7 Weeks Old
This week the puppy space expanded quite a bit. We added crates to their space and started putting them in crates at night. The first night of crates, the puppies whined on and off all night, but after a couple of days there was almost no whining. Now, a week later, these sweet puppies put themselves in crates to sleep and relax. Don’t forget to pick up a yummy treat to make crate time even more enticing!
These pups personalities are coming out on a whole new level this week! Its fun to see which ones are the leaders and which ones follow, which ones are pack oriented and which ones find adventures on their own. There are definitely some love bugs and some that are more independent. It seems like everyday they find something new to explore or something new to hide under.
Weekly Puppy Tip #6 – Age Appropriate Exercise
You want to give your puppy a variety of unique positive experiences, but your puppy is still growing & developing, so you don’t want to push your puppy too far. For instance, climbing up one to two stairs is an appropriate challenge but climbing a flight of stairs is not a good idea for a young puppy (a study done on 500 dogs showed that puppies allowed to climb a flight of stairs before 3 months old were more likely to develop hip dysplasia). Remember, free running and playing is a great option because your puppy can rest whenever she feels the need to do so. If you’d like to read more about puppy exercise, check out AviDog’s puppy exercise guidelines. This article from AKC also gives some helpful puppy exercise tips.This is our last pupdate since next week you will be taking your puppy home!
6 Weeks Old
So I’ve talked a lot…. What are your questions? How are your puppy preparations going? How are you feeling about your new family member coming home soon?
Our puppy play area has changed a lot this week. I made them what I call a “puppy cube”. It is just a 2.5 foot pvc cube that I drilled holes in to hang things on. There is a blanket that hangs down and just barely rests on the ground and I’ve seen up to four puppies play on it at once. I added some light plastic chains to a second side and they love to tug on those too. These pups are getting a little more stamina about them, and play time between naps lasts a little longer. Another favorite this week is bones!!! We have given them beef hooves to chew on, they just love them! Lucy doesn’t mind taking one to carry around the house too!
Weekly Puppy Tip #5
Be the Leader your pup wants you to be! It’s essential that you establish yourself as the pack leader. Your puppy doesn’t want to be in charge – that’s a scary place to be! Your puppy wants to look to you as the leader, but you have to show yourself as worthy of the role by being the leader. Some easy ways to establish your leadership include:
- Do bonding exercises each night with your puppy to establish that you’re allowed to touch your puppy anywhere and everywhere. I can’t speak enough about this one! We do this with our adult dogs and it makes a big difference. Check out this video for more details: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qONj1L_8qFoXHSt5G4ta47Ewmh3ApQp-/view
- Set boundaries so there is at least one place in your home that your puppy isn’t allowed to go (i.e. not allowed to jump on your bed, not allowed to sit on a particular couch or not allowed into a certain room).
- Teach you puppy to sit and wait for you to walk out the front door before her and give her the “okay” before she is permitted to walk through it. This is a big one in our house and I’m so thankful we did this with our dogs. Our doors are open enough that they would have plenty of time to escape, but they don’t! They wait for us. When they are old enough to start walking freely up and down stairs, teach them to wait for you to finish climbing/descending the stairs before they comes.
- Encourage your puppy sit and wait for you to give her the “okay” before she is allowed to approach her food bowl. Periodically pick up your puppy’s food bowl while they are eating, reward your pup with a yummy treat, and return the food bowl. You could do something similar with toy trading! You give me the toy you have and I give you a yummy treat and its a win-win.
- Teach your puppy to do a long down during meal times. Buy a soft rug or bed and teach your puppy to go lay on it on command. This keeps them from interrupting your conversation and teaches them the human table is not the place for them to find food.
5 Weeks Old
It’s been a fun week on the farm this week. We’ve been thoroughly enjoying the break in the heat – we meaning us humans and the pups. It is so fun to watch them play in the grass! They bounce and romp outside like no body is watching! They get excited and their energy level over comes their balance, and they take a tumble at the slightest change in terrain. Sleeping is still their main activity, but there is not much cuter that bursts of puppy energy!
This week, you pup started eating kibble for the first time. Lucy has decided that their teeth are a bit too sharp for nursing and is in the process of weaning them. They are eating Diamond Naturals Small Breed Puppy food. Chewy sells this food, but check your local store as well. I know the local Tractor Supply sells the adult version this food. I suggest that you keep your puppy on this food for the first few weeks they are home with you. When they go home with you, everything about their little lives will have changed, except this food! After an adjustment period, feel free to start changing their food. I always pick a food with 4 or 5 stars from the Dog Food Advisor.
