Category: Breeder Education

It’s Go Time: planning and preparing for your first litter.

One of our goals for 2022 is focus on the many positives of breeding, and helping as many breeders and breeder curious people as possible. To that end we are starting the year considering how to prepare for that most exciting, and stressful, first litter. I hope you will join us on this year long journey exploring many of the practical facets of breeding.

One thing is certain, we cannot have the dogs we love, and need, without responsibly producing them. We cannot fulfill the needs of dog lovers to own the healthiest, most well adjusted, companion dogs or preserve our historic and important breeds without our breeder skill, talent, and work effort.

So, here you are, embarking on what I hope will be a lifelong journey into the world of dog breeding. Ideally you are fully prepared in the basics of how to build a responsible breeding program, have selected, raised, and trained your foundation dog(s) who have now completed all necessary health testing and whatever optional pre breeding requirements you have for them (ie titles, accomplishments, work credentials, etc). Your foundation female is bred and confirmed pregnant and you are getting ready for the arrival of the puppies.


First a word of warning and a disclaimer: This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace working closely with your veterinarian on the care of your dam and puppies. There are many potentially fatal things that can go wrong during pregnancy, whelping, and gestation. Puppies can become unwell and die in an instant. Always work closely with your veterinarian!

A complete whelping kit and a whelping box are the “core” items anyone needs to deliver a litter in a safe and clean manner. Below you can find visual and printable PDFs with some basic whelping items, you can also find a list of items available on Amazon in my Whelping Supplies Idea List, I will try to keep this list (it’s an affiliate list, so yes, we might make a few cents if you purchase something from the list, but you won’t pay more) updated with as many of the items listed below as possible to optimize your shopping time. You can also follow my main Amazon Profile to find all my dog lists. Many of the items are available at your local box box store or feed store as well. Be sure to visit the Revival Animal Health website for an abundance of whelping supplies, blogs and they also have an excellent You Tube channel and their own list of helpful whelping supplies.

The whelping box is a vitally important piece of equipment for the breeder. The design of the whelping box will vary considerably based on the size of the dam, so we will be discussing German Shepherd sized dams. If you have a toy or giant breed ask in a breeder group what those breeders us and like.

For decades (two actually) I used a simple wooden square (4×4 feet) and this was perfectly adequate. This box cost me less than fifty dollars, was easy to clean, and worked well.

My foundation female Eileen in my handmade whelping box.

A simple wooden whelping square is a great option for many breeders.

Pros:

1. Inexpensive to construct.
2. Easy to customize to fit your space.
3. Can be easy to store.

Cons:

1. Heavy.
2. Needs to be constructed.
3. Can be difficult to store.
4. Low sides require higher sides to hold in warmth, privacy, etc.
5. Can be very hard to sanitize and clean, even when well sealed.
6. No bottom, so a bottom must be provided to contain mess.
7. Puppies will climb out sooner, around 2 to 3 weeks.

Our current box is a Durawhelp, this box is larger by nearly 2 feet and has several nice features. It’s very light, being made of corrugated plastic, folds up easily and stores in the box it came in right under my queen size bed. The box has a bottom of the same material, so my floors are protected, there is premade bedding I use for the top layer, easy to remove and clean pig rails, and a hop out for the dam. I enjoy how easy to clean it is, and the high sides help hold in warmth. This box was a nice upgrade and after nearly ten years of use it’s still in excellent condition. There are a wide variety of whelping box brands and styles, one of the most popular is to modify PVC Flower/Garden beds from Costco! So, spend some time in breeder groups asking what other breeders us, especially those with dogs of similar size to yours, before you purchase a high dollar box. Other popular boxes are: Jonart, EZ Whelp, just to name a couple.

After a place to have her puppies, the next thing the breeder will need to consider is a whelping kit to help the dam safely deliver her puppies. For a low risk whelping from a robust breed you may find a few items are used most often. Every whelping I use: a rectal thermometer, rags and towels, a bulb syringe, hemostats, umbilical scissors, unflavored wide dental floss, and a heating pad. These are the tools I need to clean up the puppy, clear the airway, dry and warm the puppy, and clamp, tie, and cut the cord. So, these are the most important tools in my kit.

I also have supplies that I rarely use, but like to have on hand for emergencies or urgent use. Once such example is keeping sterile bandages and a baggie on hand just in case a puppy is born with it’s intestinal organs outside the body, something most breeders may never encounter, but if you do encounter this you will be glad for having the appropriate wrappings on hand to transport the puppy to the nearest ER or your vet for surgery. Breeder groups are a good place to inquire among breeders what items they find most useful and what they like to have for unexpected things.

I keep my kit in a small storage tub made for craft supplies, but breeders use lots of different things, so find a storage container that fits your available storage space.

Once your puppies are born you are faced with neonatal care. Ideally your neonates will need nothing more than a warm, safe, environment and a skilled dam to thrive. But occasionally puppies require anything from a little help to emergency veterinary care. Having a few items on hand can mean the difference between survival or death for some puppies, so while it’s vitally important you are in contact with your veterinarian if a puppy fails to thrive or needs medical care, it’s also important to have a few items on hand to support puppies who may just need a little help. While there are many more neonate care options out there, from incubators, oxygen support, and tube feeding, we will not be touching on any of those options here. Instead we are just considering basic supportive care supplies (warmth, hydration, nutrition).

In my 30 years breeding German Shepherd Dogs, and whelping over 70 litters I have found the supplies listed here to be all I have needed for my At Home whelpings. As a new breeder nobody ever helped me figure out what basic items I needed, I learned through experience and self education. My hope is that by providing these supply lists you will have the equipment you need to have a successful whelping and healthy neonates.

If you want more detailed support Contact Us to schedule a breeder consultation.

You can also subscribe to our Newsletter, and listen to our brand new, soon to be released, podcast where we will be discussing in detail how to use these supplies, the basics of whelping a litter, and raising neonates.

Boomerang Dogs: When Bad Things Happen To Good Breeders Part 3

I had intended to make this a two part series, but I had so many requests to include the difficult subject of Boomerang Dogs (dogs who leave for new homes, but then come back) that I decided to add just one more part to the When Bad Things Happen To Good Breeders series.

It has become so accepted (and rightly so) that breeders have an open door policy towards all the dogs they place that we have now moved into the dismissive stage of this subject.

Now we hear calls of “get the dog back” or “return the dog” whenever relationships between people (breeder and buyer) or people and dogs (buyer and their dog) hit any rough patch.

But lets be clear, unless there is a very good reason for a dog to loose it’s home we should not be flippant or causal about it.

Are there some cases where it is in the best interest of the dog, or owner, for the dog to be returned? Absolutely. Here are some examples from my own program that I’m sure other breeders have experienced as well, that are simple and uncomplicated.

1. Owner is financially unable to provide for the dog (for any reason, but job loss is a common one).
2. Owner has lost access to dog friendly housing (after divorce for example).
3. Owner has passed on, or is so unwell that caring for the dog cannot happen.
4. Owner is caring for an unwell family member and the dog’s care is suffering.
5. Someone (a child, unwell adult, relative) has moved in and there is conflict in the home such that the dog is suffering from chronic stress or anxiety.

Are there cases where things are not so black and white? Of course, puppy blues are one, where the new puppy is actually causing so much distress and depression that everyone is suffering. Interdog conflict in the home, undesirable behaviors on the dog and human side, changes in work schedule. In these cases the job of the breeder is to tease out if the problem has a potential solution that benefits everyone (dog and humans) such that happiness is restored and everyone’s needs are met.

We should never take the loss of a home lightly, or even recommend it lightly, because it’s hard to promise the dog that the new home will be better for them, and indeed some dogs just don’t transition well, and a dog who was a good companion in one home may find adapting to a new home difficult, even impossible. These are decisions that deserve everyone’s best and most thoughtful work.

The Nuts and Bolts: Be ready, and hope you never need to be.

1. Breeders need to think about and decide upon their return policy, and all the ramifications of that, before their first litter is bred. Can’t take dogs back? Don’t breed dogs, because the breeder is the dog’s safety net in all times.

2. Budget funds for return. Some returned dogs will come in perfect health, others may not, be prepared for both.

3. Line up health experts to help you. Discuss the health ramifications of returning dogs with your vet, focus on contagious diseases especially those that may kill puppies (herpes, distemper, parvo), or destroy your entire breeding program (brucellosis) as well as the more common and less dangerous pathogens like internal/external parasites, viruses like kennel cough, dog flu, mange mites, and etc. Discuss quarantine options, costs, and etc.

4. Line up a behavior expert to help you. Find a credentialed behavior expert to help you. Breeders are not by default behavior experts, so unless you are a credentialed professional behavior specialist find one to advise you and evaluate dogs for you. This professional may be the key to keeping a dog in the current home, or helping you determine what would need to happen for this dog to be placeable once returned.

5. Make a list of options to help you: Dog transporters, trainers who can take dogs for evaluation or board/train, kennels that offer quarantine boarding, and etc. You may need to quickly get a dog from point A to Point B, You may need a professional to evaluate what needs to happen for the dog to be transitioned to a new home, and finally, dog may need to be quarantined while necessary health evaluation/treatment is done. Be ready, and hope you never need to be!

Best Practices:

1. Accept that you may be too emotionally invested to make good decisions (this is where your team of professional advisers can help you).

