The seventh week in puppies' life

Tommy and Tuesday's puppies continue to develop well. They have had a very busy week. In the house they continue to sleep in their whelping box, which now is their bed. They go to bathroom in the large pen filled with wood chips. This setup males for easy cleaning. Tuesday decided that their teeth are too sharp now and stopped jumping into their pen. She loves her puppies and  she craves a close contact with them. She always wants to know where they are. But for now we are keeping them pretty much separated so she stops producing milk. 

The two pictures above show Tuesday watching her puppies while they are in their pen. The next one shows her trying to get away from the pups who still try to get a sip of milk.

During the day, when the weather allows, pups stay in a large pen outdoors. They have a variety of beds, a crate and a lot of toys there. We try to change them all the time so they do not get bored. Of course, they have each other and now they play hard.

We filled this shallow plastic and let the pups wet their feet in the water. Only Vonnie figured out quickly that if she grabs the string, she actually does not have to go all the way to get the ball. This is a the most adventurous and enterprising puppy.

We hang several toys from the tree branch above the pen, and the duck was the biggest hit.

The sweetest puppy in the litter is Vincent, who is very cuddly and affectionate.

Pups started to go for walks, and the picture below shows John who is trying to be very careful and not to step on any of them. They do have a real talent to get under our feet.

We also started to take pups for short rides. This picture was taken during their first short trip, and the pups were not impressed. Today (May 30) they were much better and more relaxed.

We also let pups regular contact with our adult dogs. This picture shows Tommy, who met them for the first time almost a week ago. He was very good with them. Even though he is a high energy dog, he adjusted his behavior and was very gentle with the pups.

Pups also met other males, Kunox and Bernie.

Puppies have learned recently about stairs and steps, and you can see a short video here.

During our meals pups are with us in the kitchen, and this picture shows them snoozing after their mid-morning snack of apples. Their diet is very diversified and includes raw mix of meat and veggies, goat milk, canned food and dry kibble.

They are agile and fast, and the next three weeks will be a lot of fun for us while we will continue working with them.

How we raise puppies to be successful blood tracking dogs

We have been so busy working with puppies that we have not had much time for posting reports about all the activities. Puppies turned seven weeks old on Friday, and they are a lot of fun. We usually manage to post individual pictures and videos on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/borntotrack

Puppies have been exploring a lot. They are showing interest in holes created by other dogs and they do some digging on their own.

The dachshund breed was first developed to hunt foxes and badgers in their dens under ground. This meant that they had to be psychologically comfortable in tight, dark  places. The video suggests that our little tracking dogs still think that it's fun to run though a dark tunnel.

We take pups on walks to the pond, but we have had a lot of rain and the water is deep. It is fine for Mielikki but pups have second thoughts about swimming.

We have been working pups on deer liver drags and we will post about it on our main blog at http://borntotracknews.blogspot.com/. Make sure you check it out.

The picture shows Ursula at the end of the track. We use large pieces of liver that cannot be swallowed. Liver contains a lot of vitamin A, which in excess is toxic, so while we use deer liver for training purposes we actually do not let pups ingest too much of it.

Puppies continue to be socialized with people. Our friend Dan dropped by on Sunday to play with them. This week pups are going to meet new people as our friends are coming over for the July 4 celebrations and are going to stay for a couple of days..

Today pups went to the woods for the first time, and they were learning how to navigate obstacles and difficult cover. We want them to be accustomed to the outdoors and be comfortable in the woods. After all they are going to be tracking dogs!

Puppies' socialization with other dogs

Puppies get some raw chicken necks now as part of their diet. Most of the pups have well developed teeth and given time they can crunch the necks up.

The pic below shows puppies with our Bernie. He is a 7.5 year-old neutered male, who helped raise a lot of litters. Bernie is perfect for this job and it is his role in the family. He is not as permissive as Mielikki (she lets pups get away with murder), but is also very stable and reliable. 

Pups had a really nice day today: socialization with adult dogs, a long walk in the field and individual work on a deer liver drag. We were really pleased with what we saw.

