6 Weeks

The puppies have turned six weeks old now, and that means a few new things for them.  We are transitioning them to the kennel outside, they will still have mom around alot of the time, mostly at night, but we are working on seperating them so that by the time they are eight weeks, they should be pretty much on their own

They also start getting their immunizations. 

The vaccines we get are five way vaccines.  The big thing we're trying to protect them from at this age is Parvovirus, which is fairly common and extremely deadly for puppies.  At our kennel, we administer the vaccines at six weeks, eight weeks, 10 weeks, 12 weeks, and 16 weeks, then once a year after that.  The reason for so many shots is that when they are born, they recieve antibodies from mom, but it only protects them for so long, but we don't know how long.  The period of time varies from dog to dog and litter to litter and its completely unpredictable, but as long as the pups carry those antibodies, the vaccine we administer does nothing, but once those antibodies are gone, they have no protection until the vaccine kicks in, which takes about two weeks from the time the shot is given.  Basically, the idea is that there is a window there that we are trying to close, so by giving them every two weeks, there's a good chance of keeping them protected.
We order the vaccines from a mail order company online, and they come in trays of 25.  There are 25 vials of liquid and 25 vials of powder. 

First, you draw the liquid out of its vial.

Then you inject the liquid into the vial of powder.

You draw the mixture back into the needle...

And once you've done that four times (for four pups), you're ready to go.

Then comes the hard part:

Its actually not that hard, if you have help.  Someone holds
the pup tightly, you pull up on the skin behind the neck, you
stick the needle in just under the skin, and inject.

But its not all bad stuff for them...

They do get to come out of the kennel and have playtime with their toys.

And they've learned how to go up and down the steps on the deck.

More to come...