This weekend we settled for an inflated swimming pool for the puppies. Even though they are waterdogs the puppies need to get used to the water. When they feel the water around their paws some of them get all surprised and lift a paw and stand totally still. Others try to carefully walk in this strange feeling fluid. We found a cover of a plastic trunk that perfectly serves as a ladder. It is very good for the puppies to learn to walk upwards on strange materials.

Together with my kind neighbours Michelle and Olga and their families the puppies today got to visit a farm house. There were all kinds of kind animals (sheep, goats, horses, donkey, pigs, rabbits and dogs) and birds around at this small family farm house - a perfect spot for socialization of young puppies. The puppies were scared and curious at the same time and some of them even dared to say hello nose to nose to the impressive beasts!

We took the puppies in the car to a new area to get used to unknown things, smells, children, bikes etc. They were happily discovering everything around them, with the safe feeling of us, mama Yatzie and sister Moët nearby.

A moment of rest in the puppy chaos for Moët and me.

Now we bring some puppies when we go somewhere to get them used to as much as possible in this world! These are very important weeks for teir socialization. They are open and curious and good experience during this age will build a stable characater and make them strong and unafraid.
PS They got to taste some fish but the wine was for us though!

We took all the puppies to the vet today for their first vaccination and to go through a general health check up. On the floor they found an interesting bandage that they started to play with all together. So much fun these angel puppies! In the second video Zofiel is on the table to be checked out!

I like to give the puppies at least one new experience every day. Today they got to taste and play with apples, cucumber, carrot and potatoes. They immediately gathered around the new items and started chewing and fighting over the new treasures!

Just a  lot of nice photos from moments in the garden, with some of the puppy owners and thier kids.

Today I gave the puppies a real fur of a rabbit to bite, sniff and taste. They were fascinated by it and it soon fell into many pieces (it was an an old fur). It is of course not recommended to teach your puppy to  tear a rabbit apart! But it is great to let the puppies experience a rabbit in this early age so that in future hunting training they already know the feeling of having a rabbit in their mouth.

Here a few videos with the puppies playing with each other today, during one of the more quiet playful moments. In some of the videos you can hear strange sounds such as fire works, a lawn mower etc. I daily put on a sound cd to help the puppies get  used to all different kinds of sounds. This a recommended to continue doing for the first months for those of you that are having or getting a puppy soon. There are several in the market.

Today my friend and photographer neighbour Sonja Klopper, Son Pictures, photographed all of the pupppies one by one. You will soon see the individual photos but here is a collage of all of the Angels!

Today we took 5 of the puppies to Margot's school yard during the break to socialze them around children and noise. They were admired by many, and they do so well! But it was a bit cold so we had to keep them in wollen blankets!

Our friend's dog Luna came to visit and the puppies were curious and open to her. It is so good that the puppies get to know a few kind and playful dogs outside of their own group during this period. It creates a base for their future interaction with and openness towards different kinds of dogs.

It is not easy to get one picture with all 10 puppies in it! But with the help of the 4 children we succeded!

The  puppies are very interested in moving things now, and when the chance is there to fight over a "prey" with the siblings and work on their hunting skills they take it!

The puppies are waiting behind the green fence to have their first solid meal for the day. They are very eager and have learned very well by now how to use their voice!

In the morning, after their first meal from mama Yatzie, the puppies are very active. Here is a 5 minute long video showing what they all are up to in that happy morning hour!

Hanael (red girl) checked out the world map while we were playing the nice table game Ticket to ride! Very well socialized these dogs heh ;-) - some of them even at this young age travelled the world!

10 puppies, 2 dogs, 3 children and a driver in a car! The puppies rode a car for the very first time today, and they were so relaxed! Some looked out of the window amazed by all that flew by, others simply went to sleep.  

The puppies now weigh between 2500 and 2800 grams. They eat 50 g / kg weight raw meat mix for puppies per day, and still drink from Yatzie now and then. It is not easy to weigh them on this small kitchen scale but Anna does it well!

Today all the puppies had a sampoo bath in a small bucket and and then they got their first swimming lesson! We were impressed by their ability to swim already at this age!

My two nieces from Sweden, Anna and Melise, have arrived for a long weekend to help with the puppies but most of all - to just enjoy them!

