Do They Understand EVERY WORD I SAY???

Two days ago I told my husband that these were such GOOD puppies. That they kept the whelping box relatively clean. It was easy to do the daily cleanup. Sweep, mop and done. Unlike past litters that required intensive scrubbing of the floor after having puppies dump the litter out of the litter box, liberally mix with water (The litter is paper based and it disintegrates to a paste like mush in water) and then mash into the floor. Do all this at 2 AM so it's dry and stuck to the floor like glue by morning.

So the next morning I go in to remove the remains of their breakfast and I find this:


Worst mess ANY puppies have ever made.

So then silly me, yesterday I say that they are such smart puppies! Once Sam got the hang of what the litter box was for, we have had NO accidents on the floor at all. Since saying that, we have had three "incidents" where the puppy was apparently attempting to go IN the box but sort of missed and had it go OVER the edge.

I'll spare you pictures of that.

In all seriousness these have been very good puppies. I wonder if most people realize how much work it really is to keep them clean and happy. When they were younger I had to do a complete change of the bedding at least once a day. This involved massive amounts of laundry.

Once they were off bedding it means sweeping and mopping the floor of their pen at least once a day. Constant monitoring of the litter box to remove waste (since yes, the do play in the box - God knows why....)

Increased laundry to wash toys and ice pack covers.

Changing of the ice packs on hot days every 2 hours.

And OF COURSE I need to make the time to play with them several times a day. What a hardship.

But is is all so worth it when you look at their cute little faces.