Levitation and Spoiled Rotten Puppies

Anyone who knows Stoker well will tell you that leaping straight up into the air out of sheer joy is one of her favorite past-times. Her Mamma Chili has done this on a more minor scale for years and Cousin Rebel leaps on a scale equal to or greater than Stoker. Stoker's enthusiasm for leaping even inspired a bit of haiku:

Stoker
I launch myself up.
Surely I will fly if I
repeat enough times.

Today, Jan shared an observation with me: "the puppies are leapers like Stoker". Oh My! I wonder if those of you who are waiting for puppies know what you are getting yourselves into?!

The good news is that the puppies aren't ALWAYS wild, leaping little sharks. They do know how to settle down and relax, as documented in the following photos.

Jan missed the puppies when he was out of town this weekend and had to get a puppy fix when he got home. Here is Blue snuggling on the couch.


Not to be outdone by the puppies, Stoker had a nice visit with Jan too.

Tiger stretched out as looooonnnnnnnggggg as possible to get extra comfy for her nap.

Carnivores

In an appropriate follow-up to yesterday morning's "shark" post, here are some photos of Angel and Reef enjoying a beef rib bone. Reef isn't quite as piggy when it comes to food as the rest of the group, but he sure did enjoy this bit of recreational chewing.

Ouch!

It seems like when visitors are over, the pups are usually sleepy and sweet. I know some of you THINK you've seen how they are beginning to live up to their sharky litter names, but you have NO IDEA! Body armor is beginning to be a requirement when cleaning the papers in the puppy pen in the morning.

Snow Day

The pups got to experience snow for the first time. There was just barely enough snow to give them something new to explore.

Hammy and Angel wonder, "What IS this stuff?"

Blue says "Hey, someone put frosting on my toy!"

Tiger and Reef checkin' out the cold white stuff.

Got to keep movin' to stay warm.

Hammy checks out what is in the kennel run (nothing).

The Aftermath - Jan 27

Darlene and her friend Connie came to visit. I think the pups are up to a total of 29 people they have met now. I didn't take any photos while they were here, but I caught the aftermath.

Blue and Mako

The other four...

Friday Visitors & Outdoor Fun

Joan came to visit again today and she brought her sister Mara (sp?) and nephew Cal. Cal is only 8 months old and it was too cute to see the human and canine babies checking each other out. The puppies were quite sleepy for their company as they had their usual lunchtime burst of energy about an hour early today and had settled down for a nap by the time Joan arrived.

Angel and Reef were the only pups with enough "oomph" left to visit with company.

Within about 20 minutes of our visitors leaving, the puppies were up and on the run again, so I threw them out on the patio for some fresh air.

See outdoor photos in today's photoshow.

Sleepy Puppies

Tiger uses Momma Stoker as a pillow.

Sleepy Tiger

Sleepy Hammy

Lunch Time Ramblings

Having a litter of pups to care for and a full time job definately makes me feel like I am burning the candle at both ends. On top of that, I think I am trying to fend off the awful mid-winter cold that is making the rounds. Bottom line - I am TIRED!

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday when I work a substantial amount of daytime hours, I run home at Noon to feed Stoker and the pups. Thank goodness I work close to home! The last few days, even though it has been very cold, I've let the pups out onto the patio for a little lunchtime exercise. I've fed them lunch outside the last two days and they get right down to business polishing off their meal while I clean the puppy pen and make myself lunch. Then, while I eat lunch, they entertain me with their antics.

Today, Reef showed off his retrieving aptitude. First he made off with the tennis ball toy (a tennis ball with a canvas strap through it) that Granny Chili was playing with. Chili was trying to get me to throw it for her, but thats too dangerous with puppies afoot as she knocks them down in her rush to get the ball. She dropped it in front of me one too many times and Reef grabbed it and strutted around the patio with it for several minutes. Very cute! After that, he found an old paper towel roll insert that I had given the pups to play with and carried that around for a bit.

