Day 15 A.M. & P.M.

Mary-Ann Sontag June 10, 2020

The puppies are getting creative and agile in their nursing practices.

Whatever they are doing is working, however, as weight gain continues to be impressive. Sage is widening his lead — he is now just over three pounds!

Lupine and Clarkia are tied for second at 44.85 ounces and Clover is right behind at 44.4 ounces.

The two smallest puppies, Mallow andPaintbrush, are now tied at 38.25 ounces — those two have more than tripled their birth weights at 15 days old!

I wanted to share something about the white on a puppy. These are two photos of the same dog — Claire at two weeks and as an adult. Note how the white has changed. Claire is also a Major daughter and so is a 1/2 sibling to the Wildflowers.

Lupine was on a bit of a tear this morning. The other puppies were sound asleep but she was restless. Here she is attempting to summit Mt. Daisy — she needs a bit more training before she can bag this peak.

Then she rehearsed for the Montana Puppy Choir.

She took little breaks but then was right back at it. Highly entertaining.

This is Sage exploring what is novel today in the whelping box. It is a plastic lid and so offers new smell and texture as well as the chance to climb on something.

Have a Happy Whatever Day it is — it seems like every day is Blursday right now!

EVENING: PHOTOS FROM THE DAY

Larkspur and Mallow with Buttercup behind

Day 14 A.M. & P.M.

Mary-Ann Sontag June 9, 2020

The puppies continue to thrive — and they are two-weeks-old today! We will do official two-week photos later.

Something I find interesting is that the Wildflowers are likely not all the same age — the smaller puppies were likely “made” a day or two after some of the others.

In dogs, eggs are released over a brief period of time and available for fertilization for a day or so before they are no longer viable. The first puppies born (Mallow and Paintbrush) were likely the last puppies made, and this fits with their lower birth weights. Their eyes are not as open as the other puppies — this also supports the conclusion they are “younger” than some of the other puppies.

This will in no way impact them in their lives. But given the pace of development in newborn puppies, a difference of even 1 - 2 days in age is noticeable.

Our day began as usual with some out-of-the box nursing. Mariposa was one of the group left to sleep in the whelping box but she woke up and started to explore.

Puppies at this age are being flooded with new sensory information and their increased awareness of the world — thanks for their rapidly developing brain and increased information from vision — can make them suddenly scared or anxious. When this happens, they slink to the ground and back up a bit — like this:

Then they seek safety — like this…

Imagine if the puppies were outside. Their increased mobility means they can walk away from the safety of the den and that makes them extremely vulnerable to predators. It is biologically functional that puppies at this age start to evaluate potential threat and use freeze/retreat in response to the perception of threat.

Their skill in assessing what is real threat and what is not will be refined as they develop but right now their vision is blurry and likely what they see is shapes suddenly appearing — as if a hawk is flying down to grab them.

I am very careful with the puppies so as not to startle them. I avoid sudden hand movements over their heads, and I do not just grab and lift them — like a predator would. Instead, I touch them firmly before picking them up, and I intentionally support both the front and rear of their body.

The puppies will not remember being terrified or hurt — but their brains are absorbing information and being hard-wired.

Exposure to stress absolutely — no question — can change a puppy. There is likely a dose effect, which means repeated or prolonged stress is likely worse than an isolated or occasional instance.

But stress matters and remember — stress is defined by the puppy and not the human. Unless you are talking about stressing out a human — and then the human gets to define the stress. Like flying, for example — very stressful to this human.

But I digress — sort of…

When people minimize a procedure like dewclaw removal by noting the puppies seem to object more to being restrained than actual pain, they are reflecting a lack of understanding — being restrained IS stress for a puppy. In fact, restraint is one way lab animals are intentionally stressed so that researchers can examine the effects on their (removed) brains. Yuck.

We should not worry about whether a procedure or an event will be remembered by a puppy (or an infant) — we should be worrying about how the brain got wired as a result of the physiological reaction to the experience.

If you want to know more about how traumatic events are incorporated, I highly recommend the book, The Body Keeps the Score. Also, reading up on ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) will give you insight as to why we should care about this kind of stuff.

Again, there is a LOT of research about this — there is really no question that bad experiences/stress in early life can change things.

And so I pay attention to all that, understanding that building resilience comes from mastery — and mastery happens when we have successful developmentally appropriate experiences.

It is a constant balance — pushing and nudging a bit but not flooding and creating fear/stress.

Confidence — not anxiety — is the goal.

Afternoon Video - Click HERE to see puppies before Lunch #4 and after Lunch #4.

