Pictured below is our current litter of Tara’s 6 1/2 week old puppies. It has been drizzling rain all day and many of the puppies have been rolling around in the wet grass. Mr. Red’s face in particular is wet.
Scroll down below the pictures for information on how puppies at this age are developing and what they are doing.
Tara’s 6 1/2 Week Old Puppies: The Girls
Miss Yellow
Miss Teal
Miss Purple
Miss Pink
Miss Green
Tara’s 6 1/2 Week Old Puppies: The Boys
Mr. Brown
Mr. Red
Mr. Blue
Mr. Gray
Developmental Information
Starting around the time puppies are 5 weeks 2 days, most, if not all puppies, know how to use the doggy door fairly fluently. They can also safely navigate the two steps to get in our home.
During the time that we were training the doggy door, we were heavily dependent on using their meals to entice them through the door and up and down the steps. Once puppies are trained to the door, we can begin using our puppies’ food for other purposes.
A Start in Crate Training
By the time puppies are 5 weeks 4 days, they are ready for our next stage of training: crate training. Crates have been introduced to puppies with either the doors removed or penned open since they were four weeks old. It is now time for a more serious use. We begin feeding them in their crates.
At mealtimes, we put individual bowls of food in each crate. We do this while the puppies are in the side foyer with access via doggy door to our outside puppy play yard. We then call the puppies in the crate area. All crates have closed doors and we put one puppy at a time into individual crates, close the door and let them eat. There is a video of this process on our Raising Puppies page. We let them out and gather the bowls. We lead them back to the side foyer so that they can let themselves outside to potty.
Socialization, Desensitization, and Evaluation
During these last weeks that puppies are with us, we have three primary goals. The first and second have already been discussed on our Five Week Old Puppies page: socialization and environmental desensitization. This continues in full force until puppies leave us. The third is in preparing for puppy selection time.
We spend a lot of time evaluating, analyzing, and thinking about the best way to match puppies to families. From the time puppies are four weeks of age until they are 7 weeks, everyone who works with our puppies takes detailed notes on each puppy every day. Different temperament qualities show themselves under varying conditions. Also different puppies respond differently to people with different personality types. Our evaluations and note taking is in preparation for the 6 1/2 week old temperament document. This document is a compilation of various tests done by different people over the course of several weeks.
The pictures on this page, along with this document are very important, especially to those who live long distances from us (which is most families). These families are unable to see the puppies for themselves until puppy pick up time and so therefore depend on the information in this document. Actually, the temperament document serves a very valuable purpose to everyone getting our puppies. It contains more information than anyone could gather in a one or two hour visit for themselves. We, therefore, put a lot of time into it.
For more information on how we raise our puppies, see our Raising Puppies page.
We’ll continue keeping you posted on how Tara’s 6 1/2 week old puppies are growing on a weekly basis. See our Available Puppies page to get to pages of Tara’s 6 1/2 week old puppies at other ages.