2. Detach your EMOTIONS about the situation from your ACTIONS. You may have very strong feelings about the situation, those are yours, don’t share them with the client and absolutely keep such talk off social media, save that venting for your closest friends and advisors.

3. Keeping number 2 in mind: Always treat your client with empathy, kindness, and respect. This is very difficult for breeders. Being a breeder does not mean we are expert in emotional intelligence, or have expert level communication skills. But, treating our client unkindly in any way increases the chances the dog will NOT have a great outcome. If we create an unsafe environment for sharing things that make US uncomfortable then our clients won’t share with us and that is really bad on many levels.

4. If you know that you struggle with conflict resolution, customer service skills, or empathetic listening and instead tend to let strong feelings lead to defensiveness and aggressive language towards our client then consider it part of your basic breeder toolbox to learn how to communicate with clients in an effective and professional manner.

5. Don’t assign fault. Don’t blame the client for the problem, don’t blame yourself for the problem, this isn’t helpful at all in the moment. Once the situation is fully resolved, FULLY resolved, and you have access to lots and lots of information then you can do detailed break down of what (if anything) went wrong, why it went wrong, and how/if this could be prevented in future. Remember if you decide the fault was the client’s, remember to give yourself a fair share of that blame because you CHOSE that client. Whenever we decide the client is at fault, we need to take a hard look at our placement interview process and criteria, reaching out to mentors, and even better (as they are not emotionally invested either) skilled legacy breeders for advice. If you find yourself tempted to assign fault with the client, without detailed reflection and data collection it’s very likely you are acting from a place of emotion, and trying to make yourself feel better. But feeling better may not teach us anything we can use going forward. Breeding dogs is really hard, to do it well we need to be tough, and that very often means being willing to be uncomfortable within ourselves as we learn. Always remember, life happens, there may not be anyone at fault!

Below you can find a visual of our potential return flow, this chart helps us determine if it’s possible to keep the dog in the present home, and steps to take to facilitate that, or if it’s in everyone’s best interest for the dog to leave it’s current home, and how to facilitate that. Each block could be a blog on it’s own, and of course not all possible outcomes (such as the dog moving directly from the present home to it’s new home) are covered here. You can download a copy below the chart!



Interested in more discussion on this subject, or any of those in our When Bad Things Happen To Good Breeder series? Be sure to sign up for our newsletter, follow us on Facebook, look out for our very own podcast (premiering soon with this very series!), and let us know how you handle these tough aspects of breeding.


Gifts Gone Wrong: When Bad Things Happen To Good Breeders, Part 2.

When I looked at the x rays, up there on the screen, my heart sank as did any remaining hope I may have had for salvaging an entire bloodline group in my breeding program. This was the end of the road, so to speak, for a new bloodline I had brought into my program with the greatest of enthusiasm, after months of pedigree analysis and research and as such it was a sad day. For this dog had given me gifts, some were pleasant surprises such as excellent temperament and overall health, but others were the wrong kind of gifts, such as the elbow dysplasia that was staring me in the face from that screen.

Because we value growing and learning, and addressing even the most challenging situations head on, we have decided to focus our continuing education and growth mindset efforts for the month of September on facing some of the difficult situations we have experienced in the last couple years, breaking those down into great detail, and learning everything we can from those situations. We want to continue that learning, and expand it, by including our colleagues, clients, and friends in the conversation too. So we will be blogging on these subjects first, and then starting a podcast where we can share these conversations with everyone.

Sometimes, no matter how yard you try, you still miss the mark!

Those who know me know that we have well established core values in our breeding program, and the first is to value, respect, and honor the bloodlines entrusted to us by those who bred before us. I am a believer that every bloodline, and every dog, has potential value in maintaining and protecting my breed, until proven otherwise.

In the past I have observed decades in which dogs were excluded from the breeding pool without thought, over the most minor faults, and I have also watched as breed populations shrank, all while the most popular sires influence increased leading to bottle necks, fewer options for breeders, and decreased genetic diversity.

Oftentimes breeders only realize how important genetic options are when there aren’t any left. This lesson has not been lost on me, nor has the irony that many of today’s breeders have not yet learned this lesson and they happily chuck dogs out of the breed pool, left and right, over the stupidest things, things that do not cause any harm to the dog, don’t affect quality of life, and don’t break owner’s hearts. Without any thought to potential future ramifications of such unwise shrinking of breeds and without considering other options. It’s become a “knee jerk” reaction of the novice breeder, as a way of signaling to everyone that they are a “good” breeder….because see how many dogs they exclude.

Instead of showing the wisdom needed to know when a dog, or line, should be excluded, and when further evaluation is warranted.

Every puppy born is an opportunity to maintain or improve traits. A puppy not born is an opportunity lost to the breed.

However, dogs who bring unwanted genetic gifts, the kind that cause suffering and decreased quality of life for dogs and their owners, simply cannot be moved forward in pedigrees, and I know I am not alone in this. In the GSD we don’t have as many genetic options as people think, we have popular sire bottle necks in most bloodlines, and we have self imposed walled off bloodlines as well, where breeders have chosen to try to keep bloodlines “pure” by isolating them from other bloodlines within the breed. In Germany the long stock coat GSD can no longer be bred to the origin stock coat lines causing even more walling off.

These problems hobble breeders more than they realize and lead to fewer good options for all. So, losing a bloodline is never something we celebrate, even when it must be done.

So, as my co breeder Rebecca and I sat down and discussed the list of gifts (good and bad, some annoying and some that affected quality of life) this line had bestowed us with, in a very small number of breedings, and compared the percents affected with our breed’s typical percent affected, and then our program’s percent affected, we confirmed that indeed while this line was producing about the same percent of affected individuals as the OFA and SV stats tell us is “typical” for the HD and ED in the GSD breed, this was many percents higher than our own in program statistics (breeders should always keep both sets of stats, what is normal for the breed, and what is normal for their program) and the dogs affected were more severely affected. This, along with an accounting of some congenital defects produced, led to the easy, but sad, decision to remove this entire bloodline from our program, something we hadn’t had to do in our program for decades.

Another core value in our breeding program is transparency, we believe that our clients, colleagues, and students should have insight into what it’s like to breed dogs, including the bad stuff.

Transparency is hard, it’s a double edged knife that cuts both ways. Knowing what and when to share and to whom to share such information with is something you only know in hindsight. In the moment of decision, breeders work blind to the ramification of bringing people in to an area where a lack of understanding is common.

Breeders have every reason NOT to be transparent, because most people, even dog fanciers, have no idea how complex and difficult breeding dogs is so their judgements are aplenty. The breeding community has a big problem with subconscious self loathing, and conflicted feelings about breeding that stem from decades of being vilified by basically everyone, so breeders often attack other breeders as a way of coping with their own conflicted feelings and desire to be “good” and not be associated with “bad”.

When we are transparent we open ourselves up to both positive and negative feedback, we run the risk that by admitting when there are failures as well as successes potential clients will come to believe that we produce sub standard dogs and we will miss out on great homes for our puppies.

However, we do deeply believe that in order for people to recognize breeding dogs as a valuable, complex, skill that require practice, that we must be transparent about what we do and why we do it. Our hope is that this will increase respect for the work done by the breeders who produce the dogs people want to share their lives with while decreasing the expectation of perfection that so permeates the world of dogs.

So, Once the decision was made to remove the line, how do we move forward while standing by our core values?

1. We only removed this bloodline after careful consideration and after consulting with several trusted breeder friends. We first considered and even tried ways to breed around, then breed out, the problems we were seeing before deciding that was not an effective option.
2. We notified everyone who had a first degree relative and explained the situation, we extended our usual 24 month orthopedic warranty to a lifetime orthopedic warranty, and did our best to allay fears, and offer preventive suggestions.
3. We sterilized all dogs from this line, including those in guardian homes.

But, are there other options? Of course, breeders have a wide variety of tools at their disposal for reducing unwanted traits in their breeding programs. Removing a line is the option of “last resort” because it’s irreversible and it also takes the least skill of those in the breeder toolbox. While removing an individual or entire bloodline group might be the best path forward, there are other options available to breeders.

1. For simple recessive traits for which there is a DNA test (such as DM) breeders can use DNA testing to identify Homozygous Normals, Homozygous Affecteds, and Carriers and then very easily (in the GSD) arrange breedings such that Affected aka At Risk puppies are not an possible with a pairing. This requires very little skill or understanding of genetics, but that does not negate it’s value! Now, this DOES require skill when a breed has very few homozygous normals available (which is why small breeding populations, bottle necks, and Popular Sire Syndrome are risky) because in this case breeders must choose between loosing most of the breed, or breeding some carriers to affecteds. This is tough work that takes skill. Free genetic counseling can be found here, and Embark offers extensive breeder education as well.

