Three weeks old and all kinds of stuff is happening in the Puppy Nursery.
This is the first in a series of sound habituations that expose 3-4 week old puppies to sounds that are known to cause anxiety in dogs later in life. Exposure to these sounds during this crucial 3-4 week period (and then continued periodically during the next several weeks) significantly the maturing pup avoid anxiety during these events as it matures. FYI: Not an actual window, just a big screen with YouTuBe channel .
Sound Habituation continues with young 3 weeks puppies to habituate them to sounds that tend to cause anxiety in dogs. This early exposure does have significant results in diminishing this type of anxiety for dogs as they mature. Today is an introduction to Fireworks played on a large screen TV. It starts at a low volume. If puppies show no fright or stress, then volume is increased slightly. This is played for about 1 hour 2x a day. Volume then increased tomorrow.Expanded Puppy Pen includes low ramp and extended potty areaYellow boy and Lime girl using new potty areaFirst experience with Puppy food gruelYummy Gruel
We also have been exposing puppies to loud sudden sounds to test their “startle & recovery” response.(Hopefully, I can remember to video when we do it tomorrow!) Each day, a new sudden loud sound is done 3x consecutively about twice a day (usually in morning and then after dinner). We started with just a loud hand clap, then a loud rattle of their pen, and today a wooden spoon against a pan. All our doing great. Some don’t even startle by the 2 or 3rd “bang”, and even when startled, all recover immediately and do not demonstrated any true fear and anxiety. This is a great sign!
We are half way to meeting the family who will love us for our forever! But in the meantime…there are new experiences every day and going outside was a definitely a new adventure!
Here’s the first photo shoot of Jake and Jazz’s babes. The photographer and her iPhone did their best, but even sleepy puppies still seem to move quite a bit! Names are based on the color ID collar they wear.
Blue Boy: Brittany Country’s Scree Rayo (Scree) Scree is living with his new dad, Darrick, on a family farm in Eastern Washington and is already learning to be an awesome hunter (getting his first practice as soon as he got to his new home on wild pigeons and already demonstrating a great fetch!). Darrick says,…
T Last weekend, we removed the whelping box and created a bigger area for Jazz and the pups. This not only allowed more room for Jazz to nurse her growing 11 babes, it allowed for the next steps in their development. The sleep area is half heated still with heating mats and the other half…
AND…..Can’t resist the cute sleeping puppies. Today is Day 15 of the Early Neuro Stimulation, with tomorrow being the last day of this series of NeoNatal exercise. We filmed Grey Boy going through the whole routine, but he is an example of how well all of them go through this series of stimuli with complete…
In this session we took each of the pups out individually. We are looking for their desire to “look around” and how well they respond to the chukar wing on a string and toy on a string. If you dangle something on a string in front of a puppy, he/she will want to play with…
