Early Neurological Stimulation (ENS) Exercises (day3 to day 16)
We have now finished our ENS exercises with both litters. While raising our puppies, I want to do everything possible to produce Healthy, Calm, Confident, Well-Adjusted Puppies. During the ENS exercise the puppies experience tiny struggles and stresses. These stresses in small doses are good for puppies and the benefits include greater tolerance to stress, greater resistance to disease, faster adrenal system, stronger heart rate and stronger heartbeat. This will help our puppies grow into strong, healthy, well-adjusted adults.
Transitional Period Day 14 – 21
Ellie and Willow continue to take wonderful care of their puppies and they continue to grow stronger with each passing day. The puppies are now in the Transitional Period. The transitional period begins when the puppy’s eyes open and ends when they first startle upon hearing sounds. The puppies are becoming more aware of their littermates but still sleep most of the time.
Although the puppies still spend most of their time eating and sleeping, they are now awake for short periods of time. During their awake time, they are now beginning to interact with their littermates. The puppies are also vocalizing. I was able to take the videos below during the puppies awake time. As you can hear, they are quite noisy – I was talking during the video but not loud enough (sorry) LOL!
Wow, four weeks old already – this week our singleton puppy has progressed so much. Echo continues to be an amazing mama, loving and caring for her baby. This past week has been a busy one. Echo’s puppy moved to the main floor, her milk teeth erupted, and she is beginning to learn to use the potty area. Echo’s puppy’s hind legs have become much stronger, and her walking has greatly improved. The puppy is vocalizing more and can now bark and growl . Although the puppy still sleeps much of her time, she spends longer periods awake socializing with her mama Echo, our dog nanny Maui, and her many stuffies through play. She also has lots of attention from our family – both canine and humans including my grandchildren who love to play with the puppy.
Critical Socialization Period
Echo’s puppy is now in the Critical Socialization Period. We raise our puppies using Puppy Culture protocols. Socializing puppies by exposing them to as many new experiences as possible while the puppy is young is only part of the process of Socialization. Our goal is to raise dogs that have the emotional intelligence to connect with you. Emotional intelligence can be taught to young puppies and is one of the goals of the Puppy Culture Program. (For more details, see Puppy Culture Page )
Moving To The Main Floor
Since birth the puppy has only know the cozy quiet space inside the whelping box in my bedroom. The main floor is very different so, I like to expose our puppies gradually for a few days before the big move. On Friday we took the puppy for a short period of time to the main floor for some exercise.
Basket Challenge
Just as physical exercise builds strong muscles, challenging puppies works on building the brain. This basket challenged the puppy to get out of the basket to get to her mama Echo. The puppy was a little timid at first, but she finally made it out to her mama.
Having the puppy area on the main floor exposes the puppy to many different household sounds. Not only is Echo’s puppy exposed to the normal sounds of a busy household, because we are in the middle of a basement renovation means a bonus of lots of different building noises for the puppy to become accustomed to.
On Monday we moved the puppy to the main floor of our house. This is when Potty Training begins. We have started with a potty pad at the far end of the enclosure. Teaching a singleton puppy will defiantly be less work than potty training a normal size litter. I corrected the puppy one time and showed her where to go potty. Many times, throughout the day, I observed her going over to the potty area on her own when she needed to go – what a smart girl! I’m sure she will have her “accidents”, but we are off to a great start!!!
Main Floor Puppy Enclosure
Stuffie Wrestling
The puppy loves her stuffies. Without littermates to interact with we use the stuffies for our singleton puppy to wrestle with.
Puppy At Play
This video shows how much more mobile the puppy has become. Watch how gentle she is giving my grandson kisses.
LOOKING AHEAD TO WEEK FIVE
Puppy’s awake time will increase
Puppy will continue to socialize with both human and canines
Puppy’s balance will continue to improve progressing towards running
Puppy will continue learning to use potty area
Puppy will start on solid foods as weaning gradually begins
Mama will now add the invaluable teaching phase to her caring & protecting responsibilities over the next weeks.
