Week 4 - 2/18/2024

Week 4 is in the books! These adorable puppies are moving about and playing up a storm! It’s amazing how day by day we get surprised they go from drunk puppy wobble walking to short spurts of coordinated speed across the backyard! They went from being awake in short 15 minute moments, to almost an hour at a time. The toys we put in the whelping box rarely got touched and now they choose to play with them, prance around with them in their mouths as “trophies”, and play tug with us. Although that may last just for a few seconds or minutes, because sure enough if one of their siblings come by, they immediately prefer chewing on them instead! Their chompers make that harder too, as they frequently squeal at each other when their sibling gets a good grip. Their faces are just too cute and I cannot tell you how many noses we “boop” on a daily basis!!! LOL

This week also brings out some pretty big firsts. One is us feeding them. Normally we start with the awkward 3 week old puppy dipping their noses in the milk while they discover they can actually lap it up, but this time we skipped that and went straight to the soft puppy kibble in goats milk. One day Aelin just wouldn’t eat. We tried all different dog bowls and all different rooms, but she just kept trying to lure Jon over to the puppy pen. Finally Jon decided to feed the puppies the soft kibble with goat’s milk and they ate it up like champs! Then Aelin felt it was ok to eat her own kibble after they ate. It was almost like she was trying to bring her “kill” back to the den to feed the pups first, but in the domestic world, that is her pack (us) bringing the kill (the kibble) to the pups! Haha! I will say though, by the end of the week, she no longer waits until the puppies eat first and she tries to sneak their food when she’s done scarfing down her own!

The other major first is bringing the puppies outdoors! I will say, that in these nice “winter” months in AZ, any of our previous pups just LOOOOVE being outdoors. The first few days the Avatar pups were so whiny and shivering with cold, I was embarrassed we had a litter of Chinook puppies that couldn’t handle a balmy 60 degree evening outdoors! Well thankfully that embarrassing period past as they now enjoy being outdoors, phew! They spend time in our outdoor kennel and are just starting to navigate the dog door. We feed them out there while we clean their pen, and then they can go in and out as they wish while we’re home working (this helps save on puppy pen cleanup, if you know what I mean). In the evening we go into the main backyard to play and bring out the big dogs too. Being outdoors they get to hear normal sounds of traffic, airplanes and helicopters, lawn maintenance tools, birds chirping, dogs barking, kids playing and more.

Momo is still our resident kisser. Although all the pups may have their moment of a kiss fest, Momo is the most consistent and she’s a pretty confident gal. Zuko is such a neat guy. He is just so sweet, calm, playful, and contemplative and is the pup that doesn’t rock the boat but isn’t a pushover either. Iroh likes to explore and try new things out. He’s not the explorer that gets into trouble (at least not yet- ha), but is the first to explore the area he’s comfortable with. Bumi has a lot of zest for our little guy!

He is always up to play and explore, but at the end, he always finds my lap to curl into or lay his head on my leg as he falls asleep. Aang is my handsome boy! He’s got the right blend of sweet, fun, confidence, and play. Sokka is just a sweetie. He still enjoys playing on his back and sleeping in the dog bed that way as well (hey he likes being comfy)! Katara is my spitfire. She’s got zest and sweet all rolled into one.

We will continue their socialization and desensitization as they age, and will start preparing to plan for their week 6 puppy socialization party! For those of you who aren’t local, don’t forget we have our puppy cam on during the day and you can scroll back to a time when the pups are awake and playing on our Youtube channel. They sleep in our little indoor “doghouse” and love their bed, so you may not see them too well on the cam when they are sleeping (although it’s pretty cute). The silver pups (Katara, Iroh, and Zuko) currently have blue eyes, but that will change to an amber color when they get older (instead of the brown eyes that tawny and black & tans Chinooks have). We are still looking for breed potential homes, especially for the males, although if a female one came by we’d welcome that too. This litter is part of the CBCP (Chinook Breed Conservation Program) and it’s important that some move on to breed in the future, as their puppies will have the opportunity to test and become purebred Chinooks! This helps the purebred Chinook gene pool by reducing COI (coefficient of inbreeding), which is higher than we'd like in the Chinook breed. You can learn more about that here on the COA website. If interested in becoming a part of something special, please fill out a puppy application today!

The Avatar litter (as always in order of appearance):