The nursery ...

At three weeks they are ready for their first meal.  They are now moved to the "dog room" in a 4' x 8' whelping box.  They now have newspaper at one end and towels at the other end.  This is how we start the paper training.  At this age they can walk and love attention.  We make sure that the puppies are sitting nicely before we give them attention.  I believe the earliest you can start rewarding for calm behavior the better.  If a puppy is on two feet, he is placed on all four then talked to and is rewarded by stroking him.  The children are very active at this stage since they know I will allow it.  The puppies are taken around the house and introduced to many new environments.  They have been on carpet, towels, newspaper and linoleum by this point.

House breaking and outdoor Play Area ...

At five weeks they are ready for the great outdoors (weather permitting).  They are now taken out every two hours to go potty.  We wake them up so that they don't have a chance to go before we get there.  "Puppies outside lets go pee.  Puppies inside good puppies."   They all go out do their business, eat, play, do their business come back in and go to sleep.  We have this routine down so that we can pick up poo outside instead of inside.  We continue to do this until the puppies go to their forever homes.  It really helps ... People always say "they are with the program".

We have an open visitation policy for people on our list.  If you just wanted to come and see, well I will do that as well but not if you were visiting other Kennels.  That's how bad things are shared!