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.

Time to get to work puppies!

Puppies' whelping box is located in my den, and now several times a day I take them out of it and let them explore their surroundings. Today we added some toys and a deer leg. Time to get to work puppies!

Early neurological stimulation - mild stress is good for puppies

Puppies are 11 days old today and they are still in the neonatal stage of development. This stage starts at birth and ends when puppies open their eyes well, usually when they are 13 days old. Today we could see that Oak's eyes cracked and they are half open!
At this stage puppies can't hear yet and obviously can't see well either. They stay close to Emma when they can. They can crawl but they are not up on their feet yet, and they can smell.


It has been proved that when pups are exposed to a mild stress at this stage, they will be able to better tolerate stress later in life. Also they will be able to learn faster and will be more outgoing. One has to be careful though and not to expose pups to too much stress.

Yesterday I cut pups nails so they do not scratch Emma, and they were very good about it. They are laid back pups, which do not mind to be handled.

Taking pups' weights daily is beneficial too as they are put in a shallow plastic container and are exposed to a different surface.

When I change pups' bedding I put pups in Emma's bed (photo to the left) or on the tile floor. The whelping box is in my office so several times a a day I get into the box and handle pups individually, stroking them, turning them on their backs or holding them in the upright position.







From now on we will have to be very careful with taking pictures and not to use a camera flash as pups' eyes are very sensitive at this stage.













You can read more about:

1. puppy development at http://www.nwk9.com/dehasse_pupdev.htm
2. developmental stages and socialization http://www.diamondsintheruff.com/DevelopmentalStages.html
3. early neurological stimulation http://www.breedingbetterdogs.com/achiever.html