The First Week

It is hard to believe how much they have changed in a week. When I got them, Mark (now Ottobahn or Otto for short), didn't want to come out of the dog room. He was too timid to venture outside either. Stairs were a barrier for both of the pups the first couple of days but then they managed to do the two stairs down to the living room very carefully. Yesterday they managed 6 brick steps outside to get down off the porch. This morning they took the two steps in the house at a dead run and sometimes skipped the middle step altogether. They were running up and down the long flight of steps outside too. Otto is now happy to explore the rest of the house and chases his brother up and down the hall and happily goes outside. Here are some photos of Otto he is the one with no blaze.

Otto is being adopted by Joe and Shari. They are friends of mine so the brothers will still get to play together. They have been taking Otto to their house for visits for a few hours every night. When he makes the transition from his mom to their home he will already be acclimated to it. They even took my pup last night so he could have a chance to play with other breeds of dogs and be in a new place. Great socialization!

They have had lots of guests of all ages come by to play with them including a 7 week old golden mix puppy named Roo. We got to watch her overnight and all day. Three pups is a LOT more work than two BTW. Has something to do with the number of hands I have. It is hard to pick up dirty newspapers out of their puppy pen with 3 pups leaping on me and pulling on my pant legs. With two I can shoo them away OK but with three there is one more pup than I hands. One is going to either grab the newspaper and shake it or grab my sleeve and shake that or run through the mess. On the same subject they are doing excellent on keeping their crate clean. Not one accident in their crate! They always leave their crate to potty at the other end of the X-pen on the puppy pads. They loved having Roo here and played and played. Mom wasn't quite as thrilled whenever a pup yelped. She thought Roo was hurting them even though Roo was doing as much yelping as the others.




They had their first trip outside this week too. They have been outside every day since. They have been in their puppy pen and even down in the big dog pen in the back. They love playing in the leaves there and followed their mom around and around that pen as fast as they could until they were just exhausted. They are still at the age that they follow their mom or I very closely so we have been able to go on some great walks with the pups trailing us through the tall grass. They will even chase a toy on a string through the grass now as fast as their little legs can carry them.