Raising Litter Mates

	FOURTEEN WEEK OLD PUPPIES Well the boys are fourteen weeks now. Lots has happened in the last few weeks in terms of progress. They are nearly 100% housetrained - upstairs and their commands are coming along quite well. Both dogs are walking on leash - Kratos still not as confident as Taro, but coming along nicely.
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So many things have happened since my last entry. It's getting harder to keep up with my blog with these little guys getting older accompanied by an increase of energy. Raising littermates is definitely time consuming and at times very draining. When they are tired and fed I am out with Jordan, cleaning the house, feeding the cats etc etc until their next session. There is clearly not enough time in a day for this!

Training is going well. They have a list of commands that they enjoy performing including: come, sit, down, bang (play dead), say hi (left paw), gimme five (right paw) and spin! We are able to chain all the commands now, and both puppies are performing excellently.

Taro was beginning to enjoy barking. We have since introduced the command 'quiet' and he is responding to that quite well thus far. It appears he is demand barking, usually for food. The last few weeks he has shown improvement and his collar remains unused but ready. It doesn't help that the dog across the lane barks constantly, so far the puppies haven't started “talking” to that dog, and I can only hope that they continue to ignore him/her.

Leash walking is getting better for Kratos. He is less scared to leave the driveway now. He does still try to hug the fences and steer toward the grass, but I usually change my pace and get all excited and he follows. I am using very little treats and I carry a squeak toy in my bag for those times he gets really distracted.

Taro is doing well. He loves his walks and he rarely hesitates to walk anywhere. In the beginning I was letting him sniff – to get him used to the idea of walking – and now I am able to keep his attention for the most part. As soon as I notice he is losing focus on his walk I either change direction or make him perform some commands for a tasty treat. So far so good.

We have started taking the puppies outside to eliminate on their leashes. We take them directly to their box and reward them for eliminating with freeze dried liver. After a few days of using their leashes, we are now sending them out (using the command pee in your box) and guiding them toward the appropriate area. The first few days we had to go with them, now for the most part, we can stay on the patio and they run down to the box to do their business, and run back up to get their well deserved treats. We are hoping that they will continue using their box when they are unsupervised out back as they get older. The ultimate reward is playtime on a nice day out back after eliminating in their box, especially after they poop.

They have started to bark/whine at the door to make it a lot easier for us to let them out. When we first opened up the larger area for them they went to the door but just sat and looked at it. A few days of this and I decided to pretend i wasn't paying attention to them to see what they would do, and sure enough they whined or barked to be let out. This is fantastic because now I don’t have to watch them the entire time! I can do other things around the house, and know that they will bark if I’m not around to be let out.