Happy 4th

good evening guys. We have had a busy weekend. This is probably the hardest time busiest time with puppies. They always start out so good with potty training. Like they were born to do it that way. Then about 4-5 days later they all just stop. Or 80% of the time they forget and just potty anywhere and everywhere. This is typical. I keep correcting. It will be a long week. It's also when they really start teething. They chew on your fingers, toes, each other. I will point out some similarities and differences from other litters. Usually by 2 weeks I know everyone because they all look so different. This litter a lot look the same. The boys especially are all similar. There are slight differences in coat length or size right now. But not much. And personalities are similar too. I do not see any alpha males in this litter yet. Right now pink and purple girls are the dominant ones. That's not a bad thing. Curly was the alpha of her litter. Very hard headed. But she fit into our family well. I wanted a strong female for breeding. The alphas can be great pets. Very loyal. They usually have a favorite family member. And will be by their side no matter what. The alpha can change in the litter but that's what I'm seeing right now. Right now they are very needy and hungry all the time. They want me to sit with them and rub them all. So that's what I've been doing. They are a little fussy when I decide to get out. This week we will be going outside. This wears them out so I expect more sleeping this week than we have had. We are feeding 3 times a day. It's been mostly ground up puppy food, powdered cereal and water. I did do softened kibble tonight but they were not as interested in it. They still prefer the cereal which is milk based. By the end of this week it will only be softened kibble. And by next week hard kibble. We will be going to the vets this week. 1st round of puppy shots. And I will be giving the last dose of de wormer. While at vets getting the dappv shot they will check for any worms. If we are good then no more de wormer. If anything shows up we will do another round of de wormer. Puppy worms are so common. It passes through mothers milk to them. With that said I've never had any test positive. Only ever had one case after they left me they tested positive at next visit. The vet will also do an exam and look them over and listen to heart and feel joints and look for boys to have dropped. They also look for puppy hernias. This happens at navel. I put copies of the entire vet report in each folder. So you can see the whole litter not just the puppy you select. I take health very seriously and want everyone to know about the entire litter. While at the vet I also start them on their first dose of revolution. This is a flea and tick guard that also helps prevent parasites. This is my number one choice over frontline, Sentra, next guard ext. Because it's an all in one topical with heart worm prevention too. Any pups I have that are not being picked up till 10 weeks, I go back to vet at 10 weeks and do second set of shots and dose of revolution. I use to do shots at 8 then 12 and 16. I switched to 6,10,14 because pets are not truly safe till last shots. So socializing them become hard. You should not go to dog parks and public areas until they have all 3 shots. It's a trade off. As I do not like vaccinating early because they are so small and young. But it's dangerous for the pup to be around others. There are some vaccines they can't get till 14-16 weeks and they are kennel cough and rabies. So it's important to not expose pup to any strange dogs till these are done too. Unless you know the other dog is utd on shots. Ok now to personalities. I will do lots of posts this week. I ask everyone to try to narrow choice to 2. That way if someone ahead of you picks one you have a back up. Honest with so many looking like twins this litter it will be hard to pick. You will notice only slight differences in the face. And they are all close in size too. Usually I have 1 or 2 brutes of the litter and 1 or 2 tiny runts. Well this litter they are all really close. I was comparing size to Bella's last and we had 1 at 4lb6oz and 2 at 2lb8oz. This litter they are tightly grouped. Still thinking they should be in the 30lb range. We can do an estimate at 8 weeks and be pretty close.