Although the whelping box is beginning to look a little crowded in this photo, you're only seeing one end of it, the part where Keeper nurses her babies. There is another section of the whelping box where the pups can walk around and play with one another, and there is a doorway that Keeper comes and goes from as she pleases, but it has a barrier so the pups can't climb out.

The puppies are now in the Toddler Stage where they venture into the surrounding environment. While playing, they practice different body postures, learning what the postures mean and how they affect their mother and litter mates. This is the age that all puppies learn what it is like to bite and be bitten, what barking and other vocalizations mean and how to make and use them to establish social relationships with each other. Such learning and activity tempers their own biting and vocalizing.

Nanci and her son Corbin spend time with each puppy, away from the litter for a little while every day, cuddling and handling the babies and allowing them the explore various surfaces in their home.