News
N-litter 3 weeks old
The puppies are now 3 weeks old and in the middle of the transitional period. This period starts when the eyes start to open and it ends when the puppies start hearing a sound. Starting being able to see and hearing facilitate the puppies ability to form social bonds, which is the beginning of the next period in the puppies lives – the socialisation period.
The puppies started opening their eyes at day 16, 17, 18/19 and 19 respectively. It started as a little split in one of the eyes and slowly over the next couple of days they opened properly. The vision will slowly develop over the coming weeks and will only be fully developed at around 10 weeks old. The eyes start with a bluish glow that later turns into these beautiful dark brown and expressive eyes so characteristic for the breed.
Ears are also slowly started to open.
As they begin developing vision they begin to show interest in each others and us – the two-legged family-members. The first sign of interest in each other is when they begin chewing on each other.
In this period they also begin to urinate by themselves. Their instincts are strong and they start to move away from the nest when they have to urinate by themselves.
At the end of the week we have seen more and more interaction between the family-members (mom and kids), but now we also have a clear feeling that the puppies can recognise the 2-legged family-members by the sense of smell. What a fantastic privilege to feel the unconditional trust from the small boys and their willingness to explore the surroundings – in the beginning of the week not even able to see or hear yet! Fantastic that one species (dog) can show this kind of interest and trust in another species (humans)
As neonatal puppies (from 0-14 days) the puppies make only one type of sounds, the et-epimeletic sounds. Meaning sounds that induce their mother to care for them. When entering the transitional period they start to use a variety of sounds/messages, e.g. Barking & growling. Meaning that the puppies begin to understand themselves as individuals and beginning to interact with other individuals. We also start to see small signs of tail wagging and trying difficult actions such as scratching themselves behind the ears.
At the end of the transitional period the puppies have developed from fragile extensions of their mother and into little individuals with an emerging sense of themselves.
Videos of the puppies beginning to "explore" the surroundings - 2 weeks + 5 days old:
The 4 boys have now got names and let´s introduce:
Nando:
Nepico:
Nitino:
Ninno:
Still most part of the day is spent like this