Weekly Puppy Tip #4 – Get Ready for Grooming
Your puppy has had their nails clipped with us and we will likely trim the hair by their eyes before they go home with you, so they have already had their initial introduction to their lifetime of being groomed. Take him/her to the groomer for a puppy clip after their 16-week immunizations. The groomer will bathe them, trim the hair out of their eyes, give them a sanitary clip, and trim their nails. Since your pup will need regular grooming throughout their life, both your pup and the groomer will benefit if they becomes accustomed to being groomed from a young age, even before they are ready for a full haircut.
The wavy, curly adult coat will start replacing the soft, fluffy puppy coat around 5-6 months of age. You’ll notice the new hair coming in is kinkier than the pure fluff on top. Waiting to cut the hair until the adult coat makes its debut beneath the layers of puppy plush helps ensure that the adult coat remains soft. Timberidge Goldendoodles has a few nice write ups about hair cuts on their blogs that I would recommend reading through.
4 Weeks Old
The sweet puppies made a couple trips in the car this week. The trips in the car meant they also experienced a crate for the first time. They definitely complained about the crates at first, but it didn’t take long for them to snuggle in next to their crate-mates and snooze. I know that these puppies have a lifetime full of road trips ahead of them, and so I want to get them used to the car early. I love having my dogs in the car with me, and so I want to encourage you to take your dogs as many places as you can! Teach them that getting in the car means you’re going on an adventure by taking them all kinds of fun and positive places.
Puppies are highly impressionable at a young age, so a few “bad” trips can give them a distaste for the car. If you only take your pup to the vet, chances are, they will learn to not like car rides. Make sure the good, fun trips outnumber the bad trips. We take our dogs when we visit family across town, when we go to the park, when we take the recycle to the recycle location just up the road, when we pick up our click list order, and when we go to Home Depot. Our dogs associate the car with having fun.
Let the teething begin! Your pup cut their first teeth this week. We’ve introduced bones into their space. They have definitely started using their teeth to explore. Your pup also had it’s first bath this week! I’m pleased to say, they did really well. We dried each of them with a towel, added a heater to their space until they finished drying, and Lucy filled up their bellies. As you might imagine, all that adds up to a long puppy nap!
Playing is in full force! They are much quicker on their feet and ready to play when they are awake! Peaches was trying to stir up some fun tonight as I got their space ready for bed. They are exploring their voices right now as well, their first barks are all mixed in with their normal squeals and squeaks.
Weekly Puppy Tip #3:
Pick out and sign up for a puppy class – A puppy class is essential both for socialization and manners. Look for a class that emphasizes positive reinforcement, as learning & training should be a fun game at this point. This article from AKC gives some pointers about what to look for in a puppy class. Many dog training facilities will allow your new family member join their puppy class around 12 weeks of age, once they have received their second set of immunizations. Allison Camp from Pups Unleashed offers a local puppy class. She will be temperament testing the puppies here in a few weeks.
We prefer in person puppy class over virtual hands down. But these are not ordinary times! Timberidge Goldendoodles has partnered with Baxter & Bella. Check out what Timberidge Goldendoodles has to say about Baxer & Bella:
"In a time where it’s challenging to attend an in person puppy class, Baxter & Bella’s online resources, virtual classes, and video training tips are an amazing option for every puppy owner. Plus membership is for a lifetime, so you can access Baxter & Bella’s tools repeatedly over the years ahead for each and every furry child that joins your family. Even if you participate in an in person class, I think you’ll find Baxter & Bella is an amazingly helpful resource.”
Use the discount code TIMBERIDGE to save 25% when you join Baxter & Bella! Check out this short video about helping your puppy respond positively to a doorbell!
3 Weeks Old
Your puppy has been so much fun this week! They are more stable on their feet and are starting to play with each other. They are such a joy to watch! This week, a few of them have taken a nap on my lap while I worked.
Your pup moved into a new pen! We woke up to quite the puppy party a few days ago. It was 5:30am, and they had learned how to climb out of the whelping pen. Thankfully, I knew this day was coming, and had prepped their next space. We all went back to sleep after they were tucked safely in their new area with higher walls and more room for exploring.
Your puppy also had it’s first trip outside this week! So far, the pups have only explored the gravel driveway. I’m looking forward to introducing them to grass in the coming days. As humans, we are used to transitioning between indoors and outdoors all day long, but for these little ones, going outside is a pretty dramatic change of scenery. They followed the adventure with a nap.
Weekly Puppy Tip #2: Make a puppy experience plan!
