Friday (April 12th) was a big day for the pups as they left the comfort and familiarity of the whelping box for the first time when they were to be brought downstairs to spend time in the puppy pen, their home for the next four weeks.
It was just as well as they seemed determined to climb out of the box. This has always been a concern for us even though the whelping box was designed and built for Labradors!
The last thing we wanted would be to get up in the morning to find a couple of pups missing from the box and to have to get on hands and knees to find them.
Despite seeming keen to escape when the time came to move a couple of them (brothers Joey and Ross) were reluctant to emerge from hiding under the vet bed, however they all took the move down in their stride, as they have with every new experience.
The pups have adapted to their new home seamlessly, making the most of the increased space and the toys.
We thought we'd try using puppy training pads in the pen in the hope that the pups might toilet there rather than on the vet bed. It was an ingenious idea and they have taken to using it so well, sure they do toilet elsewhere, however the puppy pad seems to be their favourite spot.
in addition to now spending their time in the pen they are also getting more solid food meals a day, in fact at the time of writing it's 4 times a day, mum Kassi fully approves of this as she gets the chance to clean the bowls of any food left over - however there is a price to pay as when she does so the pups are more than happy to latch on to her and suckle - two course meals seem to be very popular.
Partly due to the solid food and mum's additional milk supply, the pups are gaining weight quite rapidly - they are still a little lighter than previous litters would be at the this stage (about 10%) but we believe that this is due to their early birth and slow start to feeding due to Kassi being unwell for their first 2 days. At the rate they are gaining they will soon have caught up with other Lumikoira pups at similar ages.
For the first couple of nights we decided to take them back to the whelping box however by Monday we (and they) were comfortable enough to have them in the whelping box overnight.
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