The Period of Awakening Senses

The next stage of puppy growth is from 4 to 6 weeks old.  This stage is called the Period of Awakening Senses.  At this stage, the puppies will become more independent and adventurous.  They should start to recognize the person taking care of them or other humans that walk by often.  This stage is also the time where you should avoid sudden loud noises that might scare the puppies because a negative experience during this stage might make the dog more timid when he/she becomes grown.  It is still important for the pups to be around their mom at this stage since the puppies are still on the mother’s milk and is learning how to act like a dog.  The mother will also discipline the puppies and teach them right from wrong.  If a puppy is taken away from their mother too soon, they could have many problems when the become a full-grown dog. When my puppies were at this stage, they were very adventurous.  They would often venture outside of their crate, which was very different from the previous stage, and they would get very excited when I visited them.  At this stage we introduced the puppies to chew toys to help their puppy teeth come in.  Its important not to give them any chew toys that they could possible swallow or choke on, but we gave them things like tennis balls old rags and empty water bottles.  The one they loved the most was the water bottle.  At this stage the puppies are learning new things and experiencing different experiences so when they realized they could make the water bottle crackle, they all wanted to try.  At this stage we decided to open up a playing area for them with the crate inside of the play area.  This was hard to create where it allowed both, the puppies to roam and explore freely on their own and the mother to be able to get in and out of the play area whenever she wanted.  We ended up creating a barrier around the crate with piece of wood that was high enough the puppies couldn’t get over it and short enough where the mother could jump over it.