2. For traits with an unknown mode of inheritance and polygenic traits breeders can follow the OFAs Best Practices (and take advantage of their E Book: The Use Of Health Databases and Selective Breeding) and breed dogs who appear normal to other dogs who appear normal, with majority normal first degree relatives, and normal pedigrees. This is how breeders have reduced the rate of hip and elbow dysplasia. So when a problem crops up and a particular dog produces MORE affected dogs than typical the dog can be bred to a bloodline know for improving upon this trait, such as “hip improvement dogs” or “hip Improvement lines” and then over multiple generations select breeding dogs from only the litters with majority normal hips, gradually decreasing the percent affected and increasing the percent normal. This is the model used by breeders in the early days of the GSD, when HD normals were only about 10% of the breed, and over the span of 100 years breeders gradually improved hips until normals accounted for more 80% of the breed. This is a very old, and reliable, model for improving traits over generations using the skill of pedigree analysis and data analysis. Every breeder should know how to do this, but in some cases it’s impossible because data is not available. Breeders may choose not to share data, or information may have been lost when a breeder died, or because too many relatives have never been bred so information on how they produced for a trait will forever be unknown.

3. Breeders can use test breedings to try to evaluate if a trait is heritable and how, and while this has become far less common in the age of DNA testing breeders should still understand how this works, when it’s warranted, and what is done with the information discovered. Before the age of DNA testing test breedings were how breeders found out if a trait was a simple autosomal.

4. Breeders can also choose to do a less risky pedigree analysis for a trait, following it through generations and identifying affected and carrying individuals. With this information the breeder could more easily breed around, or improve upon, the trait.

5. And of course, breeders can identify if a trait is expressed due solely to genetic factors, or if environment plays a role. An environmental role does NOT free the breeder of responsibility for the heritable part of the equation, but it should trigger careful evaluation of the breeder’s own environment, dietary choices, chemical exposures, and the careful selection of the new home where ongoing environmental challenges will occur.

6. Finally, breeders and buyers must understand and accept that no dog is ever perfect and that no matter what we do, or how careful we are, that some dogs are going to have problems, health problems, temperament problems, the lot. We do not judge our work against a standard of perfection, but instead against the standard of “dogs in general”. We are not trying to produce dogs that live forever, but we are trying to produce dogs that live a typical lifespan for “dogs”. Don’t fall into the trap of expecting perfection, and throwing away bloodlines without careful consideration when imperfection occurs.

We considered each option, but one by one ruled them out. Because the problems we were seeing could decrease quality of life and had no simple mode of inheritance, we could easily rule out several options as just not being that helpful. Much of the pedigree analysis had already been done as our pre purchase research, and on paper this dog should not have been producing these problems, so further pedigree analysis would not be productive. We could have accepted that a percent affected that was very near to the OFA percent affected was good enough, but since our program typically runs much better this was also not acceptable. Finally, we had a variety of other options to meet our goal of bringing a new bloodline into our program.

So, with much thought we made the decision, notified everyone involved, and have now moved on with our program. We have since brought in two new bloodlines, but it’s early days and we don’t know yet how these dogs will produce for us and that’s ok, because that’s what breeding dogs is about, making the best choices you can and then always moving forward.

I leave you with this, breeding dogs isn’t easy, it becomes only more difficult the longer you do it, the more curious you are, and the more you know. So don’t assume the worst of a breeder when things go poorly, instead accept that the standard of perfection isn’t real, it’s an illusion, life is imperfect and that is part of what makes it wonderful. So while we might judge a breeder harshly for failing to meet the basic best practices of responsible breeders we should not judge them harshly for doing their best and finding that in some cases the outcome isn’t what was hoped for.

Well Crap: When Bad Things Happen To Good Breeders, Part 1 Parvo.

“Susanne, this could be catastrophic” those were the words I heard through the phone. I had called my vet, at home, on a Sunday, as I returned home from Animal Emergency Center without my 6 week old puppy. Live-wire had developed a high fever, and intense malaise that morning and by afternoon parvovirus had been twice diagnosed and little Live-wire had been admitted to the ICU for overnight care and monitoring.

I was chilled to the bone by the words of my normally cheerful and optimistic long time vet, though not surprised, parvo virus is a fear that every breeder with common sense carries with them. All breeders fear things that can kill their puppies, and parvo is high on that list. We still have a generation of breeders and vets who remember when parvo was a novel virus, without a vaccine, and it killed dogs of all ages from the youngest to the oldest, from the infirm to the healthy in huge numbers. Thanks be to the scientists who developed a vaccine, and the veterinarians who have given them to millions of dogs. Despite this work, parvo virus is a crafty virus that has eluded most attempts at eradication. So I needed no reminder of the potential danger to my 12 6 week old puppies, or the potential cost for their treatment (parvo hospitalization can easily run $1000 per day for a single puppy and indeed Live-wire’s 12 hours of supportive care topped $1000). So my fear was two fold, would my puppies suffer and die, and would I be able to afford treatment costs that could in a worst case scenario climb well into five digits?

As Rebecca and I drove home, and with the help of our amazing vet, we formulated a plan for moving forward. Because breeders don’t have the luxury of taking time to breath and ask “why” and process thoughts and emotions when infectious disease is involved. There would be time for the How and Why later, but now was the time to act.

I’m writing about this now as we enter a new monthly theme project. This project is part of our professional growth initiative designed to ensure that as breeders and trainers we are not becoming stagnant but instead pushing ourselves to explore, learn, and consider a variety of subjects related to all aspects of our lives with dogs.

Because this project is designed to help us evaluate what is happening in our professional lives, we have chosen to focus for the month of September on Moving Through Difficulty In a Growth Mindset (Yes, I know it’s controversial). As breeders we have experienced several difficulties in our breeding program over the last few years, we have been evaluating how we have responded and will respond to such problems in the future. We wanted to share this process with our many friends, breeders, trainers, and dog lovers as part of our commitment to transparency and because breeders don’t exist in a vacuum, we learn from each other and we teach each other and that is how we all get better at our craft.


Our plan, coined Parvo Sucks, involved the following: Please note, we worked very closely with our veterinarian and his techs, we were in daily contact with the hospital and never acted without having a conversation with the vet. The following is what OUR vet recommended for OUR situation and it may not be what your vet recommends for you. Parvo is a serious disease and you simply must work with your own vet.

Step 1: Evaluate every puppy for signs of active infection: Monitoring temperature (every 8-12 hours), appetite, energy, hydration, and stool consistency. This step turned out to be the key to our success because we were able to identify a puppy and start treatment promptly, before the vomiting and diarrhea started.
Step 2: Until we could confirm that the bulk of the litter had been infected all infected puppies would be isolated. Once we knew the exposure had already happened we reunited the litter.
Step 3: Increase disinfect measures to include isolation protocols.
Step 4: Prepare for the spread of the virus from the Index Case (Live-wire) to the other puppies despite all these efforts, because it was most likely all puppies were already exposed to the virus.
Step 5: Gather all supplies we would need to treat mild to moderate levels of sickness at home. We purchased Pedialyte, parvo test kits, Fluids for subQ administration, Kaolyn-Pectin, Science Diet ID canned and dry and changed puppies over to this diet, and our good friend and client Melinda Luper DVM sent us a case of Proviable Forte for every puppy to have with every meal.

Together with our veterinarian we stocked up on medicine we would need to give puppies as soon as they developed any symptoms of parvo. Each puppy was taken for a medical assessment the first business day following the development of symptoms (and for a while I was at the vet every single day) and if the puppy experienced dehydration inducing vomiting and diarrhea the puppy would be checked into the hospital for IV fluids and supportive care.

The treatment protocol was started at the moment of the first symptom (for our puppies this was fever over 102F) and involved.

1. Long acting antibiotic injection given by the vet to prevent pathogens from leaving the compromised digestive system and causing sepsis.
2. Prescription anti nausea medicine to prevent vomiting.
3. Sub Q Fluids for any puppy showing any indication of dehydration. We offered one bowl of water and one bowl of pedialyte and the puppies drank the pedialyte over the water for the duration of their sickness. Once a puppy was well and healed they would prefer to drink water. If we did not witness a puppy drinking we made a note of that puppy and monitored every hour for signs of dehydration (which we could address through Sub Q fluids). If a puppy did not respond they would be admitted to the vet hospital.
4. Science Diet ID (canned and dry) was the sole diet during this time and puppies were fed meals in crates so their eating could be carefully monitored. The food was soaked in water to increase fluid intake and the Proviable was added to every meal.
5. Any puppy with moderate or severe sickness would be taken to the vet for evaluation asap, this meant I was often at the vet daily, or two to three times daily, having puppies evaluated for in hospital care. One puppy required in hospital care, Faraday, who became moderately ill and anorexic.



How things Shook Out.

I won’t lie, the following month was really hard, but it could have been So. Much. Worse. (after all, we didn’t loose any puppies). After the index case (Live-wire) we went three days with no more sick puppies before another 2 puppies broke with fever and started treatment, then 2 days later 8 of the 12 puppies broke with fevers (1 puppy never developed any symptoms at all!) and at that time every puppy was started on treatment. I wasn’t petrified every day until the last puppy was past symptoms……

Live-wire, the index puppy, actually had only very mild symptoms and after spending one night at the ER (for a tab of $800) getting supportive care his regular vet released him for ongoing care at home. He never developed any further symptoms except a single bad poop. One puppy, Colt, never developed any symptoms at all. One puppy, Faraday was very ill, with bloody vomit and diarrhea, and was hospitalized for 5 days of supportive care, and didn’t eat a single bite for 10 days! Faraday did fully recover, after giving us quite a scare. The rest of the puppies exhibited the following symptoms: Lethargy for one or two days, fever for no more than 1 day, a few puppies missed a meal or two, some never stopped eating. Most puppies had one or two days of bad poop, some shed their intestinal lining and this was obvious from their stool, others did not and had just loose stool. Aside from the window of sickness, averaging 24 hours, this litter had outstanding stool quality (which I found quite odd and credit to the Science Diet ID and Proviable Forte).

