Tomorrow the puppies will be 1 month old. It is hard to believe. Of course I was late with starting this blog, but it is now under way.
We are narrowing the names down, but for easy reference until they have been finalised the puppies are as follows:
firstborn: HB (stands for Harlequin boy). The french name for the "merle" colour is "arlequin", or english "harlequin". Since these are special dogs, I like to use the special colour reference :-). The second born was the BG (black Girl). Of course it is most likely that she will turn grey like her mum when she grows up, but all grey Pyreneans are born black. She has only a little white patch on her chest, other than that she is completely black. The thrid puppy is the BB (black boy). As his sister he too is completely black except for a little white on his chest and 1 white toe on his right back foot. The last born was HG, originally this stood for "Harlequin Girl", but in the meantime it is "His Girl". It is my husband Anthony's new love of his life.

The puppies at this stage are pretty mobile, although still a bit wobbly.
They have started playing and interacting with toys that are lying around in the pen and spend a lot of time wrestling and playing with each other. At this stage there is a lt of front paw action and today I noticed a play-bow for the first time.
Ears and feet are being "bitten" and occasionally it is even the own paw that ends up in the mouth.

The teeth are just coming through. BG was the first yesterday. Today HB and HG both had theirs push through as well. I am sure by tomorrow BB will have his.

They have of course been handled from day one by both Anthony and myself. Handling is mostly cuddling, various types of touching, "examination" of body parts, weighing, grooming and occasionally some "rough play" when they initate that type of interaction.
They have regularly been exposed to different areas. Initially because it was more fun cuddling with them in our bed than going into the puppy pen :-) and lately it has been very hot here. So hot that the bedroom where their pen is, gets too hot for them in the afternoon. Therefor at lunch time they get a new area prepared and all get moved into the shower for a few hours. The shower was blocked off with a large rolled up cushion until today, but today the 2 girls watched mum leave the shower by walking across the cushion, and simply followed (not quite "walking", more like "climbing" over it ;-), but they managed to get out in no time at all). Hence as of tomorrow we need a different barrier.
Unless the weather cools off of course. We have had thunderstorms with rain yesterday and most of this afternoon, and perhaps the rain brings a little drop in temperature tomorrow. Of course the thunder and lighning at this stage of the puppies lives are great. They either sleep through it all or just carry on playing or sucking and take it completely in their stride. Luckily Lollie is not worried by thunder either so she does not inprint any fear or silly behaviour onto them.

Every day for the last 5 days they get taken into the garden on a big blanket for a short while. The first day they remained on the blanket but then decided that it was much more fun walking on grass or dirt. Lollie is of course always with us and they occasionally get the odd feeding during the outing, which is nice as it gives them additional comfort. Yesterday they met Ghadaffi the cat, but showed only mild interest. Ghadaffi likes to be with people. She is an oldish cat and used to puppies as well as adult dogs. I could not hope for a better introduction to cats for the puppies.

I observed today that they are getting braver and more adventurous and start moving further afield when given the opportunity. BG today must have been a good 2-3 meters from me until she realised that perhaps she did venture out a little far and came "running" back :-).

Quincy (Lolllie's mother and granny to the puppies) would like to take over the whole puppy rearing business, but Lollie is not ready for that yet. Occasionally Quincy gets in a little interaction with the puppies and they love her. She really seems to have the "granny-role" down pat (excuse the anthropromorphising).
Chippy was allowed around the pen and puppies from day one, and he mostly ignores them. For the past 2 days however the puppies have discovered him. Especially the 2 boys interestingly enough are really drawn to him.

At this stage "my" food is still being ignored by the puppies, although I have tried really hard to make them some special treats. Everything from goat's milk yoghurt to rabbit mince and most things you can think off in between, but everything has been more or less politely declined so far.

I have so enjoyed the early baby days of these puppies, but I am also looking forward to the fun times ahead of us. The "training plan" has been worked out and I will need a lot of time to get everything done and not neglect my other K9s in the process.

Till the next update (which will be some videos taken a few days ago and pictures)