Compile a list of places you want to take your puppy and experiences you want your puppy to encounter. We have a thought out socialization plan, working hard to expose your puppy to as much as possible during its time with us. When you take your puppy home, that responsibility then shifts to you as you continue the socialization process. Exposing your puppy to new people, situations, sounds, smells, textures, etc. is extremely important. Give your new puppy a few days to adjust to her new home and new routine. Then begin giving them short, positive experiences (yummy treats make everything more positive!). Don’t try to do too much in one day, as you don’t want to overwhelm or stress the pup.
Start developing ideas of how to want to socialize your new puppy. Your goal is for your puppy to meet a minimum of 100 different people by the time he/she is six months old. Dr. Ian Dunbar, a puppy socialization expert, raises the bar even higher by recommending that puppies meet 100+ people during the first month at home. This is a bit tricky considering the pandemic we are facing. Check out Avidog’s ideas on how to socialize your puppy in a safe manner!
2 Weeks Old
The puppies feel significantly bigger this week as each has crossed over the 2 pound threshold. It’s been really exciting to watch these little furballs open their eyes! Their eyes are still a bit frosty and dazed looking, like a newborn babies’ eyes would be, but will develop more in the coming weeks. They have also started to use all four paws to walk around. Now, it’s a very wobbly walk, but they are definitely making progress! Your puppy had its toenails trimmed for the first time this week. We use baby fingernail clippers to trim them up. If we let them get too long, they may scratch Lucy when they are nursing.
Have you heard of Early Neurological Stimulation? We’ve been going through each of the ENS exercises daily with your pup. The benefits of doing ENS exercises are stronger heartbeats and cardiovascular system, increased stress tolerance, and an improved immune system. Those are amazing benefits! While we’ve been working with them everyday, we can start to see their characters emerge. It’s amazing to see how they are definitely not all the same, each one has it’s own personality (even at 2 weeks old! Isn’t that cool?). We will continue to collect observations over the coming weeks and share that with Allison who does the official temperament test at 7 weeks.
Weekly Puppy Tip #1: Nap Time is Essential!
Think about a napping place – The puppies spend most of their lives sleeping right now, and your new furbaby is going to need lots of sleep when you bring them home too. Puppies require naps throughout the day. When your puppy is sleeping, try to allow her to rest untouched (it’s okay for noisy life to carry on around them while they snooze, but it’s best not to physically disturb them as much as possible). This may mean that you need to guide them to a different spot than the one they’ve initially chosen. AKC gives some helpful insight into the importance of puppy sleep:
Although puppies may seem like little bundles of energy, in fact, they sleep 15-20 hours a day. One minute your puppy may be a miniature tornado, and the next he’s fallen soundly asleep, almost mid-activity. Sleep is essential to healthy growth: during sleep his central nervous system, brain, immune system, and muscles are developing. All of that sleep also helps him rest up during growth spurts… household members, especially children, should leave your puppy alone while he is sleeping. Plan his day so that active time is followed by quiet time for sleep. He’ll most likely be ready for a nap after playtime or a walk, sleep for a while and then wake up ready for anything. Your puppy may nap every hour or so, sleeping from 30 minutes to as long as two hours. All of this sleep is perfectly normal.
1 Week Old
A day in the life of these pups consists of eating, sleeping, and growing, and they are all doing an excellent job. Like all healthy newborn puppies do, they twitch and pop in their sleep. This is called activated sleep and helps increase their muscle tone. They’ve gained weight each day, some of them are even close to double their birth weight already. Lucy spends most of her time laying close by her pups, licking them and letting them nurse. It took several days, but she is back to feeling like herself and ready for a walk around the pond!
Their eyes are closed and their ears are closed. Instinctively, they search for heat. This is how they find mama Lulu. When Lucy isn’t at their side, they find each other to stay warm. Since their nose and touch are their only senses right now, we’ve started letting them smell various new smells each day. Yesterday, it was a freshly cut wood block and today, some grass clippings. We’ve also starting touching their eyes, ears, feet, tails, noses and bellies everyday so that they are used to being handled by humans.
We’ve given them names (until you give them an official name of course). Here they are:
Red (F) / Peaches
White (F) / Bianca
Pink (F) / Rosey
Purple (F) / Penny
Yellow (F) / Daliah
Light Blue (F) / Skye
Green (M) / Lucky
Dark Blue (M) / Bobbi
Orange (M) / Hank
Happy Birthday Sweet Things
It has been a busy and exciting week at our house! Lucy and Moses welcomed 9 adorable medium Goldendoodle puppies on August 4! There are 6 healthy girls and 3 healthy boys.
Your puppy will be ready to go home with you October 2nd.
In the meantime, while you prep for your pups homecoming, check out Timberidge Goldendoodle’s comprehensive puppy shopping list!