After I brought the pups back in the house, I missed a great photo opp. with Chili and Hammy. Hammy was sitting in the sunken living room and Chili was laying in the hallway above him. Apparently she thought his face needed washing and spent quite a few minutes carefully washing it while he stayed patiently in place putting up with the treatment. Chili has become more and more enamoured of the pups as they've gotten older. She does lots of play bowing, bouncing and barking, trying to get them to play. They are still a bit overwhelmed by their wild Granny, but are becoming bolder with her every day.

It's All About Family

Mako reminds me so much of his Daddy Kilo, especially in this pose. :-)

Uncle Decker and Angel take a nap together.

Decker can be a rambunctious boy, but he is very tolerant of the babies. I think this is Tiger that is using him as a jungle gym.

Hammy (top) and Blue sleeping paw to paw.

Socialization Period (5-16 weeks)

This period can be further broken down, but this was enough typing for tonight!

From an article by Kathryn Lanam:

According to a study done by Fox in 1975, puppies exposed to increasingly complex stimuli – “enrichment” – seek out complex environments, where “stimulus-poor puppies” are inhibited, fearful and look for less complex environments. Additionally the study determined that enriched puppies were dominant in the presence of stimulus-poor dogs. Dogs lacking proper stimuli were overexcitable, learned slower, and forgot easily later in life. A puppy raised in a deprived environment may compensate with self-destructive behaviors like coat chewing, licking, etc.

Socialization does two things to habituate the puppy. It reduces the number of things in the world that a puppy might be frightened of, and it continually provides the experience of first being afraid and then recovering. According to most behaviorists, bounce-back is one of the most valuable traits you can “teach” a dog. The more often the puppy recovers, the list of things/people/experiences that the puppy is not afraid of grows faster and faster. Pups must be exposed to a wide array of smells, textures, surfaces, sounds, vibrations, tastes and sights, including and especially a comprehensive variety of people.

The more chances a puppy has to be properly exposed to something new during the critical socialization periods, the less bothered it will be throughout the rest of it’s life when confronted by other new or frightening things.

Undersocialized dogs are shy, fearful, become defensive, discriminate threats inappropriately and may even bite out of fear. Dogs left alone for long periods of time and dogs that have constant human companionship are prone to separation anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Socialization requires creativity and is an ongoing process that should last the entire life of the dog and must occur during the critical period. There are many obstacles to properly socializing puppies – their owners work outside the home all day, dogs are unwelcome in many public places, owners avoid exposure to other dogs to reduce the risk of disease transmission, puppy classes and trainers are unavailable or not deemed necessary, the owner stops because either the older puppies are very outgoing or they are out of control. The list could go on and on, but there is no substitution for intensive and ongoing socialization for all puppies.

Visitors on the 20th & Goody Bag Loot

Sunday brought lots of visitors for the pups. Alice and Jim drove up from Eugene again and brought Alice's sister Susan with them this time. Nichole and Joe from Tualatin were back for another visit. The Hicks family came again too and brought a friend along with them. The pups enjoyed all the attention, as always.

I made a trip back to the Rose City dog show again today, because when I was there on Friday, the Nature's Logic representative had said he would see if he could give me a few free bags of dog food to send home with the babies. I was pretty excited, since I had just stopped by to get some brochures for the puppy's goody bags. Thanks to Nature's Logic, each of the pups will be taking a small bag of kibble (instead of a large ziploc as I had intended) and some treats home with them.

I've been sending some e-mails to some of my favorite manufacturers and have been promised samples of Europa Grain-Free Dog Food Mix, and Veg-To-Bowl for the goody bags too.

Puppy Party

A number of dog-loving friends were in town for the Rose City Classic dog show and we invited them to the house to visit and socialize with the puppies.

The pup's visitors included Chili's breeder Sandy Overton and her "auntie" Annie Herberholz (who owns Chili's half-sister Glory). Sandy brought some loot for the puppies going-home goody bags. Janet Boyd, a good friend I met while we were both running our PWDs in agility years ago, came with her friend Dorit (a Malamute breeder and fancier). Jessie (who owns Stoker's cousin Rebel), Martha (owns Stoker's cousin Sailor) CJ (a good friend who helps entertain Decker in obedience and agility) and Julie (getting one of the puppies), also came to visit.

