up to no good

Some folk are blessed with baby Lapphunds who are utter and complete angels right from day one. They sleep all night right from the beginning, don't wake you too early in the morning, are instantly housetrained, never chew anything but their own toys and certainly don't dig, bark excessively or be overly attention-seeking.

Lies!

No such thing as a puppy who doesn't do at least some of those things. It's puppy nature, it's normal, it's expected, I would even go so far as to say it's necessary. For example, they have to exercise their jaws and learn how to use their teeth. After all, a dog uses its mouth for most of the things that humans use their hands for, so they have to be good at it. If they chew the legs off your Chippendale table, that's your own fault. Yep, that's right. You weren't properly supervising and/or you haven't yet properly trained them to know what is acceptable to chew and what is not.*

It logically follows, then, that we are all blessed with baby Lapphunds who are little angels. Even the barking, nipping, digging, jumping and chewing ones. Normal little angels, every one.

So, do these perfect little angels ever do anything just plain naughty? Of course they do! And you can see on their faces that they just know they're not actually supposed to be doing that, but they're doing it anyway and enjoying it all the more for it's illegality.



Rauhan has found himself an unusual den under the kitchen cabinets. How he fits in there is anyone's guess!








Naughty even at 5 weeks. Keskiyö telling Rauhan he's pretty sure dogs are not allowed on the sofa - even tiny ones.







Taito thinks it's very funny to be on the bed in the hotel.










Kallio showing off how he can fit through the bars of the stair gate installed to prevent him getting upstairs. Hmmm.














Tarkka can't comprehend why Josh gets cross about sharing his trampoline.









"What do you mean, it's not a dog seat?"









"Who did you say is not allowed on the sofa?"

* Oh yes, I'm being tough today!

2 weeks old weights

As Ian said on yesterday's update - they sure are growing fast. Here are their weights at 2 weeks old together with birth weight and last week's update followed by the chart - ta-da!









I look at these numbers and they don't really mean much to me, except that the weights are not quite doubling each week and all puppies reached 1 kg or more by the age of 2 weeks. Simple-minded, maybe, but I like to see things in picture form (double-click for a bigger, clearer view):
















Just for fun, I dug out the weights of Neka's first litter (Taika's family) for comparison purposes. And it just proved that birth weight bears little resemblance to litter size or eventual adult size. Neka's first litter - Taika's family - was 7 puppies and the average weight for the litter was lowest of all even though all the puppies grew to a good size, including Taika & her sister Keksi, both of whom are actually bigger than Neka.

The second litter - Maija's family, the 'Monta' litter - was 9 puppies and so I really expected the average litter weight to be much lower than the first litter. But, no, it was higher. And the majority of those puppies grew up to be on the smaller side, including Maija who we affectionately call our 'miniature Lapphund'.

And this litter who I am calling the 'Tuisku' litter - higher again, although I was thinking that some if not all of these puppies would also be somewhat small, given their sire's compact form. Not that anyone expects Dino or 2Toes to ever be mistaken for a miniature Lapphund when they grow up.

Unfortunately I can't find the weight information past the birth weight for the first litter, but here is a chart showing the relative average weight per litter. Useful? Not particularly. Interesting? Well, I think so.














And now, because you have been so patient wading through all this stuff, here is your reward: a video showing Butterfly and 2Toes taking their time to settle down this morning. In this one little video you get puppies crawling, puppies walking around (or should I say staggering), some barking and other cute noises, puppy discovering the water bowl, and pay attention at about 40 seconds when poor little Butterfly gets startled. I can't figure out whether she barks & gives herself a fright or whether it's 2Tone next to her squawking in his sleep. Either way, it's funny stuff. Unfortunately you also get a bit of unsteady camera holding from yours truly as I try to sort out the light. Sorry 'bout that.

Next I must capture evidence of them barking & growling like they were this morning when I was cleaning the box - quite hilarious.

do as I say...

... not as I do.

I preach the cold turkey method of first-night puppy training - i.e. put 'em to bed and let 'em howl. Very quickly they learn to sleep through the night, safely in their crate. Well, sleep through until nature calls them out to water the grass, at any rate. And, more importantly, they don't learn to kick up a big enough racket to get you to come running.

With Tarmo, Kaija (Sulo) and Viivi off into the big world, I can report that they've all settled right in and are doing wonderfully. Best news of all, lo and behold, they have been sleeping extremely well at night - or at least those all-important first couple of nights. That leaves me hopeful for the rest of the pups as they go too.

In fact, I was so reassured by this news that Maija's crate went up on Monday night and in she went with her stuffed Kong to keep her occupied. Brilliant idea, I thought, to get her accustomed to sleeping in her crate before her brothers and sisters leave her all alone. Well, who knows, she might have been ok in there set up right next to the puppy pen but it didn't take long for the others to start howling and yapping. I gave it 20 minutes and went back down. Cleaned up the mess Maija had made in her new crate, shushed everyone, and went back to bed. I don't think I lasted 20 minutes the next time before sticking Maija back into the pen with the rest. Instant peace.