This is a film from the end of a playful period, when the puppies are more quietly playing. Soon I will place a video from the wild moments! The puppies are nowadays usually awake in periods of 45 minutes or so, then they sleep for an hour and then they wake up again by themselves, or if they hear us or Yatzie they wake up earlier.

Matching the puppies to the right family is a very important and difficult task. Sometimes people who want a puppy find it surprising (and disappointing) when I tell them that they can not choose the puppy themselves, and definetely not by colour. Within a litter there are a wide variety of characters; dominant/humble, relaxed/tensed when meeting new things, very energetic/medium energetic, independant/dependant, follows/goes his own way, hunting interest and so on. The familysituation, small children or not, other dogs in the house, dog experience, plans for the dog etc are facts that I take into account when doing this match. A good match will make both the dog and the family happy! So I continually observe the dogs from the very beginning to find out what their main features are. The characters developand become more clear as the puppy grows.

This week the dog behavioral specialist, Myrthea Rozendaal, came to test the dogs' characters with me.  It was very interesting and I learned much about the characters of the puppies. We let them come into a room where they never had been before and Myrthea was sitting on a low chair there. Then we observed the dogs' behaviour with a stranger, willingness to play, reaction when held etc. This was a big help for me in the matching process which is coming to an end this week.

The puppies experiencded their first fire tonight. They were fascinated! Cherubiel said it reminded him of the Flames That Dance Around The Throne of God (the meaning of his powerful name) that he saw in heaven before he came down to us on earth!

Yatzie gave her big Alpaca bone to her 5 week old puppies today. Here you see the 5 males all together chewing on it. Yatzie is overseeing it, and waiting for them to have had enough so that she also can have some! I think she is a hero that gives it up to them. Amazing what the hormones do to a hungry bitch like Yatzie!

Finally the angels have gotten their sweet angel names. Each name has a very special meaning, that matches the puppy when it comes to character or outlooks. Here presented in alphabetic order:

Females
Angel (orange) – Angel of the Lord
Hanael (red) – angel of joy, meaning: The joy of God
Muriel (yellow) – angel of peace and harmony, meaning: God’s perfume
Yeyezel (beige/grey) – angel of divine consolation and comfort, meaning: The God delighting every living thing
Zofiel (pink) – angel of beauty, meaning: Divine Beauty.

Males
Cherubiel (blue) – Prince angel of the gates of heaven, meaning: The Flames Which Dance Around the Throne of God
Jeremiel (green) – angel of hopeful visions and dreams, meaning: God’s mercy
Nahaliel (purple) – angel who watches over the running streams, meaning: Valley of God
Phanuel (brown) – angel of the divine presence and hope, meaning: The face of God
Umabel (light blue) – angel of affinity and friendship, meaning: God above all names elevated

Zofiel is very playful with mama Yatzie in this sweet video. Yatzie is wearing a t-shirt  to stop the puppies from constantly hanging in her nipples. She can't play well with them when they do.  I had this great tip from a breeder friend and tried it today for the first time.

The puppies love to dig in the earth just like Yatzie and Moët.

Today the Raad van Beheer visited and chipped the angels! So they now all have their own sweet angel names. Soon I will let you know who is who together with the 4 1/2 weeks photos.

Every morning I search through our boxes for new things for the puppies to discover. Today I found a wooden clothes rack - perfect to ease the pain in the little teeth that are growing qucikly!

"Mama Yatzie, where are you?" shouts Mr Brown. "We are thirsty and waiting for you here on the pillow!" And there she was!

Sunday the sweet berner sennen Mona visited us and the puppies. Mona used to belong to Bart's mother but now lives with her stepdaughter Elizabeth and her daughter Florianne. Mona is a very careful dog and she did very well around the puppies. She found them a bit scary, but the red angel girl  was very eager to get to know the new visitor! This is a 6 minute long video that Elizabeth made.

Yatzie just fed her puppies and jumped out of the puppy box. But she stays by the side and the puppies want more milk and try to jump to her. A cute video with cute puppy sounds!