Puppies first outing to the pond

Puppies turned six weeks old on Friday. Their curiosity is expanding and they seek new experiences. Therefore, when on Sunday afternoon the temperature hit 93F, we decided to take puppies to the pond. We have never exposed pups to the water at such an early age. But Mielikki loves to swim and we thought she would have a good influence during their first outing to the pond. So we loaded pups into two crates and drove to the edge of the pond. It is not too far from our house, but it was too hot for them to walk such a distance. 

You can see from the video what happened next. Some pups were more ready for this new challenge than others; Uncas was a star of this show and swam like an otter. Mielikki was great; she swam a lot but also kept a close eye on her pups. What a great mother she has been.

After all the pups got wet, we let them run back to the house.

Puppies on their way back from the trip to the pond.

One might ask why we go into such a length and trouble to give our pups experiences like this one. We firmly believe that in the long run it is very beneficial for the pups to be challenged and offered enriched environment during this developmental stage. They will have better coping and social skills when they have to deal with mild stress. Puppies' rate of mental development depends on the complexity of their environment. We don't push our puppies too far, that's for sure, but it is really important to stimulate their brains and bodies at this stage.

On Saturday Mielikki and Sky visited pups in their pen attached to the shed. Pups still occasionally nurse and Mielikki is fine with this. So they mobbed her and pulled her down. Sky was just an observer!

Other things we are teaching pups include being accustomed to a crate. They have been familiar with crates for a long time, but now we bring them to the house and put a couple of pups to a crate. We let them stay there for a couple of hours. They protest for the first few minutes, but after that they just go to sleep.

A sigh of relief: checking pups' teeth

Now that pups are 6 weeks old, it was a huge relief to see that they do not miss any teeth and their bites are correct. Also both male puppies have their testicles down. We could not be happier with the breeding!

Puppies turn seven weeks old

Weights at seven weeks: Tarah - 5 lbs, Tuesday - 6 lbs, Theo - 6.5 lbs, Thor - 7 lbs. Males have both testicles, and pups have all their teeth.

Puppies interact with their older brother Sky

Tomorrow pups will be seven weeks old so we will weigh them. We started to feed them individually as some of them were getting too heavy. I suspect that especially Thor was getting more than his share of food. We feed them in crates, to which they need to get used to, but they are not too happy about it.

They met Sky today, who was very gentle with them. I was very impressed by Sky's manners around the pups. Well, after all he is the pup's older brother.

Pups spend their nights in the whelping box, which is attached to the pen with wood chips. During the day they come to the kitchen and dining area, when we are there. They also spend part of their day outside - in a puppy yard, which is attached to a shed. They go for walks, they socialize with visitors and our older dogs. And of course, we started them on liver drags.

Tarah is still the smallest. She is an extremely social puppy; quite vocal. She needs a lot of attention and interaction.

Sky is inspecting Thor, who submits completely.



Tuesday with Sky

Puppies socialize with Bernie

Puppies started to socialize with older dogs, and today it was Bernie's turn. He is so patient with them.

Thor is trying to nurse, but Bernie is not Paika. Bernie put a quick but gentle stop to the pup's foolishness.

Paika's puppies turn seven weeks old

Anybody who knows John and me well also knows that we don't go gaga over puppies. We both love the process of breeding and raising puppies, but as I said many times "being a cute and pretty puppy" is not good enough for our pups. 

Well... I have to admit that I have fallen completely in love with Paika and Moose's puppies. This is a good looking bunch - all their coats are perfect and it looks like our plan of mating Paika (who is homozygous for the F gene) to Moose (who is smooth out of wires and homozygous recessive ff) has worked very well. This is one of the most uniform litters we have ever had and all five puppies will have perfect wirehaired coats. Pups' heads are very nice and strong with good pigmentation of eyes. They have all their teeth, and the males have their testicles. No umbilical hernias. There is a range of dispositions here with the female being probably most feisty and yellow male most easy going. We will be learning a lot about the pups in the next few weeks. Today they went for an hour long ride  in the country.

Blue male won this standoff over the deer tail.

Blue male is the smallest and weighs 4 3/4 lbs at seven weeks.

Green male is 6 lbs.

Red male is 6 lbs too.

Red male

Pink female is 5 lbs

Green male

Yellow male is 5.5 lbs