IT STARTS WITH MOM
One of the things that Puppy Culture puts an emphasis on is making sure that the mother feels happy, loved, and safe during the pregnancy. We make sure that we are accommodating our pregnant females to the best of our ability, and we are very mindful of how much they are eating, drinking, and how much they are wanting to play. Mama dogs tend to get pretty needy! We make sure their needs are fulfilled.
Ensuring that mom is healthy is the best way to ensure that we are bringing healthy puppies into our breeding program, so we like to make sure that mom and puppies are getting the proper nutrition. Avoiding prenatal stress for the mother is very essential for the well being of the puppies. Having a stressed out mother can influence the puppies behavior and the way that their brain develops.
In Puppy Culture, it talks about stroking mothers' bellies during the last few days of pregnancy. They say that the puppies learn to respond to touch. If puppies learn to respond to touch while they are still in utero, they are often more docile once they have been born. They believe that the puppies will enjoy being handled more if touched through the mom's belly.
From First Breath...
Early Neurological Stimulation
When puppies are born, their eyes and ears are sealed shut for approximately the first two weeks of life. When the puppies are just three days old, we start something called Early Neurological Stimulation (ENS). This is a method of exposing puppies to short, controlled stressors, such as tickling their feet and toes for 5 seconds.
Long-Term Effects
The main benefit of ENS is building a tolerance to stressful things. They tend to be able to resist disease and have a better immune system, their adrenal system tends to work faster, and they will generally have a stronger heartrate and heartbeat. We do this until the puppies are 16 days old. Research has shown that this has such an impact that it can affect the rest of their adult life.
Early Housebreaking
At about 18 days, we start litter training our puppies. Puppies have the instinct to “keep their den clean” as Puppy Culture puts it. They will usually walk away from their bedding to urinate and defecate. This is the perfect time to start potty training and also begin the socialization process.
When we send our puppies home, we include a few small handfuls of their litter. Once you place this in your desired spot, your puppy will instinctively know to go potty there.
As the weeks go by...
3 weeks
At 3 weeks old, puppies become very social. Their eyes are opening and they can start to hear. They begin to react to our touch, and they begin getting excited to greet us. They start to play with each other and become very noisy! They have been started on solid foods, and are getting more efficient at eating every day!
By this time, the puppies should be very familiar with nail trims, because we've been clipping or filing them down since they were just over a week old.
We add a new toy or object to the puppies' pen every day, so that they can get familiar with several objects, textures, and toys. We like to build our puppies' confidence so that when they go to their forever homes they aren’t nervous of the things surrounding them, and they can just focus on bonding with their new owners.
4 weeks
At four weeks of age, we will teach several skills. All of these skills are super important for dogs as adults. We start teaching our puppies how to bounce back when they encounter something scary, which is super important to prevent reactive adult dogs.
We teach our puppies how to recover from fear, which is called the Startle Recovery Cycle. The more times we startle and they recover, the better they will recover from fear as adults. This helps to avoid aggression in adult dogs!
We also create obstacles for our puppies to have to go over/around. This helps to teach them to not give up, and it will build their confidence.
If weather permits, we may also start taking them outside to the backyard grass to play. When a puppy pees or poops outside, we throw a party! This encourages puppies to start using the outdoors as their preffered potty spot.
5-8 weeks
Teaching puppies a socially acceptable way to communicate is a great skill. This can help to create less frustration for puppies and their new owners. Animals having frustration is usually what leads to aggression, so it is so important to teach proper communication to puppies!
Puppy Culture uses something called the "communication trinity." At 4 weeks, puppies can start being conditioned to a training marker. We will use a training clicker to mark the puppies correct behavior. They then learn that when we click, they get a treat.
They will then learn how to offer good behaviors, such as making a small "awoo" in place of a bark and sitting instead of jumping up for attention. We will reward good behavior so that the puppy learns how to continue these behaviors. After this, the puppies will learn how to "ask for things." We have to teach them at this point that they need to sit and be patient instead of jump up and bite at their owners!
Once they go home
Puppy Culture helps us to teach our puppies so many useful skills in preparation for their forever homes.
By the time they are just 8 weeks old, your puppy will have good communication skills between humans and dogs, emotional stability, the ability to recover easily from fear and stress, basic housebreaking, an enriched environment, good health, and some new learned behaviors.
It's massively imprtant that these behaviors continue to be reinforced throughout their adult life, which means their future lies in your hands.