Janet bartended and whipped up a couple of yummy batches of martinis (key lime for the first batch and cheery cheesecake for the second). Everyone helped hold pups while we trimmed toenails yet again. After a long wait (hmm, must read cooking directions better next time) we enjoyed our meal of lasagna, garlic bread and salad while the puppies snoozed.

Here is a photoshow of the party.

First Bath

Jan thought the babies were getting a bit smelly, so they had their first bath tonight. We cranked up the space heater in their bedroom and put some heated disks around for them to cuddle up to when bath time was over. Four of the six ran around for a bit, then curled up to sleep, but two (Blue and Hammerhead) were zooming around and wanting to play still so we brought them out into the living room for a romp.

The Rule of Sevens

As we noted in an earlier post, noted trainer Ian Dunbar believes that pups should have met 100 new people by the time they reach the age of 3 months. The pups have plans to meet lots of new people in the next month and should be well on their way to this goal when they go to their new homes. They've met a good number of people already and will meet a gaggle of puppy loving friends in town for the big dog show over for a lasagna feed on Saturday night to increase those numbers again.

Here is another "rule" and theory on additional considerations for puppy socialization:

THE RULE OF SEVENS ... TIPS ON PUPPY SOCIALIZATION

Pat Hastings, AKC judge and author of The Puppy Puzzle offers these hints for socializing very young puppies. Pat lives locally in Aloha, OR and will be performing the pup's structural evaluation.

By the time a puppy is 7 weeks old it should have:

• Been on 7 different surfaces, such as: carpet, concrete, wood, vinyl, grass, dirt, gravel, wood chips, newspaper, etc.
• Played with 7 different types of objects, such as: big balls, small balls, soft fabric toys, fuzzy balls, squeaky toys, metal items, wooden items, paper/cardboard items, milk/soda jugs, etc.
• Been in 7 different locations, including: front yard, backyard, basement, kitchen, car, garage, laundry room, bathroom, crate, kennel, etc.
• Been exposed to 7 challenges, such as: climbed a box, climbed off a box, gone through a tunnel, climbed up steps, climbed down steps, climbed over obstacles, played hide and seek, gone in and out of a doorway with a step, etc.
• Eaten from 7 different containers: metal, plastic, cardboard, paper, china, pie plate, frying pan, etc.
• Eaten in 7 different locations: crate, yard, kitchen, basement, laundry room, bedroom, x-pen, etc.
• Met and played with 7 new people, including children and the elderly.

Patio and Rocker Board photos

Mako and Hammerhead on the patio

Tiger in a tangle under the folding chairs

Reef

Tiger attacks a toy

Angel and Hammerhead on the rocker board

Blue on the rocker board

New Adventures

The pups had a brief jaunt on the back patio yesterday and will probably get another outing today. It is cold, but not raining, so we are trying to get them out there any time it is dry. Most of the pups took to the new surface and location like gang-busters, although a few of them were a bit worried. It could be that the less bold pups were in the middle of a nap when we decided to venture into the great outdoors, so it is nothing to worry about.

Reef fell into a little vent pocket next to the house and was quite surprised! As soon as I lifted him out he went trotting on his way none the worse for his startling adventure.

Several of the pups gathered under the legs of some folding chairs that are on the patio and took turns getting stuck in there. The pups that didn't panic and managed to extricate themselves got some good problem-solving practice from the experience.

Jan is in the middle of building a rocker board for the pups to play on and got the materials rough cut, but then discovered he needed a new jigsaw blade to finish the project. We'll take photos of this project when it is done.

Bigger Digs and Cozy Pups

Joan and Michael O'Reilly came to visit the pups at noon and spent a pleasant lunch break visiting with the babies.

The pups feasted on rabbit today and seemed to enjoy that as well as the quail that they ate yesterday.

The puppy packets will each have a grooming DVD in them, and the DVDs arrived in the mail today.

The pups had their nails clipped again in the PM and also got stacked photos taken. This was a good opportunity for them to spend a bit of time on the grooming table for the first time and they seemed to enjoy the little bits of cheese we used to bait them with. You can find those photos on the website on the pup's individual pages with their head shots.