After 1 month from first to last puppy showing symptoms, and another month of recovery, all puppies were tested for parvo via tests I bought and administered at home and no puppies were still shedding the virus when tested and were released by our to go to new homes.

This delayed send home from our usual 9 weeks to 13 weeks of age. Despite being in the middle of a pandemic we were able to schedule weekly visitors for the puppies once they were well to ensure they had adequate socialization. We continued the Puppy Culture protocols which are already designed to extend through 12 weeks.

No puppies died, or had severe sickness (even as sick as Faraday was he was still classified as moderate), and all recovered quickly and completely. No adult dogs became ill, and all were current on vaccinations (meaning they had received a parvo vaccination sometime in the previous 3 years).

All puppies went to their amazing and supportive families by 3 months of age, and our feedback on the litter is all positive to date, with no ongoing problems related to the illness, treatment, or delayed send home. This litter is now over a year old and as healthy and happy as we could have hoped.

Happy Puppies, Happy Breeder

Interesting things I learned, good sources of info, and about my case in particular:

1. No matter what you do don’t force food on an anorexic puppy. When puppies are sick with parvo their gut loses it’s lining and pathogens move easily from the gut to the abdomen, causing sepsis. Puppies instinctively know when they should not be eating, so undue encouragement to eat can actually make them sicker. I learned this from a fellow breeder and remembered it whenever I was tempted to try to “get” puppy to eat something. Instead I focused on keeping every puppy hydrated.

2. My puppies mild case and full recovery was most likely due to inherited maternal antibodies still being present at the time of infection. I assumed that maternal antibodies PREVENTED infection, but they don’t always, instead when an infection does occur they help the puppy mount a rapid and effective immune response. So my annual vaccination schedule for breeding females was likely the reason this case was so mild overall, the puppies still had maternal antibodies.

3. Sources of info on infectious diseases in dogs are plentiful, but many are not evidence based nor do they reflect the consensus view. When I traced many of the common things I had heard about parvo to the sources of good evidence based information I found a LOT of what I thought I knew about parvo to be untrue or partly true, this included information I had heard from veterinarians, or read on websites and authored by veterinarians and of course tons of things I heard from breeders. I opted to only use a small number of reliable sources for information, I ran these by my vet for confirmation: This resource for Cornell, this one from Revival Animal Health who have a wide variety of educational resources and products, along with experts to help you know what you need, and I contacted UWM to see if nomographs would be part of our moving forward plan (spoiler, they are not) and to get feedback on our vaccination plan moving forward now that our location was highest risk (spoiler: I was told to vaccinate early at 4 & 6 weeks with a parvo only vaccine before moving to a traditional vaccination schedule of 9/12/16 weeks- this is a standard vaccination protocol for endemic parvo areas and one widely used by breeders, but it was nice to have a leading infectious disease expert tell me this was the best course of action.

4. We now use Wysiwash or Vircon to disinfect everything outside, grass, gravel, cement, all of it.

5. We now use Rescue to disinfect everything indoors.

6. And none of that would have helped prevent my puppies from getting parvo. You see my puppies were infected with parvo during our state’s Safer At Home lock down due to COVID-19. This means we were not leaving our property, or if we did we did not leave our car, at all during this time. So it’s almost impossible that we brought the virus home on our shoes or clothes. We also have a fenced yard, so free roaming dogs bringing the virus on the property is unlikely, and while we do have game in our area there is no evidence they ever enter our yard. We do however live in a rural area with a large population of free roaming and unvaccinated dogs, and we have insects. In our case the likely vector of the virus was actually flying insects and in particular flies, that carried the virus from infected dogs in our area to our puppies when they were outdoors on their puppy patio. So, while we are certainly disinfecting constantly now, to kill what virus remains, or is brought onto our property, it was a hard lesson that you can literally do everything right and STILL have bad things happen. Oh, and LOL, our puppy patio which was easily disinfected was not screened for flying insects, and yes, screening it in is definitely on the “to do” list.

We chose to handle the transparency aspects of our summer of parvo with full disclosure via our Facebook page and private client group for the puppy buyers of that litter. While we did get a bit of push back, mainly “about us” and not “to us” the overwhelming response from our colleagues, clients, and friends was overwhelming support.

We asked for, and received donations to help with the cost of treatment, while I was really uncomfortable asking for help I’m glad I did because this really helped to relieve some of the stress of buying supplies and treatment costs for the puppies.

We updated everyone almost daily, including how the sickest puppy, Faraday, was responding to treatment.

We reached received so much support from fellow breeders, from kind words, to advice, to the daily check ins I received from our good friend Christiana at Kaos Farm Goldendoodles that kept me focusing on the good things of the day, and prevented me from getting mired in the mud of dread, our long time friend Dani at Avid Aussies helped with practical advice about disinfecting that helped my sleep deprived brain grasp what I needed to do right then and who suggested contacting Revival to get supplies asap. Of course my ever patient vet, Dr. Patrick Grogan at VCA Woodland East and the entire staff of the animal hospital, were endlessly kind and understanding and undoubtedly saved my puppies lives.

Our Austerlitz Family was, as always, wonderful and supportive. Many of our clients who are veterinarians reached out to see if they could help, Dr. Melinda Luper in particular answered so many questions, and sent me the Proviable Forte that so helped my puppies gut heal up. Every family was able to take home their puppy, and that made us all just so happy.

But I don’t want to gloss over how hard it is for breeders to share the “nuts and bolts” of breeding dogs, because it’s hard. For decades breeders have been demonized for breeding the dogs people want to share their lives with, this never ending drum beat has been so constant that breeders themselves have too often internalized it. Breeders who believe that breeding dogs is “dirty business” feel guilty, and make a big show about how IMPORTANT their breeding programs are because champions, and titles, and “improving” the breed. Breeders who have internalized the shame of breeding are also aggressive towards other breeders they deem are not “pure” enough or good enough, and so they go out of their way to show everyone how they are not “that type of breeder” by attacking them, bullying them, and demeaning them in the name of “educating”.

So breeders are vulnerable at every turn. They are a target for the Animal Rights Community, the Adopt Don’t Shop Community, the Dog Snob Community, and the “I’ve Never Bred A Litter But If I Did This Would Never Happen To Me Because Breeding Is Easy” dog fancier community, and so breeders have every reason to be defensive and closed up.

I feel this too, don’t kid yourself, and I’ve been on most sides of ugly behavior in my life. But they say as you get older you get both wiser and more radical, and I hope that I’m both. Either way, I’m not afraid of what others might think of me at this point in my life.

Breeding dogs is much more difficult than most people realize, Mother Nature is a killer and she’s out to end most puppies if she had her way. The natural order of things is that most litter born animals die before sexual maturity, the only thing that stands between this outcome and our domesticated animals is human intervention. That is the breeder and their veterinarian, they are the ones standing between nature and puppies.

So, next time a breeder shares some difficult experience they have had, instead of trying to find a reason The Thing Happened, or think that it could not happen to you, instead reach out and offer support and encouragement. Instead of throwing out all manner of social signals to tell everyone how responsible a breeder you are, try offering support and encouragement. Basically, be kind, empathetic and assume others are competent, do these things visibly so that others will see good behavior and model it themselves. Be the one that makes a safe place for transparency.

Next Up: When bad things happen to good breeders, Part 2: Hip, elbow dysplasia and birth defects.

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Confident Crating: A Guide For The New Puppy Owner.

Wow! When we wrote this blog to help our puppies transition to their new home and retain their crate skills we never knew how needed this information was. After years of crate training our own puppies, and coaching clients through the crate training process with their puppies we now have an on demand course available year round! You can find information on Crate School: Confident Crating on our training website.

Crate training for puppies is long due for an overhaul.  For too long a puppy’s first exposure to the crate was being locked inside, left to panic, and then being “taught” to be crated by being ignored until it ceased crying.

Too long has the crate training standard been to induce learned helplessness when confined by ignoring the puppies vocalizations, not to gradually acclimate puppies to confinement. Then we wonder why so many grown dogs exhibit behaviors associated with barrier frustration/aggression, separation distress/anxiety, and a myriad of other confinement specific undesirable behaviors later in life.

New puppy owners often feel overwhelmed by the crying, puppies already sensitive to stress while transitioning to a new home are stressed further, potentially triggering separation distress, and a myriad of other potential undesirable outcomes become more likely.

There is a better way.  Instead of forcing puppies to give up complaining about confinement, we can easily condition them to be confident craters.

If you’re a breeder or foster who cares for puppies from birth, please use our Crate Conditioning For Puppies: An Incremental Approach.

If you are bringing home a new puppy (from a breeder, shelter, or rescue) who has never been exposed to a crate, or who may have had unpleasant associations with confinement, you may also start with our free blog: Crate Conditioning For Puppies: An Incremental Approach or our on demand Crate School class for your foundation crate work.

If you are fortunate enough to be bringing home a puppy from a Puppy Culture or Crate School breeder, or a breeder who has used our (or a similar) crate conditioning protocol, you can easily continue that work by following these principles.

Leading Principle: Crates are where good things happen. 

