We really enjoy our time with the puppies from birth up until the day that they met their new mommies and daddies. We spend a large amount of time working with the puppies to ensure that they are the best possible puppy that we can make them. The plan is that the better the puppy the better the dog will be. The first step to helping a puppy develop is to know what they are going through with each stage.

 

• Week 1 (1-7): This is the week when they are most delicate. This week the puppies are mostly immobile. Learning scents of mother are extremely important. We focus on helping mom stay by puppies to nurture, feed, and ensure warmth. This is the neonatal period.

• Week 2 (8-14): This week is also part of the neonatal period and the puppies are still trying to just eat and stay warm. They are still unable to see. Week two is when we begin to spend a large amount of time handling the puppies to allow the puppies to get our scent and begin trusting someone other than mommy.

• Week 3 (15-21): This week begins the transitional period. The puppies eyes and ears will begin to open. The eyes will be blue, but in most cases will eventually change. The puppies will begin wagging their tail and may even begin noticing their litter mates. Canine socialization begins to become important. This week is when they are starting to learn that they are a dog. This week we will begin to observe the puppies specific behaviors with their litter mates and encourage them to socialize. We will take a couple puppies at a time and have them play with different litter mates. This will help them come close to each one and learn to interact with the different personalities of the different litter mates. 

• Week 4 (22- 28): This is the awareness stage. Puppies eyes and ears are now functional. This can be a hard stage for the puppy becasue things can seem frightening, but it is the perfect time to start exposing them to different sounds and sites. Seeing different environments and being introduced to many sounds early will help with nervousness in the future. We stimulate their site and hearing by allowing the puppies to be in each room of the house. We also place them close by the television which allows them to hear many different sounds. We have special cds of sounds such as water, cars, sounds that the dogs may hear in the future in the city, etc. We have kids that run throughout the house so the puppies hear the voices of children. The puppies are also able to walk well at this point. We will begin to introduce the puppies to other soft alternative foods.   

• Week 5 (29-35): Canine socialization is a continued importance through this stage. We will encourage the puppies to play with litter mates and our other dogs. The puppies will also be spending time with other people and our other animals such as the cat and the ferrets. We will begin to take them outside to let them explore.

• Week 6 (36-42): Continuing different socialization techniques will be done. Week 6 the puppies have developed and will be able to learn manners. During week six we will work on sitting on command.

• Week 7 (43-49): Human socialization socialization is extremely important for this time period becasue they only have two more weeks until they are introduced to their new mommies and daddies. We will allow friends and family to spend large amounts of time with the puppies. We will also continue our time that we spend with the puppies while we work on laying down on command.

• Week 8 (50- 56): Fear imprint period is a stressful period for puppy. The puppies are easily scared. This time period is when the puppy is most vulnerable; any negative events that occur during this time will effect the puppies personality throughout life. This is the same for positive events. We must be extremely careful about how we treat our puppies and what they experience. This is why we pick our families carefully. A bad owner makes a bad dog. With all that the puppies are exposed to prior to this period the puppies should be extremely hard to be negatively imprinted on. During this week we will be working on the stay command.