I gave a piece of dried beef to Yatzie. She immediately went upstairs with it to give to the puppies. In the first video you will see how she leaves it for them on the floor. But most of them prefer to drink from her which she allows (to my surprise since she just fed them). Only Purple Angel boy discovers the beef and it happily licking on it all by himeself. In the second video Yatzie decides to use this bone as a lesson for the puppies to learn "No". She is busy eating it and clearly tells her puppies off when they try to share it with her.

This morning, after feeding her puppies, Yatzie gives all of them some attention by playing and cleaning them. She is also teaching them in a clear way that drinking is no longer allowed at this moment. Some of them respect that, others forget after a second and try to drink again! In the beginning of the video you will see the light blue boy who finds Yatzie's tail a very nice toy to play with!

The puppies spend the first half of the day on the top floor, where they were born. That is where we have our home offices Bart and I, and today it was time to enlarge the area for the puppies to play more freely. They curiously discovered all the corners of the room and happily started running around and playing. Everywhere in the room there are interesting things for the puppies to play with and discover as you can see in this 3 minutes long video!  They found the dog pillow of Moët under Bart's desk a perfect place to sleep all together. Moët has a second pillow under my desk so she adjusted after giving up trying to make it clear that it was her place :-) ! Moët is  all the time coming to me for attention while I am recording this video. You will see her head and tail swoshing by :- ) !

When the fture puppy owners Tineke and Jonathan visited this week, they helped hand feeding the puppies. That is a messy task! Some of the puppies eat in a better way than others. I feed them twice a day now, to decrease the puppies' need for milk from Yatzie step by step. She is still feeding them several times a day. But she has also started bringing pieces of food to them that she gets from me.

Yesterday we opened the outside ren so that the puppies could walk freely in the garden. They were hesitant at first, to enter that big wide world, but after having checked out all the corners of the garden they started leaping from joy! Yatzie now has more space to play with them, which she did not really do until now. Sometimes it looks a bit rough, when she makes them fall over on the ground,  but I totally trust her way of dealing with her puppies. Moët is also interacting a lot with the puppies.

The socialisation on children became very intense when puppy owners Tessa and Jan-Willem came to visit with their three children! This is very good for both the puppies and the children! Of course all interaction is being supervised since children do not always understand how to handle these funny cuddely creatures. Afterwards the puppies fell asleep in funny positions totally exhausted.

After 4 weeks of a combination of fearful hesitation and excitement Moët is now starting to enjoy interacting with the puppies! She is such a playful dog and she now takes every chance to play and have fun with her little sisters and brothers! Here on the trampoline! The puppies will learn a lot from her. She acts very different from Yatzie who is more motherly playful while Moët is just simply enjoying!

Puppies that grow up in the house of Roest are obliged to become fotball fans! The indoctrination already began!

Look! The little teeth are coming out! First out with teeth were the orange and yellow girls!
Hey boys, watch out for the girls power in this gang!

It is so nice tp have the upcoming puppy owners over to spend time with the puppies. This weekend was very special for Wouter and Corine who were able to take part of the puppies first experience on grass as well as first time in the puppies' downstairs playground.

Bart's mother's sweet malteser Nikki came to visit the puppies this weekend. She was so curious and sniffed all of the little ones one by one. The puppies did not show so much interest in the stranger dog to my surprise.

The puppies are getting better and better at eating. They eat one by one from the hand so that we know that they all got the same amount. At the end of the meal I put some of the food in water in the bowl and they lick it all up. Moët and Yatzie find it unfair that the puppies are getting this delicious food from our hands, but once in a while they get a taste too of course!

Yatzie is so sweet with the puppies. She licks their faces and keeps them clean. When they are peeping she also starts to peep before she is able to jump into the pupy box. It is a difficult jump, because there are puppies running around everywhere and she is so careful not to hurt them.

It was a busy weekend! Saturday we prepared downstairs for the coming puppy invasion! The puppies are growing and need both more space and mental stimulation. Bas and Margot helped in the making of a fence to divide half of our living room into a big puppy playground. The floor is covered with vinyl and the couch has been moved so that it serves as a fence as well as "laddder" for the adults dog to be able to move in the whole house. The puppy box has been moved downstairs so that the puppies also have a known secluded area to rest. All little holes have been blocked to keep the puppies where we want them to be! Electrical cords have been secured. We are ready for the invasion and looking forward  to it! There is still an area on the top floor where the puppies will sleep in the night and spend part of the day.