PUPPY DEVEOPMENT
A WEEK-BY-WEEK LOOK AT WHAT'S GOING ON
Getting a new puppy is SO EXCITING...and we know, it's near torture to have to look at all those cute pictures and imagine the joy you'll feel when you finally get to pick your puppy up and meet them for the first time! In an effort to make the waiting a little easier, we thought we'd give you a little info on what the puppies are doing each week from the time they're born until the time they can finally come home with you! Each week is incredibly important to their development, and we're excited to share more with you!
JUMP TO WEEK:
WEEK ONE - THE JOURNEY BEGINS
When all goes well, the first week or so of the puppies' lives is fairly uneventful and is mostly colored by eating, sleeping, and well...to put it nicely, practicing using their digestive systems! Their mommas are their main caretakers during this week of their lives. Unless there is a puppy that needs extra care, this includes feeding their babies and making sure they are clean and safe. It's kind of gross, but this means they stimulate their puppies to go to the bathroom...and then eat it. Was that TMI? Sorry if it was, but that's actually their instinct and is helpful to replenish the mother's nutrients post-whelping.
However, we still have a BIG part in raising the puppies at this stage! Our team closely monitors the puppies' growth with two or three daily weigh-ins to ensure puppies are gaining an appropriate amount of weight each day. We are also constantly ensuring that their momma's are provided with everything they need to feel happy and safe with their brand new babies. Often times, this means providing the mommas with plenty of fresh water and yummy, calcium-rich mix-ins to their food to ensure that they are producing enough milk for their puppies. Our employees are also constantly monitoring the moms' lactation to ensure we are clear of any post whelping infections. A healthy momma means healthy babies!
If we have a puppy who is struggling this week, we know it is likely in critical condition and gets round-the-clock care by our experienced whelping team. This often includes tube feeding, very frequent weigh-ins, constant monitoring, and visits to the vet's office when needed. Unfortunately, because the puppies are so young, there are few diagnostics that the vet can run. We've handled more newborns than many doctors, and are lucky to work very closely (like, we just text the doctors instead of call nowadays!) if we have any issue with our puppies. In many cases, we're able to prevent a potentially dire situation. JLDD is proud to boast our mortality rate in our puppies is FAR below the standard for breeders worldwide due to our commitment to each puppy we choose to bring into the world.
We also start the puppies with ENS this week, which is short for early neurological stimulation. This is basically a practice we use to begin breaking the puppies into sensory development and recovery. We know it seems scary to do this to puppies so young, but it's been proven to produce happier, healthier, and more well rounded dogs! It consists of holding the puppies upside down, right side up, on their backs, and using a cool compress on their paws for about 5 seconds on each position. Each day, we can see them getting more and more comfortable with these practices. Every puppy in this litter will be receiving this practice daily until they're a little over 2 weeks old.
WEEK TWO
Now that the puppies are in their second week of life, things are usually fairly well stabilized with them. Most of the time, puppies have more than doubled their birth weights by this time as they spend most of their time eating, sleeping, pottying, snuggling...and then doing it all over again all day, every day!
Their mommas still spend most of their time snuggling in their box with their little ones, taking breaks regularly to cool off from their warm box and have some yummy, calcium rich snacks to support their milk supply. When puppies are this young, they actually cannot regulate their own body temperatures, so it’s up to us to ensure that they have the heat sources they need to stay nice and toasty, which makes them more apt to keep their hearty appetites - which is VERY necessary at this point in their lives! The vitamins and antibodies that they are gaining from their mothers’ milk during this period of their lives are incredibly important to the puppies’ development. The puppies are also born with both their eyes and ears sealed shut, so they can’t hear or see anything we do at this point. However, their senses are incredibly strong and they can almost always find a heat source or their mothers. Sometimes, we find ourselves whispering to them and then thinking to ourselves - wait a minute, they can’t hear me. What am I even doing? Ha!
While we’re usually out of the ‘danger zone’ of losing puppies at this point, our team is dutifully still doing two daily weigh-ins, both in the morning and during the evening to ensure that each and every puppy is growing at an appropriate pace. As aforementioned, puppies are generally at least twice their birth weight at this point and are getting ADORABLY chunky! It’s so much fun to see them growing both physically, and mentally. We know it seems silly to say that they’re growing mentally already, but their ENS this week is already showing massive improvements from last week. The puppies are reacting less to the stimuli we’re creating for them, and are ALREADY on their way to becoming excellent best friends for their future owners. We can’t wait to start seeing their little personalities emerge in the next couple of weeks!
WEEK THREE
Week three is one of our FAVORITE weeks in puppy development! It’s absolutely amazing to watch the puppies that could previously only scoot around on their bellies now start getting their little legs under then and start pushing up onto their tiny paws and begin to toddle around their whelping box. These steps are never very graceful, but they are some of the cutest that you’ll ever lay eyes on! Puppies are starting to find their voices, and sometimes we get to see them practicing their extra fierce barks and growls! The puppies are already beginning to establish pack order at this point, and we sometimes even catch them barking and charging at one another! Again, the cutest thing you’ll ever see - but it also plays a massive role in the puppies’ personalities on a long term basis. More dominant puppies who are willing to charge their littermates are at the beginning stages of jockeying for the coveted ‘pack leader’ position, and others who are more laid back will remain in the middle or lower end of the pack. However, don’t be too worried about this just yet - there are still SO many changes to come!
