Below are pictures of our current litter of London’s 5 week old puppies. Scroll below the last puppy picture to see our current set up for all three litters. (We are rearranging our room at least weekly to accommodate the various stages of puppy raising!).
These puppies are doing really well for their age with house training, doggy door training, and step training. Before they were 5 weeks old, they had mastered going both up and down the 2 steps to our side porch. They are fluent with going in and out the doggy door and they are doing most of their business outside going freely in and out the doggy door. They have also already started eating all their meals in crates.
The Boys
Mr. Teal
Mr. Orange
Mister Black
Mr. Red
Mr. Gray
Mister Blue
Mr. Yellow
The Girls
Miss Pink
Miss Purple
Current Set Up For all Three Litters
This first picture below is a picture of our side foyer where you can see the doggy door that goes to our outside puppy play yard.
The next picture below shows London’s puppies eating their lunch in crates.
The next picture gives a broader view of our keeping room. Sydney’s puppies are in the pen on the left back wall. Paisley’s are in the pen on the right side of the back wall.
London’s 5 Week Old Puppies: Developmental Information
Five week old puppies are developing extremely fast socially. This is the age that we encourage people outside of our family and our team of workers to visit. It is important that puppies are exposed to a variety of different types of people as well as a wide variety of sights, sounds, and experiences.
Socialization With Many People
Visits with people come fairly naturally. We have a good amount of visitors on a regular basis. However, we have to be more intentional with environmental exposure. At five weeks, we start stretching our puppies by having them experience many new and moderately stressful situations. We push and encourage them, but we are careful not to overly stress them. Each puppy’s individual temperament is taken into consideration as we tweak our socialization program to best suit each puppy.
Environmental Desensitization
We have a check-off list that is day specific for desensitizing our puppies to common environmental stressors. Puppies are not born with a confident ability to face the world. Most puppies are hesitant to even come out of their pen at first. Our check-off list covers the entire time puppies are here, but the list grows exponentially starting at about 4 1/2 weeks of age.
The biggest accomplishment for our five-week old puppies is training to the doggy door, closely followed by step navigation training. Between 4 weeks 5 days and 5 weeks 2 days, we have intensive training in these two areas.
Doggy Door Training
Pushing through a doggy door takes not only skill but it takes courage, confidence, and analytical thinking.
Tight places are often scary to puppies. Many puppies are afraid of the door. Squeezing through the tight opening is scary. So is the flap as other puppies cause it to pop in their faces. Puppies learn to overcome their fears. It builds confidence.
Intelligence is required to figure out the door. Just the act of finding the doggy door requires thinking skills. Puppies will often push and scratch at every area of our door except for the place where the doggy door is before eventually finding it. Puppies learn to think instead of merely sit and cry.
All meals during these days are strategically placed to encourage puppies to go in and out the door. Our mama dogs are trained to help in the process as well. They go in and out the door encouraging the puppies to follow.
Training on Steps
The steps are also scary. There are only two steps, but to a five-week old puppy, they are a challenge. They have to strain to get up the steps one at a time. Then they have to muster up the courage to ease themselves back down. The steps build a lot of confidence.
For more information on how we raise our puppies, see our Raising Puppies page.
We’ll continue keeping you posted on how London’s five week old puppies are growing on a weekly basis. See our Available Puppies page to get to pages of London’s 5 week old puppies at other ages.
