Eat, sleep, pee, poop

For the first 3 weeks of their lives, whelps primarily do four things:  eat, sleep, pee and poop. That would be a good title for a book, although I doubt it would be a best seller.  It makes me think of that movie, Eat, Drink, Man Woman. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111797/

Newborns don't necessarily perform those behaviours in that order, but those are their primary acts.  Sleeping is probably 70%, followed by feeding 25& and peeing/pooping 5%.  Their bodies also twitch when they are sleeping; this is all part of their neural development.  Mom initially stimulates them to pee and defecate and also cleans up after them.  Yuck, but that's considered normal in the canine world.

Puppy behaviour is starting to change in week 4.

• Visual acuity and distance improves.
• They start to interact with their littermates by playing and fighting .
• Vocalization becomes more prominent (this started in week 3).
• Their strength improves and they will try climbing out of the whelping box and up a stair.
• Their teeth will begin to erupt. 

Here are 3 puppies: Mr Black, Miss Red & Mr Turquoise already attempting to climb a stair last night. Yellow and Blue were also making an attempt but I didn't have my camera handy to catch them.

I think I can, I think I can.

Go on sis; I know you can do it!

This is tougher than it looks!