Today’s pic is a pup trying to get on the couch. We’re not exactly training them to use furniture- much of their day is still spent in the whelping box although at this point they are coming out into the living room with us a few times a day, 1 hour at a time. Most of the downstairs is getting replaced when this litter leaves..
If you scroll back into July 2013 on our blog you’ll find the day we removed our carpet. Raising pups indoors is not really a good idea, but the interaction they receive is outstanding and these pups will have had an amazing head start in life and be used to kid noises, kitchen sounds, TV, music, etc.
So on the last litter, we had a whelping box built. This is where the pups were born. But there were 9 puppies. They quickly outgrew the box, so we had to section off part of the living room for them. It was carpeted. I tried to keep the area clean with puppy pads, but 9 puppies going pee every 10 minutes ads up very fast. Fortunately, this part of the house is built on cement, so I was able to remove all of the carpeting and have a nice cement area for them. Cement is great because it can be easily sanitized. Right now we’re cleaning this area twice per day and towards the end of the 8 weeks, even with us running them outside to go potty every time they wake up or eat, this area will need sanitation around 8 times per day. The couch in this area is getting tossed when all of the pups from the B litter leave. Even though I had researched this for about 11 years before producing a litter, some of it still came as a surprise. Here is a link to the A litter when they hit 6 weeks old that talks about a little of the chaos:
http://hektorhaus.com/gsd-puppies-6-weeks/
And on a much more positive note, here they are again a few days later, all cleaned up and getting their pictures taken- lots of puppy pics here:
http://hektorhaus.com/tag/german-shepherd-pics/
More news soon!
