Both pups slept at mine overnight, and I didn't hear a peep out of them! I was originally intending to sleep Whirli in a crate in my room overnight as advice these days is to avoid any traumatic separations within the critical period of 7 to 11 weeks, but as both sisters had each other for company I decided to put them in the puppy section of the utility room so that Mr Finn and I could have a slightly less stressful night, and Whirli could get used to staying in her long term confinement area with the company of her sister to make it a bit easier!
New toys: Yellow plastic spikey ball, tugging on camera strap (!), duster, nylabones, tug log
New foods: Very small amount of raw mince meat
New experiences:
- Paddling in the rainwater in the paddling pool
- Wicker basket placed in middle of the floor for pups to investigate
- Explore mum's kitchen for the first time
- Given a small cardboard box to investigate
- First time left alone during the daytime while I popped out to run puppy classes
- Under mini A-Frame in my garden
- Climbing in and out of Finn's large crate
- Game of 'tag' under and over the coffee table shelf at high speed!
- Climbing in and out of the paddling pool
Pups were more adventurous today, exploring more of my garden and moving further away from me and each other. Mum still not well, and I wasn't feeling great either, so today was quite a quiet day.
Whirli investigating a small boxDay 3 - Fri 27th August 2010
Both pups stayed at mine overnight, and again not a peep out of them, and this time no overnight poo either! The morning involved a trip over to mum's, then a visit to mum's friend Sharon, with the afternoon spent separately at our respective houses, then both back to mine overnight again.
New people: Sharon, Gill
New dogs: Breeze, Sharon's elderly Rough Collie
Other animals: Visit up the garden to watch mum's chickens!
New foods: Breakfast 50/50 Wainright's and raw mince
New titbit foods: Primula in Kongs, Cheddar cheese, Cheesestrings
New experiences:
- Investigation and destruction of an eggbox!
- Pups came face to face with a hissing Loki!
- Being carried round to Sharon's house and investigating the living room and garden
- First experience of cars passing by
- Playing with toys in a new environment
- Sleeping in a new environment (at Sharon's)
- Being crated in mum's living room with Willow also crated in the same room
- Face to face with Ziggy whilst being held
- Meeting Gill - a person in sandals and a skirt!
- Pups were separated for the first time for a few hours in the afternoon, and for Whirli this meant the first car ride in a crate on her own, and a face to face meeting with Mr Finn
- Investigate a kitchen roll tube
- First time falling asleep on the sofa with me and Mr Finn
Dazzle destroying an egg box!Both pups showed good 'bounce back' during their new experiences at Sharon's house, with Dazzle being slightly more confident and quicker to bounce back than Whirli. Both were incredibly respectful of the rather elderly Breeze. And it was good to get them playing in a new environment as we'll be using play as a reward in lots of different environments in their future agility training, so it's good to start generalising this now. And both were extremely good about being separated in the afternoon and barely seemed to notice the absence of the other!
We're currently trying to rotate the toys around and introduce new ones every day so that they have something new to process, and we're also trying to introduce them to random new objects to interact with so that they have new stimulations each day and are constantly learning to evaluate a situation or object and act accordingly. Hopefully this will produce stable adult dogs that can evaluate a situation and are confident about interacting with new situations. This is particularly important since these two are destined for agility as all of agility training is about interacting with equipment and evaluating situations!
Days 4 to 7 to follow! I'm catching up slowly!!
We're currently trying to rotate the toys around and introduce new ones every day so that they have something new to process, and we're also trying to introduce them to random new objects to interact with so that they have new stimulations each day and are constantly learning to evaluate a situation or object and act accordingly. Hopefully this will produce stable adult dogs that can evaluate a situation and are confident about interacting with new situations. This is particularly important since these two are destined for agility as all of agility training is about interacting with equipment and evaluating situations!
Days 4 to 7 to follow! I'm catching up slowly!!
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