 Make the crate the “best bed in the house.”

  • During crate conditioning, have the bed inside the crate be the only bed. We want our puppy to prefer to rest inside the crate, so make resting in the crate desirable with a good bed.   It’s a very good idea to have both a smaller night time crate in the bedroom, and a larger daytime crate in the living area.
  • When your puppy falls asleep, gently pick it up and place it in it’s daytime crate to nap. Do this every time you find your puppy asleep outside it’s crate.  Close the door if you will be nearby to release the puppy when it awakens, or place an x pen around the crate.
  •  Feed your puppy in it’s crate if it’s eating from a bowl.


Gradually teach your puppy to expect a few minutes of confinement after each meal.

Large breed dogs, such as my German Shepherds, benefit from crate rest after eating.  Teaching your puppy to expect to crate rest after eating also means you can feed your puppy right before the humans eat, and you can enjoy a “dog free” dinner time. Always provide puppies with a high value chew after eating, to help them relax and pacify themselves. Normalizing and using the expectation that grows from routine is extremely valuable. Consistency really does help puppies know what to expect. We build up to a two hour nap after each meal in our house. Dogs use this “digestion time” to nap, puppies need even more rest than dogs (around 20 hours per day as compared to an adult dogs 18) but scheduled nap time is beneficial for everyone.


Provide daily  “chewing” sessions in the crate.

Dogs love to chew, and puppies especially require chewing. The crate is the perfect place to provide this activity. When you can’t directly supervise your puppy or when your puppy is due for a nap, pull out a pacifier and put your puppy in it’s crate for a chew session. By pairing HIGH value chews with confinement you make the most of both the pacifiers you invest in, and teaching your puppy that being confined is great. Puppies need a lot of rest time, so take advantage of that time to create happy associations with confinement.

Be prepared to pair all duration crating sessions with high value chews for the first few weeks.

Collect as many types of chews as you can, stuff them them yummy things if they are stuffable, and provide them only in the crate. Puppies preferences change and develop as they age, and just like us they can get bored of the same thing every day, chewing is a basic core dog need anyway, so don’t be stingy, invest in a wide variety of chews.

You find find more ideas and inspiration in my blog, The Power of a Pacifier.

Crate your puppy at night, but not alone.

Puppies are sensitive to separation and will vocalize when they feel isolated.   This is very strong survival instinct that has it’s roots in the dog’s evolution, long before it was a pet.

Here are some suggestions to bypass separation distress.

  • At night, crate your puppy on your bed, or place the crate at bed height right next to your bed.   Your breathing and movement will help sooth a puppy and prevent it from feeling “lost” and alone.
  • Provide a large stuffed animal, or Snuggle Buddy, for the puppy to cuddle with at night.
  • For every night your puppy sleeps at least 6 hours without waking, you can move the crate 1 foot away from your bed until you reach the area of the bedroom where you would like your bedtime crate to be located.
  • Put a tired puppy to bed with the last person to retire for the night.   Feed dinner at least 3 hours before  bedtime, and take water up 1 hour before bedtime.   Calmly walk the puppy for at least 10 minutes before putting it to bed.
  • If your puppy is fussing at night, offer it a chance to potty. Keep nighttime potty breaks “businesslike.” Simply carry the puppy out, clip the leash on, and stand in one place for no more than 3 minutes while the puppy relieves itself. Do not talk, play or feed your puppy. Doing these things distract from the purpose of the potty break and can teach your puppy to wake you up for play and treats.
  • Be consistent in the nighttime pottybreak protocol. You want your puppy to learn to “ask out” if it needs to void in the night (otherwise, it may learn to void in the crate) but you don’t want to teach your puppy that waking you up has ANY purpose other than going to the potty.
  • When 3 minutes is up, carry the puppy back to it’s crate on your bed, place it inside, close the door and turn out the lights and go back to sleep.
  • Repeat EVERY time your puppy vocalizes in the night crate, your puppy will learn to ask out only to potty during the night.  This process may take a week, so be prepared.
  • Do not offer chews or pacifiers in the Night Crate.  Nighttime is for sleeping, and sleepy puppies need to sleep.
  • Soothing music, scents (such as Adaptal) and a cool room will help puppies sleep.

 Devise a routine and stick with it.

Puppies love routine because it’s comforting to know what to expect. Find a routine that includes crate conditioning time.  Good examples are to crate your puppy after each meal, at human mealtimes, and the first 10 to 15 minutes after visitors arrive. Be sure to pair a high value chew with each duration session! Use the same routine when you leave the house – pair this with a high value chew and soothing sounds and scents. 

Provide high value pacifiers for car crate time too!

Be sure to take the time to condition your dog to traveling in a crate.   Not only can this prevent barrier aggressive behaviors from starting, but it’s safer for the dog and driver. Pair all car crate rides with high value chews at first.

Practice Crating on outings.

If you plan to travel or compete with your dog, it’s worth it to condition your dog to enjoy crating anywhere.   Purchase a “tent” or cloth crate that’s easy to carry and take it to training classes with you.  Crate your puppy (with a pacifier) during class down time when your instructor is teaching or other dogs are working.   If your instructor includes mat training (yay!) place your mat inside your tent crate to do some of your mat work.

Some common and not so common sense tips.

  1. Don’t crate your puppy too much. It’s unhealthy for their body and mind – a crated puppy isn’t being socialized or learning any life skills. Yes, puppies need crate time every day, but they do not benefit from being confined too often.
  2. Play lots of crate entry games!   Have someone hold the puppy while you run and put it’s food bowl inside the crate. Next, call the puppy with your crate entry cue – this is also your helper’s cue to release the puppy! Cheer the puppy while it’s running to the crate and praise while the puppy enjoys it’s meal.   Play lots of these types of games.
  3. “Bait” your crate ahead of time.   If you put your puppy’s chew in the crate and close the door, the puppy will REALLY want to enter the crate!   Plan ahead and bait the crate with your chosen pacifier 10 to 30 minutes ahead of scheduled crate times, then call your puppy to crate up with your crate entry cue, open the door, and voila…your puppy loves to run into the crate!
  4. Don’t bribe your puppy to enter the crate.   If your puppy is reluctant to enter the crate, do more of number 2 and 3, but avoid at all costs bribing your puppy to enter the crate.   This will backfire!   It’s actually better to pick your puppy up and place it inside the crate than to bribe it to enter the crate.
  5. If your puppy is reluctant to enter the crate, figure out why and fix the problem!   Don’t be tempted to bribe or trick the puppy to enter the crate, that will backfire!   Consult with a skilled positive reinforcement trainer if needed.

Do you need help crate training your puppy?  Or are you a breeder who wants help building a crate conditioning plan into your puppy raising protocols?  
Distance coaching is available and we are very happy to help, contact us to find out more!

The Power of a Pacifier (Breeder Version)

Momma’s dogs need new bones! This blog contains affiliate links, so we can earn a small amount of money linking to products we have tried and tested, while you pay nothing extra!

 

Enrichment for our dogs is the hot topic of the day! Blogs, workshops, seminars, and FB groups all devoted to this topic.  But what about puppies?  Can puppies benefit too?

One of the best benefits of a puppy pacifier, one tuckered out puppy!

As I do more and more with my crate conditioning protocol I have been using more and more pacifiers. Pacifiers are things we give dogs that are designed to amuse them for long periods of time, like chews, lick mats, and Kongs. There’s many more than just those types, and I have experimented extensively with all different kinds. I have been really interested to see some really beneficial “side effects” of the use of pacifiers in my puppies.

Puppies who are:

  1. Calmer, in general and specifically when not ‘doing anything.’
  2. Getting along better with littermates.
  3. Learning more quickly and with less frustration.
  4. Seeming more “thoughtful” with their actions.

This is undoubtedly due to the “Enrichment Effect” discussed at length in the puppy raising protocol Puppy Culture. As breeders, we know that an enriched environment is beneficial for our puppies physical and behavioral health. Puppies raised in enriched environments have bigger brains, learn faster, and have better behavior as adults.

I think the pacifier is a hybrid between Passive Enrichment opportunities (things like tunnels, and adventure cubes) and Active Enrichment (activities that involve learning, like clicker training.) Puppies are DOING something and learning something, but unlike clicker training the activity is completely self driven. Passive Enrichment is great, Active Enrichment is the “gold standard” for puppy raising, and I think pacifiers fall somewhere in the middle. They are just another tool to add to our toolbox as we seek to raise the best puppies possible, and make the most of their inherited traits. But if that wasn’t enough, there are huge benefits to your new puppy families too – but more about that at the end.

Here are my 10 tips for success with pacifiers.

  1. Start Easy!  Baby puppies learn fast, but there are limits to their motor and cognitive abilities.
  2. Ensure Success!   Make sure the food is easy to access.
  3. Present one skill challenge at a time.  Pick one skill: lick food out, sniff food out, push food out, move a thing to find food, tear something open to find food, sniff to find food, roll to find food, or remove food.
  4. Use palatable easy to digest foods and mix up flavors. Variety is the spice of life, after all!
  5. Choose materials carefully. Avoid things that could trap body parts, fracture teeth, abraid skin, or become ingestion risks.
  6. Choose materials thoughtfully. Select things that are interesting or are novel to puppies.
  7. Observe your puppies for success with any item. Remember, success is your puppies getting the food!
  8. Adjust. If you observe your puppies don’t engage or give up on a challenge, next time make it much easier.
  9. Adjust. If you observe your puppies have immediate success, next time make it slightly more difficult.
  10. Keep Records. Keep track of your puppies favorites and preferences, so you can share what works for a puppy with it’s new family.

