3 weeks old

-->The 3rd week of the puppies' lives is an eventful one.  At around 2 weeks they open their eyes and ears and start to take in the world.  Shortly thereafter the fun begins with playing, as they see each other and their mum.  They can also hear and so they amuse themselves (and us) with their barking and growling.

They also heave themselves to their feet during this week and start to walk around.  These 3 puppies were a teeny bit slow to get to their feet - particularly Kuu, who is enormous and I feared would be quite happy dragging himself around on his belly for perpetuity.  However, even Kuu eventually got to his feet and by the time they are 3 weeks old they are lurching around the box and occasionally pouncing ... ok, the pouncing might be by accident rather than design, to be fair.

For the first time ever, we have had one of the puppies punching with her front paws the way that Tuuli does.  Lots of Tuuli's kids do the double-front-paw-paw, but we've never seen one do it this early.    I hereby predict that Tähti is definitely going to be a puncher.

And because I know there are one or two very excited people who are impatient to see how the puppies are developing, without further ado, here are the puppies today, on their 3-week birthday.

Little Arvo

Tähti

Kuu

And just to prove that the puppies are big, heavy and growing fast, here are the weight charts showing their development since birth and, just for fun, a chart showing the relative average weights of each litter.  I remember that Jay & I were both ill for a lot of the time the Mailat puppies were with us, and unfortunately it seems I didn't even weigh them each week, so there's not much info about them in the comparison.

Before anyone asks, no, none of these weights mean anything or even really matter.  It's all just for fun.  Puppy size seems to bear very little relevance to adult size, and average litter weights is not a competition.  However, I didn't expect any litter to ever "beat" the Tuisku gang, thanks to Usko.  But did that behemoth of a puppy grow into a bruiser of an adult?  Nope.

Click to see larger size