Ellie is a wonderful mama. She knows just what to do to take care of her babies. She loves her puppies and still stays to cuddle with them after they have nursed. Their eyes are completely opened, and their ears are now open. Ellie’s puppies are in the “Critical Socialization Period”.
Exercise is important for puppies to build strong bodies but, puppies must also be challenged to build strong minds. Yesterday we gave Ellie’s puppies a little challenge to build their brains! I put them in a basket, and they had to find their way out to their mama. They worked so hard some of their bows were coming undone LOL! Watch to see how each puppy did in the basket challenge – so cute!
Basket Challenge
VIDEO: Watch Ellie’s adorable three week old puppies – Eat, Play, Sleep!
LOOKING AHEAD TO WEEK FOUR
Puppies will still sleep most of their day as they continue to grow rapidly
Puppies will play with each other and begin developing important social skills
Puppies hind legs will continue to become stronger as they walk more
Hearing will improve
Puppy milk teeth will begin to erupt
Puppies will be moving to the main floor sometime during the week
Willow’s Puppies
Puppies start on solids
We usually start weaning puppies at four weeks of age when we introduce solids. Willow is a mama that has her own mind and didn’t follow my regular schedule that my previous mamas did. She let me know that it was time to wean her puppies by regurgitating her food for her puppies to eat – This is instinct! It helps the mama wean and her milk gradually dry up by reducing her food intake”
We decided that since Willow has already started weaning her puppies, we would introduce solids on Friday. I grind puppy kibble in my blender with water and puppy formula to make a soupy mixture. We will gradually make this mixture thicker as we progress towards dry kibble.
VIDEO: Watch Willows puppies learning to eat solids
It took some of the puppies awhile to eat but, they did a good job eating their “puppy soup” Willow kept a watchful eye behind the gate to watch as her puppies ate. When they were finished eating, I let Willow in, and she ate the remaining food. The puppies finished off their meal with a little of mama’s milk and then went back to their whelping box for a long nap.
Our adorable puppies are now three weeks old and oh how they have grown! This week the puppies have been progressing rapidly. Their eyes are fully opened, and vision is improving. Their ears have opened, and they have now entered the “Critical Socialization Period. The puppies’ hind legs have become much stronger and they have been practicing walking on all fours. They are much more aware of their surroundings and have begun to play with each other. The puppies continue to sleep much of the time as they develop.
Willow ‘s a great first-time mama. She is doing a wonderful job feeding her babies, protecting, and keeping them clean. Willow now spends much of her time away from the whelping box and comes back to check on her puppies throughout the day. Willow insists on cleaning her puppies’ in-between feedings. She goes into the whelping box to clean sleeping puppies. The puppies wake and think it is time to eat. After Willow finishes cleaning, she heads back out and the puppies are left whining their protest. Willow’s puppies are always ready to eat but, now that they are bigger, they are fed with less frequency and their milk intake at each feeding is much greater! Not to worry, the pups are getting more than enough of mama’s milk; they are growing like weeds!
The puppies cuddle with Willow after nursing.
LOOKING AHEAD TO WEEK FOUR
Puppies will still sleep most of their day as they continue to grow rapidly
Puppies will play with each other and begin developing important social skills
Puppies hind legs will continue to become stronger as they walk more
Hearing will improve
Puppy milk teeth will begin to erupt
Puppies will be moving to the main floor sometime during the week
Ellie’s Puppies – Day 15
Ellie’s puppies are becoming more mobile with that cute wobbly puppy walk as they practice walking on all fours. They have also learned to climb. We have found a couple puppies climbing our of the whelping box so, time to add a door panel to out entrance to keep Ellie’s precious babies safe.
Magenta Girl……Going…….
Going……..
Gone!
Watch the puppies walking and listen to them vocalizing
Ellie’s puppies are doing well and steadily gaining weight. They are in the Neonatal Period and spend all their time eating and sleeping. Ellie fed the puppies and then I removed them from the whelping box. When I returned them, I took a video of them. Some puppies went to sleep as soon as I transferred them…..others took a little while to settle. 🐾
Ten days old puppies still just eat and sleep.
