Day 12 A.M. & P.M.

Mary-Ann Sontag June 7, 2020

Puppies are well.

They all had pedicures again yesterday, Sage is recovering well from his abscess, and weight gain continues.

We have a new name on the Leaderboard for the Heavyweight Champion of the Whelping Box: Lupine!

Lupine says: Training for the title is hard work!

Lupine weighed 38.1 ounces this morning, narrowly beating out Sage (38.0 ounces); Clarkia is in third place at 37.75 ounces.

The puppies were eager to show off their walking skills this morning.

There is still a lot of tipping going on but you have take some falls to get good at anything — excellent life lesson from the Wildflowers: Just keep getting up.

Eyes continue to crack open more and more — this is Mariposa peeking out from a triple-decker puppy pile.

The mouthing behavior is increasing…

…and this signals ability/willingness to engage with the external world in new ways. You will start to see new things in the whelping box — it is an appropriate time to give them expanding experiences.

I take advantage of their willingness to engage by sitting in the whelping box (thank you, Lori, for the whelping box deluxe seat) and individually handle each puppy, letting them interact with me by sniffing, licking, and nibbling. A rough job, right?!

The puppies eat about every 1.5 hours. Some worry this is a drain or burden on the mother — but probably because they have not experienced the effects of oxytocin.

When puppies nurse, oxytocin is released, causing the available milk to “let down” and Daisy visibly enters an Oxytocin Bliss.

Oxytocin releases milk, promotes maternal behavior, and appears “to play an important role in modulation of social bonding processes and stress regulation, and may be crucially involved in the promotion of mental health” (Olff et al., 2013, p. 1892).

All of the reading I am doing points to the importance of positive maternal care in the development of the newborn brain. The more we can get our mother dogs engaged in maternal behavior, the better it is for those puppies — and the people who will love them as they grow into adults.

This means we should use oxytocin to our advantage, encouraging and supporting frequent nursing of puppies.

I have had no complaints from Daisy about this — I think she might actually be an Oxytocin Addict.

EVENING: PHOTOS FROM THE DAY

Today I noticed lots of open mouths…

…and opening eyes.

Doesn’t this look like Lupine just took out her brother — and is glad about it?!

Puppies were sitting today! This is Sage.

Clean fleece and fed — the puppies are ready for bed.

Good night!

Work Cited

Olff, M., Frijling, J., Kubzansky, L., Bradley, B., Ellenbogen, M., Cardoso, C., . . . Van Zuiden, M. (2013). The role of oxytocin in social bonding, stress regulation and mental health: An update on the moderating effects of context and interindividual differences. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 38(9), 1883-1894.

Day 11 A.M. & P.M.

Mary-Ann Sontag June 6, 2020

Everything is well here this morning.

In spite of his unfortunate misadventure yesterday, Sage has moved into the top position in the Puppy Heavyweight division — he weighed in 36.85 ounces this morning. Clarkia is in second place at 35.05 ounces with Clover in third at 34.8.

This is a look at the shaved spot on Sage where the abscess was lanced so it could drain.

It is much improved this morning.

This is Sage reflecting a very cooperative nature and resting the lanced spot — as requested — on the warm pack.

I love cooperators — it makes things so much easier!

Eyes continue to crack open. Can you imagine the flood of sensory experiences puppies have in their early weeks?!

This is Buttercup and Paintbrush.

The puppies are walking/staggering/falling in this fun stage I think of as The Age of the Drunken Dinosaurs. Their heads and bodies are so big relative to their legs — they all struggle to get belly clearance when they do their version of walking.

This is Lupine. I love her eyelashes.

I continue to wonder why people think they need to do extra stuff to puppies — like add additional external stressors. I think they must not be paying attention to what puppies naturally experience, and must not understand the impact on the developing brain of setting off floods of stress hormones.

Clover demonstrating the skill of rolling

Resilience is built — not by flooding — but by mastery of developmentally appropriate challenges.

One of my goals is to create Learner Puppies — puppies who know how to learn and are confident in their ability to try/learn new things. To do this, they must have positive experiences as they master challenges.

It is not unlike training an older dog (or human) — we should work on one thing at a time. “Clumping” makes learning stressful and tough.

If the puppy is going to have a challenge, everything else should be supportive. This happens naturally in the whelping box.

For example, when Daisy enters the whelping box the puppies air scent and want to find her — their challenge is locating her. This is mildly stressful — they are hungry, cannot see or hear, and if other puppies get there first they have to take a number.

