Another development is peeing and pooping without Lupine's help. They make quite a good effort to walk away from their sleeping area to do this, so we have now added a pee pad to the whelping box. They are already pretty good at making their way to it when they need to, although quite often they get only their front feet on it and start to pee! Of course this means that our cleaning duties and laundry has increased significantly.

Now that the puppies are 2.5 weeks old, we are no longer sleeping in the whelping room, and it is quite luxurious to get a good night's sleep. Lupine came up and slept in our bedroom for the first part of the night and then went back to the whelping room to look after her puppies for the second half of the night.

The girls have started in interact with eachother and us much more this week. They are beginning to play with eachother and are using their mouths to grab eachother's tails, legs, etc. In true flat-coat style they are licking eachother and us.

It's hard to believe that the 3rd week is drawing to a close already!  The girls have been giving us clues that they are getting ready for eating solid food. They lick Lupine's mouth when she enters the whelping box, hoping that she will regurgitate for them (which no doubt she will soon....). When they grab our fingers we can feel their teeth just under the gums and just today we actually saw a couple of teeth poking through their gums. They bite at their beds, toys, our fingers and eachother's limbs. So today we ground up some turkey, mixed in some goatsmilk and offered them a small meal. They all thought this was terribly exciting and of course made a big mess. They managed to lick their "plates" clean and were looking for more.....

They also think they should be allowed out of the whelping box more often and have managed to escape on a few occasions. So we will be expanding their pen soon.