Here is my current list of items that work for my puppies. I often use these for crate training, but also when my puppies are getting quarrelsome, frantic, or having trouble calming down.  I have both Group and Individual activities.  I would love to know what you use for your puppies, please share in the comments!

Group Activities

Pile Scramble

Snuffle Mat

KONG Quest Forager

Kibble Dispensers

Individual Activities

Lick Mats

 Slow Feed Bowls

Single Puppy (Crate) Pacifiers

When to use them?

Pacifiers are a GREAT management tool to make your work as a breeder easier and more effective!   Here are the most common ways that pacifiers make my work easier.

  1. To teach puppies it’s great to run back into the weaning pen after an outing.   I “seed” the weaning pen with a pacifier (like a snuffle mat) after I take the puppies out.  Once they figure out the snuffle mat is always waiting for them, they are happy to run back inside the pen when I open the door.
  2.  To soothe puppies during the “witching hour” when they are bickering and frantic. These times are often predictable, think ahead and set up group activities about 30 minutes beforehand.
  3. To prevent puppies from learning to scream and bark at movement outside the pen.  I plop a pacifier like a few Kong Foragers in when I know I’m going to be moving around outside the pen.
  4. A snack before bed. During weeks 4-8 I put down a snuffle mat to soothe puppies as we go to bed.
  5. Rainy, cold, or blistering hot days. When walks and noodles outside are short and puppies get bored.

In the new home!

Falcon in his new home. Because he learned to use a variety of pacifiers when here, he was “primed” and ready to use pacifiers in his new home. This makes raising him much easier on his mom!

I can’t even begin to tell you how introducing your puppies to pacifiers early, while they are in the care of the breeder or foster, will help your new families.

Raising a puppy is hard work!   Puppies are chew machines and almost every new owner struggles with the same normal puppy issues:  chewing on things, mouthing humans, ‘getting into stuff’, and pestering humans or older dogs. These are all normal behaviors, and pacifiers are amazing effective ways to allow puppies to develop normally, while also fostering habits the owners LOVE.   This helps ensure the puppy has GOOD interactions with people and not a bunch of “no puppy” “bad puppy” type interactions, it builds good recreational chewing habits, and it gives puppies a natural outlet for their chewing and foraging needs.

Keep a list, much like this one, of the types of pacifiers you have taught the puppies to use.   Provide it to each new puppy family so they can learn the value of pacifiers, how to teach puppies to use them, and when to provide them for the most benefit. And BOOM, your puppy and it’s new owner are now set up for success and a happy life together!

Much Ado About Fussing

If you’ve been breeding long enough, you have met “That Puppy”. That Puppy is one who, while his littermates are quietly napping or playing, is screaming at the top of his lungs. Maybe he hollers after midnight, or bellows in the morning, or has a midday tirade every day? Such a puppy can drive a breeder to distraction.

Of course when a puppy is vocalizing for no apparent reason we should first consider the puppy’s health. Is That Puppy gassy? A bloated gassy puppy has a very good reason to vocalize! So first run through a list of That Puppy’s basic needs.

  1. Pain– Is this puppy in pain or uncomfortable? Is a vet check warranted? Could That Puppy be gassy, or have a stomach ache from weaning, or over eating, or parasites?
  2. Hunger– is this puppy “hangry” because it’s been pushed off breakfast by larger puppies? Does it need a snack?
  3. Thirst- is clean water available?
  4. Warmth/cool- is the climate of the weaning pen comfortable? We readily think of puppy’s being chilled, no breeder wants that, but some breeds *cough Malamute cough* appreciate being able to get cool.
  5. Rest- is there a place for this puppy to rest? Some puppies rest better in a “single size” bed, some really want to snuggle with other puppies. Further, can the puppy rest without being constantly awoken by playful siblings, household noises, nannies or over tending mothers?

If any of the Basic Needs are lacking, addressing those is our starting point.

But what if we’ve met all those basic needs? Indeed for skilled and responsible breeders these basic needs are second nature, attended to with great skill, and never lacking. But still…..That Puppy bellows!

One can never imagine the volume this wee mite can muster!
This is when the train can fly off the tracks. Faced with That Puppy, that loud, loud puppy, breeders try to figure out why.
Why just *That Puppy*?

At this point, faced with this difficult puppy we often get distracted and off track because we, even though we know more about puppies than anyone, start to assume that a baby puppy is like a tiny adult dog.

We don’t let adult dogs out of crates when they fuss now do we? (Let me add, I’m not advocating leaving any dog to scream it out, but that’s a subject for later). So great is the fear we will “teach” a dog to vocalize to control us that we forget that puppies are not tiny adult dogs.   So entrenched is this advice to ignore, that we never question it.

We then start to throw out labels, now That Puppy is: Bossy, High Strung, Demanding, Manipulative, Dominate.

That Puppy is trying to CONTROL us, the human, heaven help us!    But is it really?

First, remember that if we decide to frame a dog’s behavior (of any age) with a negative label we then tend to put ourselves in a dead end. After all, if a puppy is having a temper tantrum, being manipulative, demanding, bossy or whatever now we have suddenly made this “the puppy’s fault” or a problem with the puppy itself, we are now in a battle of wills with this puppy. We must win, right?

Labels are so limiting and they can close off how we think about behavior into one narrow road with few solutions.

The Puppy screams because he’s difficult, and he’s difficult because he screams. This offers us no path to resolution.

So if we think a puppy is being in any way “naughty” we start to think along the lines of “teaching the puppy a lesson”, that it can’t control us and that bad behavior won’t “work”. This limits us to basically one common answer, IGNORE the puppy (or much worse, punish the puppy by squirting it, or tossing a penny can, or scruffing it). Otherwise the puppy “wins” and that means we are the looser because the puppy learns to vocalize to demand release.

But, this is at best really limiting, at worse damaging, and may indeed completely miss the mark, the “point” or function of the behavior.

Always remember, puppies exhibit behavior as a response to the environment. How such a young puppy responds is less about high cognitive functioning, learning, and manipulation and more about basic instincts.

Puppies are hard wired to respond to distress vocally, this is basic survival advantage stuff.

Puppies are hard wired to want to “be with” humans and dogs (that order may be switched depending on the breed traits at play). We literally domesticated dogs so they want to be with us, they are driven to be with us.

This instinct combines with breed traits and developmental stages to create a variety of behaviors. Learning plays an increasing role as the puppy matures, but it’s not the primary player in baby puppies.

So instead of asking ourselves how we can punish a puppy (something we are inclined to do if we think of the puppy’s behavior as being deliberately bad) by ignoring it (removing something needed or desired) or punishing it (adding something the puppy would like to avoid) we do better work by the puppy if we look at the puppy acting this way and take the behavior “at it’s word” and think of the puppy as struggling, as an emotionally immature individual struggling with frustration, or perhaps separation distress, or fatigue, discomfort, or over arousal. When we frame our puppy in this light, we can see a variety of potential solutions before us, so many, instead of few.

1. Look for a pattern. Does the fussy behavior occur before meal time? In the evening? In the middle of the night? Jot down in your litter notebook when the fussy behavior happens and always confirm which puppy is vocalizing. This is really helpful in designing an intervention, but sometimes we don’t need at plan at all because the function of the vocalization becomes readily apparent in the pattern. For example, if a puppy eats and then cries for an hour after, our solution may be in the feeding. Puppy is under eating, or over eating, or the food doesn’t agree with the puppy.

The gate to my puppy area, from the busy kitchen, with the visual block closed so my puppies can relax.

2. Take advantage of visual blocks. Barrier frustration is a real deal in certain breeds and it can start young. I use sheets (I like sheets because they are easy to close and open) on the outside of the pen, this one thing has decreased puppy distress by 90% in my home. Use visual blocks strategically “in the moment” to help a puppy lower it’s arousal and distress at being separated from others in the household. If the pen walls are covered already, try uncovering it, or a part of the pen to make a window.

This sheet lowered down the side of the weaning pen allows Heron to rest peacefully.

3. Dramatically increase novelty within the pen. Remove and rotate toys often, increase the cognitive effort a toy takes, use snuffle mats, novel odors, kibble dispensers, small platforms, really make the pen interesting and engaging and time these changes to right before the high risk times. In my own puppies, this is usually where my solution lies. German Shepherds are clever puppies, just tossing a few toys in won’t always be enough. But a snuffle mat? Or a bunch of horse hair stuffed into a toy, or a kibble nibble, yeah! Something that requires some sniffing and figuring out! That can help a puppy self calm and relax.

The toys on this mobile can be changed daily, chews, or scented items can be hung.

4. Spend more time with the puppies in the pen yourself instead of always taking them out. Mix it up a bit. How often do we accidentally teach puppies that being outside the weaning pen is better? Too often all human interactions are outside the weaning pen, all novelty is outside the weaning pen, and meals are outside the weaning pen. NO WONDER puppies long to be out of their pen! Make a real effort to condition puppies that being confined (in a pen at first, and a crate later) is WONDERFUL! Put the puppies OUT of the pen and then have a clicker training session INSIDE the pen, one puppy at a time. Sit inside the pen sometimes for play time and visitor time. Put novel smells and items in the pen for exploration sometimes. Now, I’m NOT saying “don’t take your puppies out of the weaning pen” , that would be insane, but I am saying to make your weaning pen just as much fun as the other parts of your house.

