Yum!!!!!

Their first solid food!

This weekend the gang was introduced to solid food  It is common for breeders to start feeding their pups at about 3.5 weeks.  We go a more natural route, letting the dam nurse them exclusively until somewhere between four and five weeks old.  So this weekend we started them with each one ounce of a raw food called mORIGINS, which is a grass-fed beef.  That first meal is the first step in the process of weaning.   They are now eating four times a day, including the supplements we hope they will get for life..   Should Peach choose to, the pups will nurse every day until they go to their new homes.  But that will be her choice.  The pups' teeth are quite sharp and many dams decide at some point the milk bar is closed.  In Peach's last litter she nursed them right up until the day they went home, teaching them along the way to use their mouths gently.   There is no better teacher for bite inhibition!!  

Once they finished eating on the first night we brought them right back to their pen where they quickly went into the potty box.   Things are really going well in that department.   

Sunday morning they had breakfast outside.  They ate with helicopters flying overhead, and ended up playing hard in the yard.  During the last meal of the day I fed them one by one, by hand, conditioning the clicker.  


They are also really enjoying the Adventure Box!  Here's a quick video of one of them playing with it!

Oh, and a lesson I learned tonight.  Even if you think they are asleep when you go into the pen to do nails, DO NOT go in with bare feet!!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend! 

Lots of new photos are up and more will go up tomorrow.