Growing Challenges

The pups are growing fast. They entertain themselves very well with all the toys and stuff in their yard, but it occurred to me today that I needed something new. They can do everything that's out there now, I needed to come up with some new challenges to match their growth.

I raised the feeding trough. That's not really a challenge but they were big enough to warrant it. Aside from making it easy to feed them en mass, I wanted it to get them accustomed to eating from a raised feeder. They were big enough that they were sitting down to eat with their head pointed down, so it was time to raise it up.

I also put in an elevated walkway, and a long raised board that also serves as a "diving board" into the ball pit. Clay picked up another bag of balls for the ball pit too, so it's deeper now as well.

It didn't take them anytime at all to discover, investigate, and begin to use the new things in their yard. I also added some outdoor toys, but the rope toy they dug up out of the ground on their own is a favorite, often resulting in a three or four-way game of tug.

It's interesting to watch Della's role as mother morph from provider to teacher. She's still very serious about her role as protector. She will allow Serena close to the fence but not Max. I have to believe Serena would be good with the pups but Della isn't quite there yet. She has cut them off from nursing now but she still spends time with them when they are out in the yard. She watches what they are doing. She checks to make sure they are playing with something appropriate. I saw her take a stick away from one of them today. I don't think there was an issue with the stick, I think she just wanted to establish the precedent of her taking it from them. That's a valuable lesson.

Della isn't nursing them anymore, but she still spends quality
time with them, and even seems to enjoy it.

I don't know where this rope toy came from, but it was
embedded in the ground. They discovered it and have been
slowly digging it out over the last couple days.

Della, Theo, and Max in the back yard while I'm working
on the new walkways for the puppies.

Chimay and Abita were the first to walk across.

This walkway connects two points of interest
and serves as a diving board into the ball pit.

The newly elevated feeding trough, with a
booster board on the ground until they get a
little taller.

They had no trouble with the new height.

A five-way game of tug with the rope.