And so they are challenged — but they work it out in in a familiar and comfortable context — the whelping box. When they find her, they are reinforced for success by food — a primary reinforcer.

We have a whelping box that is 60 x 72 inches — marching across it is indeed a challenge for a tiny puppy.

If I took the puppies outside for a picnic I would not ask them to march — blind and deaf — four feet to find their mom because the new environment would be the challenge.

Rather, I would take one of their familiar-smelling fleeces to have under them on the ground and put them directly next to Daisy, allowing them to experience and master the newness while being well supported.

Puppies need challenges that grow with them. This requires constant assessment of the puppies, the environment, and so on.

I love this kind of stuff — can you tell?

Updated: A movie! Click HERE.

Evening: Photos from the Day

Good night!

Day Ten: A.M.

Mary-Ann Sontag June 5, 2020

Formula is — no question — inferior nutrition for babies of all species, including puppies.

Before anyone gets their knickers-in-a-knot — yes, I know that sometimes babies are formula-fed for good reasons. Let’s not, however, pretend formula represents equivalent or optimal nutrition for a baby — it typically does not.

Fraga et al. (2014) note that “a considerable body of literature, both in humans and in animal models — including the one used in the present study, demonstrates that an adequate breastfeeding period has both short- and long-term beneficial health effects, particularly when considering the metabolic and endocrine profiles of the developing and adult offspring” (p. 104).

We will take up “adequate breastfeeding period” on another day — that is a fascinating and emotional topic all by itself.

Lactation works on supply and demand — more demand means more milk. Supplementing with formula not only substitutes inferior nutrition but it also interferes with the system that allows mothers to have the right amount of milk for their babies.

Supplementing, after all, reduces demand and that means reduced supply. It can quickly become a vicious cycle.

This is our eleventh litter; I have never supplemented a puppy, even with these bigger litters.

I certainly would if there was need — but with good understanding and management of lactation, “need” should be a rare exception and I have not come across it yet.

It probably helps that lactation is not mysterious to me — I understand and trust the process.

What I do not trust is those who benefit from selling formula. They have long created lactation insecurity in order to make money substituting inferior nutrition for babies — with lifelong effects.

When I announced to my mother that I would be breast feeding my baby, she noted that bottle feeding had been good enough for all of her children — and the many foster babies who shared our lives.

This is a typical response when someone hints that maybe the way we did something wasn’t optimal: defensiveness. And isn’t it interesting that just making a different choice can cause people to feel as if we have invalidated them in some way?

There is no shame in allowing knowledge to shape new ways of doing things — in fact, a willingness to drop the ego and incorporate new information should be viewed as a strength.

Exclusively breastfeeding babies is optimal — this means no supplementing and delayed weaning.

I think if we create life, those lives deserve optimal insomuch as is possible. I am happy to report that when it comes to nutrition, we have optimal covered with the Wildflowers.

Late Afternoon Update & Photos

Suzanne came over to visit the Wildflowers. She held puppies so I could take individual photos. Mariposa was too wiggly and so her photo did not turn out but I substituted another one of her I took today. And Sage — well, there is a story to his but first here they are — The Wildflowers at Ten Days.

Paintbrush.

Mallow

Clarkia

Sage — note right ear.

Mariposa

Lupine

Buttercup

Larkspur

Clover

So I looked at Sage’s ear after Suzanne left because it looked off — and it was because there was a big lump under it! It was my veterinarian’s day off BUT she met me at the clinic — I love her.

Yep — I loaded up nine puppies and Daisy and hyperventilated all the way to Missoula because I hate traveling with little puppies, even safely crated.

Once there, Daisy and the puppies had a tailgate party in the parking lot (aka the puppies nursed in the back of the van) while Sage went to have his lump checked out.

AN ABSCESS!!!!!! Under his ear. How the heck would that even happen?!

He got a little shave and it was lanced — all my efforts to have a stress-free life for the Wildflowers and Sage had to ensure THAT! He was nursing again quickly and seems fine, if a bit goopy. We will warm-pack it when he nurses and he has antibiotics — sigh.

Best intentions and all that…

Here is Sage showing off his Drunken Dinosaur imitation…

The official Day Ten Puppy Pile

Good night!

Work Cited

Fraga, M., De Moura, E., Da Silva Lima, N., Lisboa, P., De Oliveira, E., Silva, J., . . . Manhães, A. (2014). Anxiety-like, novelty-seeking and memory/learning behavioral traits in male Wistar rats submitted to early weaning. Physiology & Behavior, 124, 100-106.