I guess Maija (and we) will just have to go cold turkey on Saturday night after the last of her siblings leave. I dread to think what cacophony she will come up with that night after getting me to run to her rescue TWICE on Monday night. **sigh** My only defense is that we have already had more than our fare share of puppy noise in this household. Not to mention our neighbours. Saturday night will be interesting, I'm sure.

Back to the 3 adventurers who have already left. I've had great reports about them all. They're very popular in their new homes and towns, needless to say. I hear they're getting plenty visitors to keep them occupied and on the road towards Ian Dunbar's recommended 100 strangers by 12 weeks old - or was that 200 strangers? Either way, it's not a difficult target to reach when you have a Lappy puppy.

For that matter, each of the pups must have met at least their first 10 on their trip up the high street with me before ever leaving home. There are not many people you pass who don't want to have a quick stroke. And if the high street is unusually quiet, there's always the pet shop and the post office. All great places for cuddles with complete strangers.

The last puppy to have his walk up the high street was Jaska today. I had to wait for a moment when Jay could come with me because the puppies are getting so big and heavy now. And Jaska, adorable little chunk that he is, is just too heavy for me to carry for very long. None of the puppies were overly worried by the noise and commotion of the high street. Maija fell asleep on the post office counter and Inko and Rauhan both had to withstand an enormous noisy lorry and roadworks. Of all the puppies, though, Jaska and Jaana were the least concerned. Jaska took it completely in his stride, not even wriggling when lorries drove past. Jaana didn't bat an eye when she was cuddled by Debbie, the owner of the pet shop, and she was most intrigued by Debbie's 2 parrots who kept calling out "bye bye!"

Until I have some more photos of puppies leaving home - or photos of puppies in their new homes - here are a couple of videos. The first was taken a couple of weeks ago when their ears were all still folded down and when we still had 9. The second was taken this morning.

Puppies, come!




Puppies, do shush, please!

wow what a racket

I'm sure going to be needing some serious bribes to crawl back into my neighbours' favour when this is all over. Luckily, puppy cuddles take me a little way, but 6am is beyond anyone's forgiveness.

I don't feel so bad about the people behind our house who have 3 of the noisiest children I've ever heard. Every day they & about 200 of their closest friends, get stuck out into the back garden to just get on with it, as far as I can tell. When I was trying to work from home - before we moved into our luxurious new accommodation in the unheated, windowless industrial unit - that racket used to drive me crazy. So I'm happy for the puppies to dish out all the noise they like to them. Heh.

But for everyone else - and I mean everyone within a significant radius - I'm truly sorry. Four, even 5, puppies cause a bit of noise when they're playing. It's natural. Everyone understands. Double the number of puppies & double the decibels. Yikes.

Most of the time, 99% of the time, the noise level is acceptable. I'm with the puppies for the majority of their waking hours and I don't let them sit yapping & howling just to amuse themselves. (Although I must confess to enjoying the howling just the teeniest bit. It's very funny.) The time it becomes truly unbearable is just as they realize I'm on my way downstairs in the morning.

They begin to wake as the sky is getting light and they're hungry & need to relieve themselves. They have been relieving themselves all over their newspaper all night and it's in quite a state, let me tell you. They start to whine & whimper & perhaps one of them will howl a little. There is a bit of sleepy playing. If I leave them a few minutes too long at this stage, the noise level steadily increases, so I try not to go downstairs until as close to 7 o'clock as I can manage. I figure most people are up by about 7 to get ready for work. When the pups see me appear at the bottom of the stairs - bam! - they all start SCREAMING.

Now, under normal circumstances, I don't even make eye contact with the puppy who is barking for attention. He's completely ignored. He's the last to be picked up and the last to move from pen to pen. That's how they learn not to yap for attention, and it's a good strategy, it works. However, all that goes right out the window first thing in the morning. It's a race for me to get their breakfast & them into the outdoor pen as quickly as I possibly can. Sticking their faces into their breakfast plate is the only thing to quiet them. And, of course, they have wound themselves up to such a frenzy that it takes some racing around the pen, still squawking, to release the pent-up energy.

I haven't received any petrol bombs or eviction orders. Yet.

Here are a few cute puppy shots to keep you going. New poll tomorrow.


Jaana having a cuddle with Lenny:
















L-R: Jaana (sitting), Tarmo, Tarkka, Viivi, Rauhan
















L-R: Inko (sitting), Jaska, Jaana, Viivi, Tarkka

pups on the rampage

What, didn't you believe me when I called them noisy horrors? See below for the proof and witness LMP (I think it is) attempting to break out.

And after that, have a look top right for the new poll. It's the race to reach the 2 kilo milestone.

puppy skirt 12 days

This week's video. They were remarkably quiet when I got the camera out. Now that they can see each other, they are learning to bark and growl and spent a very noisy night trying out all their new skills.

The growling is my favorite - very, very funny! In the last litter, two puppies loved to growl. It was never an aggression issue, just a sound they liked to make. Taika liked to growl when she was picked up, but the best one was Koda (Infindigo Kultainen) who quickly earned the nickname Growler because he would grrrr to get attention instead of bark. Fine by me!

I don't think any growling was captured on this video, but I'll try to get them in a noisier mood next time.





The news today is that one or two of the puppies are finding their feet and lurching a few steps before crashing into another puppy/mum/wall of the box.