EVENING: LOTS OF PHOTOS FROM THE DAY

Two weeks old and already planning her escape — my kind of puppy!

This is the aftermath of one of the afternoon’s outside-the-box shift nursing sessions…

Paintbrush — walking!

Clarkia is a puppy with a ton of presence.

Lupine — yes, her mouth is open a lot.

This is Sage — his abscess is almost all gone.

I love this sweet photo of Daisy with Clarkia.

Okay — these are the official Two-Week-Old photos but two disclaimers are in order.

First — puppy eyes are blue! And they are even bluer with a blue background so do not be alarmed by the color of their eyes.

Second — two-week-old puppies are not easy to hold and photograph. One peed on Dear Husband, several gnawed on him, they stuck out their tongues, and just generally were an entertaining bunch of miscreants.

But we tried!

Someone sent this — I love it so much and plan to use it (and the other one that arrived with it) in photos when they are older.

Mallow — he wanted to chew on DH’s fingers

Lupine is overly fond of her tongue these days

And one of many hilarious outtakes…

Day 13 A.M.

Mary-Ann Sontag June 8, 2020

Mornings includes shift nursing outside the whelping box until it is empty and can be cleaned and changed; I use white vinegar for cleaning.

This is Daisy with the beginning outside-the-box crew from this morning — I add more puppies as the early ones drop off.

Puppies are interacting more with Daisy — it reflects their growing ability to engage in the external environment.

The next two photos are a sequence with Clover interacting with something new in the whelping box.

I have been reading up on all the benefits of an enriched environment. There is almost no good research on puppies and enriched environments — one published article that tried had SIX subjects, which is basically meaningless. As I have said previously, given what they do to rats I am not unhappy about the lack of puppy research.

The rat research, however, continues to be informative.

There is a great deal of evidence about the benefits of an enriched environment for rat pups, including enhanced learning and memory formation (Hullinger, R., O’Riordan, K., & Burger, K., 2015), reduced behaviors associated with aggression (Abou-Ismail, U., Burman, O., Nicol, C., & Mendl, M., 2010), and positive impact on emotional affect and motor skills (Mosaferi, B., Babri, S., Ebrahimi, H., & Mohaddes, G., 2015).

I could go — rat research is quite the thing. Who knew?! Bottom Line — enriched environments matter a lot.

This should prompt the question: What constitutes an enriched environment?

I cannot just show the puppies Sesame Street videos and provide toys from Lovevery, after all.

So I started reading up on what constitutes an “enriched environment” because what I think is enriched doesn’t matter — it has to be enriched from a puppy point of view.

What I have come up with so far is that I need to consider sensory, cognitive, and motor stimulation. I already do this kind of thing — but I am excited to do it even better.

In my Puppy Palace Enriched Environment I will include things to chew (besides littermates), things to climb (in addition to littermates), opportunities to forage/search, things that make unusual sounds, and so on. It will be a Puppy Palooza of Enrichment — thanks to Amazon.

Something that seems important — after reading all about rat life as well as enriched environments for other animals — is novelty. Creating an enriched environment for three week old puppies and then changing nothing about it for the next few weeks actually isn’t enriched enough. Amazon and I are working on this angle as well.

Mallow was all over this morning. Here is a sequence of him trying to take over a top bunk spot on Buttercup.

What I did not — unfortunately — capture was his tumble off the top bunk. He rolled a couple of times and came back — undaunted — but willing to sleep between his siblings.

The morning puppy pile.

Puppies are almost marching around the whelping box, eyes are opening, and early play efforts continue — but mostly they still sleep and eat.

Sage is pleased to report that he has regained the title of Heavyweight Champion of the Whelping Box — he was 41.75 ounces this morning! Clarkia and Clover are close behind and doing what they can to capture the title tomorrow (i.e., eating like wee piggies).

EVENING: PHOTOS FROM THE DAY

They lined themselves up just like that!

Good Night!

Work Cited

Abou-Ismail, U., Burman, O., Nicol, C., & Mendl, M. (2010). The effects of enhancing cage complexity on the behaviour and welfare of laboratory rats. Behavioural Processes, 85(2), 172-180.

Hullinger, R., O’Riordan, K., & Burger, K. (2015). Environmental enrichment improves learning and memory and long-term potentiation in young adult rats through a mechanism requiring mGluR5 signaling and sustained activation of p70s6k. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory., 125, 126-134.

Mosaferi, B., Babri, S., Ebrahimi, H., & Mohaddes, G. (2015). Enduring effects of post-weaning rearing condition on depressive- and anxiety-like behaviors and motor activity in male rats. Physiology & Behavior, 142, 131-136.