Golden Retriever Pups at 4 Weeks: Milestones & Care Tips

I hope you’re still following the eight week journey of our Golden Retriever puppies.

If not, and this is your first time to the site you’ll probably want to take a look back at Week 1 , Week 2, and Week 3.

On to week #4!

Here’s what happens with a litter of Golden Retriever pups in week 4:

Golden Retriever Pups Week 4

All the weeks we spent with our six little Golden pups were a joy, but week 4 just might be my favorite.

Puppies are adorably cute at 4 weeks and they are interacting and starting to show personality.

Meanwhile Raven was still being a good mama and cleaning up the poop and pee messes and generally keeping a tidy whelping box.

If you want to see the puppies in action we shot all the video in this sponsored video for the Carlson Portable Pet Pen during week 4 (except for the clips of Bear at 5 months old):

See what I mean about adorably cute!

One of the most important things is to make sure all the puppies are gaining weight.

For 8 weeks I weighed all 6 puppies once a day.

Here’s the Day 22 weight chart:

PuppyShave MarkColorWeight (Day 22)Liberty (Berlin)Right Back LegGreen3 lb 12.5 ozTank (Bear)Left Back LegBlack4 lb 2.5 ozTrooper (Buster)Right ShoulderRed3 lb 8 ozPatriotLeft ShoulderBlue4 lb 4 ozSpiritLower BackPink4 lb 3.5 ozGunnerUpper BackBrown3 lb 13 oz

Our chunky Tank got passed up by Patriot and Spirit!  Meanwhile Trooper dropped to the back of the pack.

All pups were gaining weight everyday which was a good sign.

I forgot to mention that before Raven had her puppies we looked for a small scale to weigh the puppies.

Most of the scales we came across had a 10 lb limit.

We knew that the puppies would likely exceed 10 lbs before we sent them off to their forever homes so we researched and found a baby scale that we figured we’d be able to use when Emma arrived.

We purchased this baby toddler scale and it worked great with all our puppies.

We’re now using it to track Emma’s weight and since it has a 45 pound capacity she’ll have to share with any new litters. 🙂

Golden Puppies Week #4 Highlights

Day 22 – Nail Clipping

Puppy nails/claws get sharp in a hurry.

I started clipping nails once a week with regular human nail clippers.

When cutting nails I only cut to the part where the nail starts to curve.

The puppies all did well during nail trimming sessions and it also gave me a chance to handle all four paws getting the pups used to relaxing with humans.

Day 26 – Walking On New Surfaces

Now that the puppies were stable and walking more normal I started introducing them to new surfaces.

We were able to get them out on the dirt, grass and concrete in the backyard.

The little guys are a bit cautious as it’s much different then walking on the safe confines of the whelping mat, but eventually they forgot about the surface, played, and explored.

We also start introducing our pups to the crate and start working on teaching them calm behavior while in the crate.

Day 27 – Solid Food…Kinda…

This was the first day I introduced solid food.

It’s actually very funny because the puppies have no idea what it is until they eventually shove their faces in the mush.

I took their regular puppy kibble, soaked it in hot water for 10 minutes, and smashed it up into a mush.

Like I said the puppies really don’t know what’s going on until eventually their nose hits the mush and they start chomping away.

One of the early problems is making sure everyone gets an equal (or close to) amount of food.

We allowed the puppies to eat their solid food and still nurse throughout the day.

We didn’t start weaning the puppies until around week 6.

Just in case you were wondering we fed our puppies Wellness Core Natural Grain Free Puppy Food.

Why Wellness Core Grain Free Puppy Formula?

We feed the older dogs Wellness Core Grain Free Original Formula so we figured the transition from the puppy formula to the original formula would be easier on the pups when the time came to move away from puppy food.

Okay guys and gals that’s a wrap!

Golden Retriever pups week #4 is in the books!

Check out our other Golden Retriever puppy growth week by week blog posts:

• Week 1 – Six Golden Retriever puppies are born!
• Week 2 – Pups eyes are opening starting to waddle.
• Week 3 – First bark! Good or Bad…Adorable 🙂
• Week 4 – This is Week 4!
• Week 5 – Puppies love car rides…in the laundry basket 🙂
• Week 6 – Fluffy, cute, adorable…that’s a 6 week old puppy!
• Week 7 – The great puppy escape artists!
• Week 8 – Our golden puppies head to their new homes.

So tell us a little about your experiences.

Have you ever had the chance to raise a litter or meet a 4 week old puppy?

Tell us about your experiences in the comment section below.

Are you expecting a litter of Golden Retriever puppies? If so, you should check out Puppy Culture DVD and Workbook to help you get started.

Did you just bring home an adorable 8 week old Golden Retriever puppy? If so, Puppies for Dummies is a great book that will give you the basics on how to raise and train your new puppy.

If you’re preparing for a litter of puppies you might want to check out our whelping checklist and make sure you have everything you need before your puppies arrive.

Top Picks For Our Puppies

1. BEST PUPPY TOY
   We Like: Snuggle Puppy w/ Heart Beat & Heat Pack - Perfect for new puppies. We get all of our Service Dog pups a Snuggle Puppy.
2. BEST DOG CHEW
   We Like: Best Bully Sticks - All of our puppies love to bite, nip, and chew. We love using Bully Sticks to help divert these unwanted behaviors.
3. BEST DOG TREATS
   We Like: Wellness Soft Puppy Bites - One of our favorite treats for training our service dog puppies.
4. BEST FRESH DOG FOOD
   We Like: The Farmer's Dog - A couple months ago we started feeding Raven fresh dog food and she loves it! Get 50% off your first order of The Farmer's Dog.

Check out more of our favorites on our New Puppy Checklist.