Ellie is a kind and gentle loving mama taking wonderful care of her babies. Yesterday I gave a special treat to our adult dogs – a “WHIMZEES DENTAL STICK” (I usually give our dogs the more economical Pedigree DENTASTIX.) Our dogs love these special treats and yesterday after they got their Whimzee, they disperse to find a secluded spot to eat this special treat. They didn’t want to take a chance of one of the other dogs stealing their Whimzee. I went outside to sit with the puppies and soon Ellie was at the door asking to come outside too. She had brought her Whimzee with her and gave it to her puppies. The puppies spent the next little while taking turns chewing on Ellie’s special treat. I thought it was so sweet – mama wanted to share with her babies. After the puppies had all had a turn chewing, Ellie picked it up and ate it.
Ellie started to wean her puppies at four weeks when we introduced solids. In the wild, dogs nurse their babies and when it is time to wean them, they “regurgitate” their food for them to eat, until they are old enough to eat “adult food”. Many of the domestic dog mama’s today have stopped this natural instinct but not Ellie. Many times, I have seen her feed her babies this way. I caught it on video today and thought that I would share (you can’t actually see the regurgitated food because the puppies were busy eating.) Watch closely: at the beginning of the video puppies are nursing and soon you see Ellie regurgitate the food on the grey carpet in front of her, then the puppies pile in to eat.
Puppies grow so quickly and need to be stimulated and challenged daily. Every couple of days I try to introduce the puppies to something new. Today it was a new toy – a water bottle covered with one of the many odd socks I had laying around. Every time I introduce a water bottle to a new litter it’s always a big hit – they just love the “crinkle sound”. Watch them having fun playing with the water bottle in the video below:
