Hello, I'm new here just signed up, Please forgive me if I'm doing this wrong . I've been looking through the site for about 2 hours now and I'm having some troubles finding information that I'm looking for. But once again forgive me if I've absent mindedly looked over it.
I have 3 dogs. Philly (Male going to be 2 years old on Jan 14th) Cookie Dough (Female Year and a half) and Deezzel (Cookie's twin brother).
Cookie Dough gave birth to 4 healthy puppies on Dec 3rd 2007. Dutcheous, Phillaminia, Squirt, and Playtoy. They're a little over 4 weeks now. And I'm a little confused since after all this is our first litter.
I'm just trying to figure out EXACTLY what I should be doing, for the 1st 2 weeks I had Cookie and her puppies confined to our back bedroom except for when we would take her out to "make". After about 2 and a half weeks I introduced the puppies to the pack. Whenever I'm home they're out being social but when I leave once again I confine them to the back bedroom.
I'm so lost as to when to start training them. Squirt and Playtoy will come when called and sit when told but not all the time. I think they're doing great. Phillaminia has just recently started to come when her name is called.
Should I start crating them separately? Is it possible to start house training them now? Or are they still too young?
We started the pups on hard puppy food about a week ago, at first we would moisten the puppy food with whole milk, but now we moisten with water, and give a side of whole milk, because as we discovered milk doesn't last that long when it sits out and it takes them a little while to finish their food.

I apologize if I went about this all the wrong way, but I'm 18 and really wasn't that prepared for this, I thought we had did our best to keep them confined and away from each other when Cookie was in heat, but I guess we didn't, so I'm just trying to make sure I have 4 healthy, well trained, happy puppies.

They are 4 weeks old??

They should be with the mother, no other dogs should be around them, they should be kept together, and you shouldn't be doing ANY training with them.

I dont remember exact feeding schedules, someone will correct me im sure, but at 4 weeks you can start weening them off the mother and giving them milk from a puppy dish (the kinda milk you buy at petsmart, not regular people milk I think). At 5.5-6 weeks you can start giving them mushy kibble mixed with the milk to get them started on solids.

Keep them with the mother till 8 weeks, then start seperating them with crates. You can start taking them away from the mother for short periods of time at 6.5-7 weeks to start getting them used to being away from the mother.

You shouldnt be worrying about training AT ALL for at least another 4 weeks. Personally I dont do any training till at least 6 months, if not longer, but 4 weeks is too young! They should be in a puppy pen with the mother, but low enough for the mother to get away from the pups when she is sick of them.

Most importantly, don't let your female get pregnant again until you know what you're doing as a breeder. This means spaying her, or neutering the males, or being very strict about seperating the female from all other males when she is in heat, for 21 days. There's too many "oops" litters as it is. Puppies are cute, but I'm sure the thousands of puppies that are put down every day from these "oops litters" aren't all that thrilled with it.

Can we merge these threads?

Please use
http://www.leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=134&Number=173268&Searchpage=1&Main=17698&Words=+Jessica+Swigart&topic=0&Search=true#Post173268
and not this thread (which is both a duplicate and in the wrong forum). Thanks.

Thank you, Jenni and Mike; I had not realized that there were identical threads going on.

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http://www.leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=134&Number=173268&Searchpage=1&Main=17698&Words=+Jessica+Swigart&topic=0&Search=true#Post173268