Puppies are weaned almost completely

Unfortunately it has been a while since my last post on puppies. I left for the United Blood Trackers Trackfest in North Carolina a week ago and got back home on Tuesday. 

So let's go back to the time when puppies turned 4 weeks old. In wirehaired dachshunds there is a correlation between the timing of teeth emergence and texture of coat. Usually the pups who get their teeth first will have a shorter coat. The once who get their teeth as last ones will have softer and fuller coats. The pictures below show teeth of three pups. Vivica and Vonnie will have shorter, harsher coats than Volt. Viola and Vincent will have rather soft and full coats.

Pups spend part of their day outside in a pen, where we put a crate and plenty of toys to keep them occupied. They started to use the crate right away, and it is a good start to crate training. A crate is the best tool for housebreaking puppies, but this task will be left to the pups' new owners.

In the fifth week puppies were making a gradual transition to solid food, but occasionally Tuesday would let them nurse. Now this is not a pleasant experience for her as pups' teeth are sharp like needles.

During the night and when the weather is rainy puppies stay in the house in this pen. The whelping bed serves as their bed now, which they avoid to soil. There is a large pen attached to the whelping box, which is filled with wood chips. Puppies figured out pretty quickly that this is their bathroom now. This is a great start to their housebreaking as instinctively they choose to go to bathroom as far from their bed as possible.

Puppies started to meet new people now and when I was away they had a nice play session with our friends Dan and Faith. Yesterday we had visitors from Florida, Joanna and Lorin. Joanna, who is a vet, fell in love with our dachshunds (she knew them from our website) and really wanted to see them. It was very good for the pups to be handled by strangers, and after half an hour of playing they just fell asleep in the people's laps. Vonnie and Vivica lost their collars so it is not obvious from the pics who is who but we know.

It is always a great relief for a breeder to see both testicles down in male puppies. This is the case with Volt and Vincent  BTW, Vonnie started to get out of the pen, but we have not figured out how she does it. She is a smart cookie.