Go Figure

I have been struggling with getting the puppies to eat well. I had them out this morning. (Good puppies, all went potty). When they came in, they started eating from the dry (Royal Canin) food that I leave in their  bowls. They had eaten a good breakfast around 6:30am of scrambled egg, ground turkey, canned Innova and dry Royal Canin mini starter. Gidget had gotten into the pen while the puppies were out and ate most of their dry food (she having turned her nose up at the plain dry food I offered her for breakfast:-). So I was going to put some more dry food in for them and decided to toss in a bit of the dry Innova puppy food I am feeding Gidget and that I had tried when they were first eating solid food. I wasn't expecting them to touch it as they didn't like it before but I am thinking I need to get them transitioned to something not quite so expensive before they go to their forever homes and I am about out of the Royal Canin (how's that for a long sentence?). Well, lo and behold, they scarfed it up. I ended up having to add another scoop as they licked the bowl clean. It's great news and will make my life a lot easier.

I buried some toys in the sand box this morning before taking them outside. They immediately got in and dug the toys out and chased each other around the yard to get whatever toy a sibling had. I had quit taking toys out there because they were far more interested in investigating the yard than in playing with toys out there but they kept them busy for a while this way. Reinforces their digging inthe sandbox, too.

I have been trying to work on "come" with them but have little luck with any other than Gael. He almost always comes when I call the puppies. However, I found that squeaking a squeaky toy gets them all coming en masse. So, what I will do is start pairing "come" with the squeaky toy and see how that works.

They seem to like taking food out of my hand. I am using mostly home made treats that I use for my own dog's training but also using Zuke's Mini natural salmon treats. They are pretty big and chewy but they like them. I can cut them into quarters so that I can give more and it doesn't take so long to eat but as I haven't been thinking ahead and as I keep a pocket full of the Zuke's to treat my dog and Gidget when they do things I like, I always have a supply on hand. The puppies know this too. They are about to chew holes in every pair of pants I own. Whenever I am sitting with them, they try to chew their way into my pocket:-)