Well finally, the two topics of this blog come together – the puppies have experienced the outside world, ie the garden.   The playpen is now a feature of the garden for the next few months.  Thank goodness we designed the patio area with this in mind and the pen is very close to the house making it easy to transport the pups between the two locations.

Obviously they aren’t outside for long and they spend most of their time in their indoor pen, but they are starting to learn that we would prefer it if they went to the loo outside.  This is fairly natural behaviour as naturally they don’t want to soil their sleeping area – but it is necessary to help this natural instinct.  When they wake up, the first thought is to go to the toilet – it is therefore important that they are put outside as soon as they wake up.   They probably go outside about six to eight times a day.  The good news is that this hard work is paying off and we hardly ever have a poo indoors.  There have also been occasions when the pups have made some noise and when taken outside have promptly made good use of the facilities, so the message certainly seems to be getting through.

As time goes by (and the weather improves) the puppy we keep will spend much more time in the garden, and no doubt give me much more to blog about :).