Busy week coming
- Posted on 13th September 2009
- in Belle 2009
- by jvfairbanks
This week the baby doodles ears will begin opening; although studies suggest they don’t fully hear until 4 weeks of age. They continue to all gain weight as you can see in the pictures. It is amazing how fast they develop.
They move from the wobbly leg stand to walking during this week. Puppies typically walk at around 16 days, developing their legs to a full on gait by 21 days. At the end of this week, puppy teeth start to emerge; having a full set of sharp puppy teeth around 4 weeks of age. At this stage, we will introduce some very basic toys to climb over and explore. This is also the time they find their voice; but don’t really now what it is. It is fun to watch them make a bark and then be startled by it or look around as their hearing develops as well. Can you tell that I love watching them? And, yes, we are holding them.
Their eyes continue to develop, with the retina maturing around three weeks and studies say they see clearly by 4 weeks of age. All the doodles will have bluish color eyes, with the adult color developing over time.
This is also the week we might have a “whelp box jail break”. 🙂 There is a little door cut out of our whelp box, so puppies can climb in and out as they get older ( they like to sleep in their box, but naturally don’t want to soil the sleeping area). Although we think of this as early doggie door training along with pre-house breaking, it is still to early for them to climb out and climb back in. We will turn the whelp box so the little door is against the wall when we have to be gone so we know they are safe. We continue early stimulation with them every day.
At the end of this week, we will move them and the whelp box into what we call the puppy play pen. It is a larger plywood box room with doogie door so Belle can get in and out, but it is too tall for the puppies to escape. It will contain them and still let them explore outside of the whelp box.
On the start of the third week we will be sending out information about preparing your home and family for your new puppy. More than the basics, you have to prepare your home for your puppy and think about taking a puppy view of your home; as in really getting down on all fours and crawl around and look for electrical cords, hanging curtain cords and objects that might be a teething temptation for your new puppy. While your on preparing your home, don’t forget to investigate at puppy eye level the outside area you will be letting your puppy use. you will want your labradoodle safe while exploring outside as well as other animals being kept out until your puppy has had the full set of shots.
But, more on that in the coming weeks.