Below is the same room that the pups have been in since the beginning, but opened up to give them more space. The sliding glass door took some getting used to, as they kept walking into it at first. At the bottom left of the photo, you can see a small airline kennel that Stoker can jump onto to get in and out of the area without the pups being able to escape. The new cardboard tunnel is to the right of the photo.


The pups like to sleep in the kennel. Jan got three photos in a row and apparently they are pretty squirmy in there, because I think they are in a different position in every single photo. Five puppies stuffed themselves into this tiny kennel!

Photos from 1/12 and 1/13

Reef

Six muffin cups, six puppies, seems logical....

Angel wears a float line boa...

Busy Day

I bought the purple dog bed as a present for Kilo on his 13th birthday. He always liked bolster beds and other beds that he could snuggle into. It seems appropriate that Kilo's kids are now getting to enjoy their Daddy's bed.

Lots of doggy related tasks to do today.

• Give Stoker a thorough brush out and haircut.
• Trim Chili's ears.
  
• Scoop poop and clean the kennel run. Fun!
  
• Clean spruce needles and debris off back patio. The next time it is warm and dry enough, the patio will be in good shape for outdoor puppy adventures.
• Go to Home Depot (need tarp to cover the bedroom carpet and a cardboard tunnel for the pups)

The pups had their first taste of "real" food today with the addition of some ground quail to their diet. All the babies dug into the new food with gusto and it seems to be agreeing with them.

Tiger was the first to escape the puppy area. She managed it on Saturday morning just before I left for work. I suspect she stood on one of her siblings and then scrambled her way up and out.

It seems Tiger is in adventure mode, because she was also the first pup to go all the way through the new cardboard tunnel.

The pack ended their day with a living room excursion and they kept Jan company for a bit while he watched TV.

Saturday Happenings

Some of the toys for the puppy's goody bags came in the mail today. How fun!

The registration forms from AKC also arrived in the mail today. We will be completing the registration forms and will pay the registration fee for each pup and submit forms for the entire litter once everyone has chosen their pup's registered name. With our last litter, the registrations were mailed to the AKC when the pups were around 11 weeks old and the last owner had chosen what name they wanted to use.

Suzanne had to work in the PM, but Jan hosted some puppy visitors. Julie Hicks came to visit again with Dana and Peri and one of Peri's friends. Jessi M., who works part time at Pup-A-Razzi came to see the babies too. So, two new people to add to the pup's list of people they have met.

Second Awareness/Identification Week (28-35 Days)

from article by Kathryn Lanam

During this week, play behavior becomes much more sophisticated, including growling, chasing, and "kill" games. Distance perception is much improved. Puppies should be eating real food well by now and most bitches and/or breeders will wean the litter.

Puppies need physical and mental challenges - things to move, chew on, climb on and carry and tug toys to share with littermates. Play helps develop the strength, agility, coordination and skills to function as an adult, whether a show dog, obedience of agility dog, hunting dog, herding dog or coursing hound. Puppies must develop the problem-solving ability and physical and mental skills to learn and excel at these adult activities. Research backs up the conclusion that puppies raised in environments lacking challenges are more likely to develop into fearful, less successful adults.

More time should be spent individually with each puppy, observing the puppy's behavior when taken to a strange place; putting them behind a barrier and watching them; and continually adding new objects and challenges for them while alone.

Behavioral characteristics will begin to be very different when the puppy is with its littermates than when it is by itself. Separating each puppy from the litter for increasingly longer periods of time will teach the puppy independence, prevent separation anxiety problems later in life and will encourage bonding and acceptance of humans.

More Photos from 1/9/08

"Taking the Bull By the Horns"
Well, technically Flossie is a cow, but it seemed cute at the time and Reef and Angel do have her by the horns...









We've been supplementing the pups with a little formula to take some of the milk production load off Stoker. Tiger cleans the bottom of the bowl.











What's up Tiger?


















We introduced the pups to raw meat for the first time tonight and gave them this chicken neck to investigate. They are too young and don't have the teeth or jaw strength to eat it yet, of course, but it is good exercise for them to try. Angel and Mako were particularly interested and spent quite some time gumming it.