over the farm.
What does this puppy feeding routine look like?
It's a long process that requires more than one person. Dave starts preparing the puppy porridge while I start cleaning the kennels. Floors need to be sanitized, water and litter changed and toys cleaned. We also monitor who needs a turn at the buffet and try and make sure everyone gets a turn.
(4am sunrise from our kitchen window)
Feeding time:
You may have heard our excited puppy call on some of our videos. This recall is used to get the puppies excited to see you. Tone is very important! Puppies can't understand words, but they can understand a musical tone. Eventually this is paired with a command of your own ("Come", "Here", "Heal") to help positively associate the puppy with coming to you.
We call the puppies and they come running. We move their food around to help with neurological development. Puppies are learning to follow their nose and ears to find the food. They are also learning to overcome any fears of new places or things they may encounter in the home.
It is a messy process and after its all done, we still need to clean and sanitize everything. Lastly we give a quick snuggle and put them on the litter (They are doing so well with house training!).
What's next?
While we love having our puppies upstairs and so close, they are growing and need more space. We have some bigger kennels downstairs that the pups will be moving to soon. This means more space for the puppies and mama.
Pups will still be brought upstairs throughout the day to make sure they are included in our daily life. We will also be downstairs A LOT! Our downstairs has our grandchildren's playhouse so they will receive lots of love and cuddles during playtime.
(Basement Playhouse for the grandkids)
(New kennels in the basement with plenty of room to play, explore and have visitors)
We are very proud of all the work we are putting into these puppies. We know that the love and care we show to them when they are little will help them (with your help) to become wonderful families dogs in the future.
We know we will have a hard time when it's time to say goodbye to these little sweethearts, but we also know that we will be providing families with a tremendous amount of joy- and that is the reason we started Prairie Paws Dogs.
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