Uta is now residing in Wisconsin

We were planning to keep one of female puppies from Sky and Mielikki's litter for ourselves. Four weeks ago when Cheri Faust was visiting us, we saw a deep connection and quick attraction between her and Uta, the smallest puppy in the litter. So I offered Cheri a co-ownership of Uta with me keeping breeding rights, and she liked the idea. Last weekend Cheri was back breeding Danika to Sky, and we had a chance to see Uta again. She was still the smallest and probably the feistiest puppy, with a lot of potential. Good luck Cheri with the puppy!

 

Uma has left for a new home

Good luck to Matt, his fiance Emile and their new puppy Uma, now "Heidi"! Matt and Emile live in Ithaca, NY, just 3 hours from us. Matt is a licensed tracker and a member of Deer Search of Finger Lakes. Emile is going to take a NYS DEC exam in August. Both are hunters. Matt is involved in two deer management programs in suburban areas. Could we have dreamed of a better home for our puppy? Being able to place our puppies with people who are dedicated to the cause of wounded deer recovery makes all the work worthwhile.

 If a new owner has a car like this one, you know that your puppy is going to be in right hands.

Uma's conformation reminds me of Mielikki when she was a young puppy.

The remaining four puppies will stay with us for the next two weeks. It should be a lot of fun! Last evening they tracked a two-hour-old blood line on a light tracking leash. Two puppies scored 10 on a scale of 0-10 (10 is the highest) and the other two got 9. We couldn't be happier with the pups. Today we started to walk them on a leash and they did well.

10th week in the life of puppies

During the tenth week of pups' life we have continued to work with puppies on tracking. We also took walks in the woods, fields and to the pond.

Puppies were not bothered by the noise of the tractor working nearby.

We exposed pups to unfamiliar situations and objects to observe their response.

On Friday, July 19, Uncas (red male) left for his new home. We are going to miss this lovely puppy, but luckily occasionally we will get to see him as he is going to live not too far from the MD field trials grounds.

Uncas' calling name is going to be Moose, just like his grandsire's.

Uncas' new owner Adam H. is going to give him a lot of opportunities to use his nose. We are very excited about this future tracking team. Best of luck Adam and Moose!

Puppies will start leaving for their new homes at the end of this week

Puppies are 9 weeks now, and as it turned out today's 50-yard liver drag was too easy for them. Now we need to age the tracks more and make them longer. Puppies continue to go on walks around our property, in the woods and fields. They become more independent and their range gets larger with every day. Also almost every day they spend a couple of hours in crates getting a nap. Mielikki has access to pups a couple of times a day, but the weaning process has been completed and she does not produce any more milk.

When we have our own meals we bring one puppy to our kitchen so we can spend some time with pups one-on-one basis. We are learning about pups' tendencies and their personalities. So far we are very impressed with all the pups, and it is going to be very hard to part with them. At the end of this week a couple of pups will leave for their new home.

Uncas

Utah

With our field mowed now, it might be difficult to keep all the pups together on our walks. Their noses might take them in various directions.

Video of eight-week-old puppies having fun in the pond

First walk in the woods for Mielikki's puppies

This is a short video shot yesterday during puppies' first walk in the woods. They did very well. Their motivation to follow Mielikki was very high as they wanted to get a drink of her milk. On purpose we took them through some difficult terrain so they had to do some physical and mental work. As you see, we don't baby our puppies. We expect them to be resourceful and resilient. Even Uta, who is still the smallest puppy in the litter, showed how tough and smart she is.



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' first taste of deer liver

Puppies' personalities start to emerge

We have been spending a lot of time with puppies. Watching them is good for my soul. In this world filled with tragedy and sad news, this is the best therapy you can have!

Yesterday puppies went for their first car drive. Also they spent their first night outside in our shed. They basically outgrew my den, and this time we have avoided setting up a pen filled with wood chips. Now, almost at six weeks they are ready for a more advanced set up, which was described here. One of the dog houses in the shed is heated and we turned the heat on as last night temperature dipped to low 40s. Around midnight Mielikki insisted that she needed to be with them so we let her do it. As it turned out she chewed off one of the puppy collars so I don't think we will let her spend another night with them. She continues to be just an extraordinary mom and still insists on cleaning them. Their diet now is part solid food and part Mielikki.

Another day, another playmate.

Uschi is an adorable puppy with a really easy going and quiet personality (at least so far). She is going to have the softest coat of all the pups.

Uma seems to be the most enterprising puppy in this litter and has a knack for getting into trouble! Some of her adventures are a little scary but she does not seem to be affected by any of it.

Uta is the smallest pup but she might be the biggest bully, at least this is what I have been told by some people who have played with the pups. Yesterday she had Urho, the largest pup, on his back and was not letting go. When she wants to be picked up she just comes to you and lets you know - pick me up NOW! What a character!

Playing on the tarp was fun. Pups did not hesitate to explore.

Coming back from a walk. Tired puppies are good puppies.

New experiences for the rapidly developing puppies

We are in the middle of puppies' 6th week of life. This is when they experience many situations and things for the first time. Actually they crave new experiences and we are happy to oblige.

Puppies now have "regular" collars and these are their colors:
Urho blue
Uncas red
Ursula dark green
Uta lime
Uma beige
Uschi pink
Utah orange

Now they are very mobile and can move pretty fast. They love to explore outside their pen.

We make sure that they are handled by various people and have a busy social life. In the last three days they played with three different people. The two pics show our friend Steve, who lives 20 minutes from us. He has mini wires and knows very well how to talk to dogs.

To release puppies' prey drive we started them on a drag of old deer hide. It was a very stinky piece and puppies loved the smell. They followed it with gusto, licked and bit it and tried to shake it. So far they have showed good instincts.

Puppies were also exposed to the shallow water. They were curious about it and investigated it.

We really like what we see in the pups. They are outgoing and intelligent, nose oriented. They will be staying here for five more weeks and will get to know them better on the individual basis. Their personalities start to emerge, that's for sure.

Video of Mielikki's five-week-old puppies

Apparently we have gotten ten inches of rain in the last couple of weeks. Well, it was raining today again. As you can see in the video puppies had a lot of fun in our kitchen/dining area. The background music was entertaining and included some rain forest birds.

We started to supplement pups with some extra food, but Mielikki still insists on cleaning them. I have never seen such a clean freak canine mom! Also, she loves to play with her pups, and she started to let them know that some toys such as her ball are off-limits. But she does it gently and never growls or snaps at the pups.