Spend quality time inside the weaning pen with your puppies, so outside isn’t always better!

5.  So, on that note, be sure your puppies time outside the pen, counts. Plan sniff walks in a puppy safe yard, or if it’s better, do a sniff walk inside! Collect novel odors (I use chicken feathers, bark from trees, horse hair, and cat hair often) and plant these along with some treats around your room. Start easy, and make each snuffle walk just a tad more difficult. Before you know it your puppies will be experts at using their noses to find the hidden novel smell. This type of “thinking” exercise will help puppies rest better when returned to their pen. Be sure to salt the pen with a snuffle mat, or kibble nibble, so when the puppies return they have an activity to help them calm down.

This puppy’s time outside the pen features a shaping lesson!

6. Have adult dogs help! If you have a safe skilled team of nannies, make sure they have a hop in (a low point in the pen that allows a nanny to enter AND LEAVE the pen at will) so they can interact with the puppies in the pen. I have one nanny who is always first to sooth a frustrated puppy. So I make sure she can!   Now, again, do NOT EVER lock any adult dog (even the dam) in with the puppies. There must always be an escape route for any dog to leave the weaning pen. I use a board that my nannies, nannoes, and the dam can jump in/out of the weaning pen at will. If you have a skilled nanny or nanno, this dog can soothe a fussy puppy by modeling quiet behavior, or by just attending to the puppy’s need, but it’s not desirable for a dog to actually punish the upset puppy.  Just because an older dog uses an aversive doesn’t make it more desirable than a human!   So always use your common sense when supervising nannies.  Just like a human trainer, a good nanny can shape and model desirable behavior without risky techniques that can create more serious problems than the one being solved.

This board allows my nannies and nannoes (and the dam) to enter and leave the weaning pen at will. Also note the gate can close and the visual block is pulled up.
When Frankeigh was unable to calm down, he was removed from the pen and given over to Nanny Zahra, who laid down, invited him to join her, and then groomed his head until he fell asleep.

7. Plug in a DAP or spray some. I love DAP for the weaning pen. It’s very soothing for puppies in general.  If you use the spray you can spray the area as needed, the diffuser works all the time.   I will tell you, if you have a diffuser plugged in, you can spray more when That Puppy starts to fuss.

8. Soothing music is very helpful. Soothing music, or a boring audio book should make up the bulk of the “background” noise for your litter. Sound conditioning and habituation should never be nonstop, our ratio is around 75% soothing sounds, no sound, intermixed with 25% sounds we are either conditioning or habituating to. If I have a fussy puppy, I always make sure I have soothing sounds at the ready!

Dap and soothing sounds can help puppies feel calmer when confined in the pen.

9. Teach Manding pen side. If you reinforce sitting pen side your puppy can take advantage of Manding (a learned behavior) instead of screaming (a natural behavior) at the side of the pen. Create a Success Station near the side of your pen, with written instructions for the humans who pass by, and a small bucket of treats for the puppies. Teach all the humans to pop a treat into the mouth of any puppy who is sitting quietly pen side.

A work in progress, puppies learning to Mand at the side of the weaning pen instead of vocalizing and bickering.

10. This is where things get really crazy!  I do the opposite of many, when I have a puppy who frets and yells I don’t ignore That Puppy.  Using my Pattern (See 1 Above) I try to remove That Puppy before it gets upset (ideally when calm) because I am aware that learning is happening, and I want to reinforce calm behavior. But if I have a puppy who is screaming in the pen I no longer leave it to freak out. I really don’t want all that stress hormone activity, it’s not worth “teaching it a lesson” to have an immature brain awash in cortisol or other stress hormones. That just primes the puppy’s brain to use more in future (totally anecdotal, I’ve only my own experiences on this).  I want less vocalization, NOT more vocalization.

This is the opposite of what I was taught. I was taught to always ignore a fussy puppy, because a fussy puppy is being manipulative and trying to control people. But what I found as a breeder, is that ignoring a distressed puppy really just means I have a puppy who is MORE often distressed and for LONGER in the CSP.  But when I started to attend to fussy puppies, almost like magic, they were less often fussy and they stopped being fussy much sooner. What I had been taught wasn’t actually effective, for me, the puppy, or the new owner.

Now, not in the middle of the night, and not every time a puppy peeps a squeak!  I use my breeder judgement to tell me when a puppy is complaining, versus when a puppy is distressed.

A mildly complaining puppy just needs a few minutes to settle down, something I can aid with a pacifier.  But a puppy who is vocalizing intensely, I might look and see if I have a huge Bull’s Eye pupil for example, a high respiration rate, or pacing, to give me clues about what is best.   If a puppy is truly distressed, or has worked itself into a cortisol fueled fit, I’m no going to ignore that.  I might win a battle of wills, but I lose the war.

But, happily, I almost never have a fussy puppy since I use this approached based on Dr. Susan Friedman’s Humane Hierarchy [1].  This one thing has convinced me that a fussy puppy is NOT a difficult individual, or a dominate puppy, or even bossy, because not only are those just labels, but those things would not have been resolved by MORE attention and MORE toys and MORE activities. NO, what I have learned is that my labels, and the advice I was given, were flawed in the first place. What I really had was an immature animal using the tool kit nature provided it attempting to get it’s needs met.

Tiny tyrant or misunderstood floof?

When I look beyond the label, a ton of possible solutions are presented: add or remove visual blocks, add or remove enrichment, add or remove nannies, add or remove activity, add DAP, music, chews, food based activities, add or remove the individual puppy or puppies. So many good options!

Lots of options are better than one option (ignore) and allows us to serve our puppy’s needs better with less risk of unexpected negative effects or undesirable learning.

Also, by 6 weeks we are well into our crate conditioning protocol and this really helps to prevent fretting and demanding to get out and provides me with another option!

You can also find help in my littermate interactions article. Much of this works just as well for a single upset puppy as it does for pugnacious behavior within a litter.

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Easy Transitions: Optimizing Puppy Transitions From Breeder To Owner.

Transitions are a part of every dogs life, how can we use a puppy’s transition to it’s new home to teach a puppy to anticipate transitions as positive experiences, and face change with adaptability.

 

Long before this day, a breeder has been working towards an easy transition to the new home.

 

Most breeders, and many new puppy owners, have experienced fall out from a rocky transition.    Like the proverbial snow ball growing larger as it rolls down snow covered hill, if a puppy becomes distressed during transition a cascade of undesirable effects can accumulate.   Sadly, these can result in an overwhelmed family returning the puppy to the breeder, or an overwhelmed puppy experiencing  potentially life altering anxieties, fears, illnesses, or traumas.

Many of you know the story of my own dog Indeigh, my second German Shepherd puppy and one of the most cherished dogs of my life.   But Indeigh had a rocky start, not knowing how to help this puppy, who was so unprepared for transitioning into my home, had far reaching effects for her.   The weeks that snowballed into months, of distress, upset, and frustration we both experienced taught Indeigh to view change and novelty with suspicion and even anxiety.   This became a lifelong struggle for this highly acomplished dog.  I don’t blame Indeigh, or myself, or her breeder, none of us knew how to prepare or help her.  But things have changed in the world of dogs, and animal behavior in general, and as said so famously by Maya Angelou “when you know better, you do better”.  Now I know and I want to share what I’ve learned in the nearly 30 years since I brought Indeigh home.

SG1 (JHKL) Indeigh v. Spezialblut Bh AD HIC CGC SchH1 Kkl1 OFA. My heart.

Indeigh, once again, this is for you.  I miss you, and I’m doing better.

What can we do to foster resilience in transition? How can we, as breeders, leverage things we already do to help optimize our puppy’s native born temperament?   How can we make the most of this first big life transition, using it to create a foundation of adaptability and confidence in our puppy, making the most of each inherited trait.

You might think of this as coddling, puppies need stress you would say, to grow into adaptable dogs.  You would be right, stress is vital and important to both mental and physical development and growth, however distress is not.   Distress creates room for unintended learning, distress doesn’t foster strength and resilience, distress is to be avoided.   We don’t want to protect puppies from stress or stressful events, but instead to give them the skills they need to emerge from those inevitable life events stronger, resilient, adaptable, and confident.

Adaptability and resilience grow from experiencing small, age appropriate, amounts of stress as positive experiences.    That’s the experience we want to foster, it’s the growth medium for confidence.

First, our goals:

1. Puppy will learn to anticipate transitions and change as positive experiences that lead to good things.   Puppy will feel competent in new experiences.
2. Family will learn how to teach their puppy that transitions are positive experiences using primary reinforcements (social interaction, food, play), and conditioned reinforcers (clickers and other markers) primarily through operant conditioning.

We already have the tools we need, we are already working hard, when we look forward to plan life’s first big transition we increase the chance of a smooth transition week for our puppy and the new family, and orchastrate an environment to guide our puppy along a path to adaptability and competence throughout life.