Willow’s Puppies
All Willow’s puppies now have their eyes open, and they look adorable. They cannot see well yet, but their vision will steadily improve. Their ears will soon be opened. Willow’s babies are growing up! She is doing a great job feeding them and the puppies have been steadily gaining weight. We will now weigh them weekly.
Black Collar BoyBlue Collar BoyOrange Collar BoyRed Collar BoyMagenta Collar GirlGreen Collar GirlWillow’s Puppies Two Week Singles
The puppies are in the “Transitional Period” which lasts up to seven days. They are transitioning – Leaving Neonatal Period but not yet in the Critical Socialization Period. The puppies’ ears open during this period – the first sign of the puppies startling at sound is when the next period begins.
Willow’s puppies have started to vocalize, are now more aware of their littermates, and have begun to play. They still sleep most of the time but this morning I was able to catch them awake and interacting with each other – too cute! 💕
We have had a busy weekend at L.A. Doodles getting five more puppies ready for their forever families. Tomorrow, Ruska’s last puppy is headed home with his forever family. As you can image, it has been much quieter in the morning with only seven puppies to greet me. Ellie’s puppies love to run outside and play together. I tried to capture some of their playtime in the video’s below. Enjoy!
VIDEO – We have a very large spruce tree in our yard that all our litters of puppies have loved to hide under and wrestle there. How many puppies can you see under the tree in this video?Go
VIDEO – The puppies love playing with each other outdoors. Watch a game of “tug-of-war” between some of the puppies
VIDEO – The puppies play in my grandchildren’s playground. The black fabric you see on the ground is the weed barrier that we laid under the playground mulch. Some of the puppies discovered it and tried to pull it up! We will have to fix it after the puppies have gone to their forever homes. Puppies are curious about everything! LOL
The puppies love their outdoor play time with each other. They are learning what is acceptable play when wrestling with each other. If they bite the other puppy too hard, the puppy gives a sharp high pitch yelp to let the other puppy know “that hurts”
We are teaching the puppies the difference between “Puppy Kisses” and “Puppy Nips” Puppies have sharp teeth and they hurt! The puppies are beginning to learn the difference; some puppies are more consistent than others but they are all making progress in this area.
Ellie and our other dogs are continuing to teach the puppies to submit. You can see in the last two pictures below, Ellie is teaching one of her pups – Blue Collar Boy. He is in the submit position (laying on their back). They are suppose to stay in this position until mama walks away. This puppy stayed – Good Puppy!
Tired puppies taking a rest from all that exercise
Ruska’s puppies are seven weeks old today. The saying “An active puppy is a healthy puppy” makes these puppies very healthy. They are all over the yard exploring every corner. It is a two person job to keep track of them. I put them into the puppy enclosure (as you can see in the picture above) to give them a safe place to settle down and rest. They were not too please to be confined in the outdoors but, it is a good learning experience to teach them to calm down. Puppies have now made the transition to eating dry kibble puppy food today.
Some of my grandchildren came by for a visit and photo’s with our puppies
LOOKING AHEAD TO WEEK EIGHT
Puppies will continue exploring and playing together outdoor as weather permits
Puppies will continue learning from their mama Ruska, and the rest of our dogs Ellie, Brinkley, and Willow
Puppies will continue learning as the play with their litter-mates
We will continue to encourage puppies to use potty area
Puppies will visit the vet for their check-ups, immunizations and micro chips
Puppies will continue to get lots of cuddle time
Puppies will start to leave for their forever families at eight weeks.
Ellie’s Puppies
One of my favourite time in puppy breeding, is when I introduce our puppies to their forever families. We are looking forward to meeting them at Ellie’s puppy selection/visitation day this weekend. Until you meet your puppy in person, enjoy watching these adorable puppies play with Willow in the video below.