Using the puppy raising protocols from the film Puppy Culture  as our guide,  here is a list of 5 tips and techniques I, and other breeders, use to optimize puppy’s transition to it’s new home.  I hope you enjoy this list and find it helpful!

Learn more about Puppy Culture here:

http://www.puppyculture.com

1. Create a lover of Novelty. 

2. Packing Their Bags

3. Turtle Puppy: I take my home with me. 

4. Schedule Choas And Learn To Love The Unexpected. 

5. A bridge over changing waters. 

Let us know what tips you’ve discovered help build confidence in transitions in your puppies, and how you help your new puppy owners make the best of the transition period!

A Bridge Over Changing Water: Easy Transitions Part 5

Like “a bridge over troubled waters” bridge behaviors help puppies find confidence through communication with their new family, and in a new environment.

Unlike a verbal marker which can sound different from person to person, a clicker sounds the same no matter who clicks it.

Using the beauty of operant conditioning to create confidence and adaptability to transitions.

I’ve saved the most important for last because it’s really just THAT important.

What is a bridge?   For our purposes here, a bridge is a behavior taught in such a way that a positive emotional response is PART of the behavior.   A bridge doesn’t work if it’s a behavior the puppy learned through fear or distress, we want our bridges to help us reach our goal of a dog who thrives under stress, and who enjoys life’s transitions.  Since the emotion the puppy experiences when it learns a behavior becomes attached to that behavior, we do not want any unpleasant emotion to travel on our bridge.

Learning to sit on a platform, the happy anticipation this puppy feels learning this behavior will be forever attached, she’ll feel happy when cued to sit later in her new home.

The magic of the bridge is in the communication between the puppy and the new owner.   When puppies leave our home they also leave behind all those contextual cues that help them know what is expected when, and what behavior might be expected of them in particular settings.   All those nice clear paths to reinforcement are obscured.  They feel a bit like “strangers in a strange land” in the new home.

The new family often feels the same way, just how do they get the puppy to do the things they need?

Our bridge behaviors give the puppy a way to communicate to the owner and the owner to the puppy. There is empowerment and confidence in this shared language.
We encourage our new families to start the day they bring their puppy home with the Puppy Culture Communication Trinity, and to run through these lessons in order.  Running through these familiar lessons helps the puppy feel confident and competent in the new home from day 1.

So our bridge behavior MUST include a positive emotional response, since we are Puppy Culture breeders and clicker trainers this is easy for us, as all our Puppy Culture Active Enrichment Behaviors and our other clicker trained behaviors fit this requirement.

Here are the bridge behaviors our puppies are taught before they go home.

1. Sit (Mand) for things you want.

Learning to Mand for a novel person at our Puppy Party.

2. Attention.

Puppy offers Attention when on an outing to a new and strange environment (a local garden center).

3. Follow Leash Pressure.

Puppy responds to gentle leash pressure by turning to face me, and offering attention.

4. Hand Target (touch your nose to my hand).

Puppy learning to hand target with a novel person at a Puppy Party.

With this small set of baby behaviors our puppy can, when unsure what to do, be quickly and easily Clicked and Treated for any one of these behaviors.  All of these behaviors  are very useful for our new families too.

Of course, we also need to teach our new families the basics of clicker training, and most importantly when and how to use the bridge behaviors.  Much of this is covered in the Puppy Culture film that we provide to each family before their puppy goes home with them.

Here are some examples of using bridge behaviors during transition week.
First Day:
Puppy can Mand to leave crate.
Puppy can Mand for meals.
Puppy can have the clicker powered up.
Puppy can Mand for toy toss.
Puppy can give attention for tugging.
Puppy can Mand for petting.
Second Day:
Puppy can Mand to leave Crate.
Puppy can Mand for meals.
Puppy can play The Box Game.
Puppy can practice Leash Walking.
Puppy can Mand for petting.
Puppy can give Attention for toy toss.
At Vet:
Puppy can Mand for social interaction.
Puppy can play Attention while vet listens to heart.
Puppy can follow a Hand Target onto scale.

Puppies Manding at their first vet visit.

Attention is a powerful bridge behavior!
Because we have already conditioned these bridge behaviors, AND taught the puppy owner how to teach, use, and reinforce them, the puppy can experience these situations (all of which are transitions) as fun and reinforcing events because the puppy “knows” how to earn reinforcement in the form of praise, food, and play.

This helps our puppy learn from the very start that it has control over what happens to it, that good things are plentiful and easy to access, and that change predicts these wonderful things.

Puppies who are unsure can express a variety of behaviors that we don’t want the puppy to learn or practice.  Puppies can be frantic, hectic, nervous, avoidant, and a laundry list of other emotional states and behaviors best never learned.

With a small set of bridge behaviors our new puppy owner can ask for desirable behaviors, and our puppy can respond quickly and happily, finding a desirable path to reinforcement that serves it well throughout life.

Even as an adolescent, Rose still Mands at the vet’s office!

Manding carries through to adulthood, as Zora shows us on a recent vet visit.

Schedule Chaos And Learn To Love The Unexpected. Easy Transitions Part 4

Schedule or no schedule?  Which is better and can it be both?

 

Breeders are often divided, even when they don’t know they are!  I was so interested recently in a discussion on schedules in puppy raising.   On the one side were the practical considerations: puppies have to eat frequently and are messy. Their needs require regular attention, this dictates some type of scheduling.   On the other side were some very thoughtful ideas concerning teaching puppies to handle unexpected changes with confidence and the need for unpredictability in puppy raising.   Maybe what we need is both predictably and unpredictability?

Four week old puppies require scheduled feeding, cleaning, and other necessities.

Create a feeling of security with a schedule.

Puppies are a schedule intensive creature, by making note of your puppy care schedule you can help both your family and the puppy.   Make note of your typical feeding/cleaning schedule (for most breeders this is AM, Midday, PM and for breeders who do crate work, late PM potty breaks) as well as your training and crate conditioning routines.  You can easily imagine how this might impact your puppy in it’s new home.
Most puppies will have owners who work during the day and  many puppies can expect to be crated for some amount of time at night and during the day until fully house trained.
So, we try to work on crate conditioning with our litters during late afternoon.   This occurs after morning clean up, meal, and play time, when the puppies are getting tired and ready for rest.   At this point we do crate chews and naps.
It’s by design that we work on crate conditioning in our morning routine instead of our evening one.  Because most puppies are going to experience crating during the daytime, whether they are companion, show, working, or sport dogs.   So during the transition period our routine can help the puppy expect to spend some time during the day crated and napping.  Further, knowing this routine can help our family during the transition period.

By knowing their new puppy typically naps after breakfast, the new family can schedule a nap time around the same time. Changes due to the families schedule can then be made gradually during the first week.

Create adaptability by throwing out the schedule!

We don’t want our puppy to be so habituated to a particular schedule that changes in routine are distressing.  So while puppies really do require some scheduling of meals and cleanliness for their health and wellbeing, we can also create an happy anticipation of change by pairing random events with very enjoyable activities.

Puppies enjoying a noodle around the yard. Creating a joyful anticipation of the unexpected is easy!

Mix up your elective activities to create a love of the unexpected.

We can’t really just “not feed or clean up after” our puppies, that’s a given. Puppies require regular feeding and a clean environment.  But all other activities (passive enrichment, active enrichment, crate conditioning, etc.) are elective activities that we can move around.

Further, since our puppies LOVE these elective activities (as they are paired with food, play, and learning) we can also create a happy anticipation of change by creating some randomness in these activities.

This is how I do that!   I assign each activity a number, some tasks are listed twice because they need repeating more often.

Unexpected crate time in the car! Crates and cars are great because we pair both with wonderful chews and thoughtful conditioning programs.

1. Passive Enrichment: Novel item(s), Pen toy resets.
2. Active Enrichment: Clicker Training Lessons
3. Puppy Scent Games: Puppy Tracking
4. Noodling: Yard exploration and play
5. Crate Conditioning: Crate chews, in house or car.
6. Nothing Time: puppies are left alone in the house.
7. Play: Fetch, Flirt, Tug games.
8. Nothing Time: We are home, but not interacting.
9. Grooming as Individual Attention
10. Active Enrichment: Clicker Training (this is twice, because we have lots of training to do!).

Puppy learning to hand target, as part of a random activity.

Then I download a free Random Number Generator onto my phone (from the App Store or Google Play) and set it from 1-10.

The Random Number Generator then gives me number that matches one of my elective activities.  I do this activity during one of three free times, After Breakfast, After Lunch, or After Dinner.  Since I know I can’t skip feeding or cleaning up after my puppies, this means I need to work variety in between these non elective scheduled tasks.

And of course, sometimes we don’t do anything!

This allows me to condition the puppies to both feel confident their needs will be met, and at the same time, that many fun and unexpected things are going to happen in any day.

By including both alone at home, and ignored time in our rotation puppies learn to expect being unattended sometimes, even if we are home!

Note, I’ve included two types of “alone time” time when we leave the house and another time when we are home but not interacting with the puppies.   Both happen as part of our regular schedule, but I want to ensure that the puppies have lots of experience with us leaving the house, as well as us being home but ignoring the them.  This mirrors real life.

With just a little planning we can teach our puppies from the beginning that their needs will be met predictably, and further, that variations in schedule and unexpected things are wonderful and to be enjoyed!   Both are needed to help puppies grow into well adjusted and adaptable adult dogs.   

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