During this time, puppies’ eyes and ears are also opening - so they are seeing and hearing the world for the very first time. Things are a little fuzzy on both spectrums for them during this week, but as time passes, they will see and hear more clearly. Since puppies are getting a little older, our team is now able to do a bit more of our puppy culture protocol to start enhancing their first experiences with sight and sound. It’s up to us to make sure that they begin having a positive experience with the sites and sounds that will be a part of their lives on a long-term basis early on. This week, we either turn on a television or radio in their whelping room to ensure that this is a familiar sound for them, and if need be, can serve as a source for self-soothing later on in life. They also begin experiencing ‘normal’ household sounds such as babies crying and birds chirping.
Although often times we start it before the puppies are three weeks old, this week marks the official beginning of our puppies’ crate training protocol. We won’t bore you with the details, but it starts with all the puppies being crated together in one crate while their whelping box is being thoroughly cleaned and sanitized, and then puppies are slowly broken into less crates for longer periods until they are in individual crates. Starting the puppies on their crate training early makes this a natural part of their lives and makes their transition into their forever homes that much easier when the time comes!
WEEK FOUR
“Weaning Week”, as we lovingly label week four of the puppies’ lives is where the fun REALLY begins! This week, we begin assisting our mommas with weaning their puppies from their milk on to solid food! Some of our mommas LOVE this week as they’re kind of tired of having to stay cooped up with their puppies, which means less time for playing with their friends! Others aren’t as fond of it, and just want to stay with their pups and continue doting on them. However, whichever end of the spectrum the mom is on, she is ALWAYS happy to clean up her puppies’ ‘puppy mush’ leftovers!
All of our puppies are started on ‘puppy mush’ at their four week birthday. Naturally, about this age this is when their mothers would start weaning them - so we follow suit! So, “what’s in puppy mush?” you might ask! Well, it’s a lovely combination of:
1.) Puppy food
(the same food their mom was started on when she found out she was expecting!)
2.) Warm water
(similar to the temperature of their mother’s fresh milk)
3.) Probiotics
(Because let’s be honest - new foods don’t always go the best for anyone!)
4.) NuVet Powder
(This is our #1 favorite vitamin that all of our dogs get year round! PLEASE make sure your puppy stays on it their whole life, too! ORDER HERE!)
You guys - it’s not pretty when it’s made, and it definitely doesn’t smell even a little bit good to us humans...but the puppies L O V E I T ! From the start, smaller litters usually aren’t as into it as bigger litters as they’re not used to having to compete with their siblings for food. However, day by day, we see all of the puppies start to eagerly lap it up when they see their food! The first feeding of ‘puppy mush’ is usually pretty watery and closely resembles the consistency of their mothers’ milk. Twice every day, about 9am and 7pm, based on the amount food to water ratio the puppies ate for their previous meal, our team continues to thicken the mixture to reflect more food and less water until they’re on hard kibble when they go home at 8 weeks.
Speaking of food and vitamins, another VERY popular and necessary question we get is that of what type of food and vitamins the puppies are getting. All of our puppies and dogs get NuVet Vitamins EVERY single day. Many companies have contacted us offering us vitamins to try - and we have refused all but these. We have seen vast improvements in our dogs’ overall health, as well as that of the puppies. During this stage of their lives while they’re not all the way vaccinated, it serves as a potent immune booster to improve their overall health. As they grow, it will assist in supporting healthy growth and development of their bone structures and bodies. Its benefits change with your dog and it’s different needs throughout its life. And…the best part is that THEY LOVE IT! We highly recommend starting your puppy on these vitamins NOW and continuing them throughout their lives!
Going along with weaning is POTTY TRAINING! Naturally, our moms stop cleaning up after the puppies around this time, and we start limiting their time nursing their puppies to ensure a safe weaning for both mom and puppies. We introduced potty pads last week, but this week they start transitioning to wood chips. We start them by having only two areas of their whelping box - sleeping or potty! Naturally, they don’t want to potty where they sleep (who does?!) so they begin to make the association relatively quickly. As they learn, we start giving them more and more space to play and relax. The wood chips help puppies start to associate "outside smells" (like wood) with pottying outside!
Additionally, this week we are getting to have more fun than ever with our puppy culture protocols! We are spending time with each puppy individually doing different challenges every day and getting a better feel for how they react to the new, exciting world around them. We introduce more toys this week as well, and personalities are really beginning to emerge! We can’t wait to see what’s next!
WEEK FIVE
This week in the puppies’ development is a lot of building on what they’ve experienced in the last week. Their weaning is extremely important in this time period, both for the puppies and for their mommas. Naturally, the mommas start to be more at ease spending more time away from their puppies around this time, as they know they are getting nutrients from a source besides her! When she does come in for a visit with her puppies, there is some serious almost attack-suckling going on! The puppies act like this will be their last meal ever from her - but most mommas don’t stop feeding their babies all together until they are between 6 and 7 weeks old. You know what’s extra gross? Lots of times, the mommas will go into the puppies’ pens and vomit up their own food for the puppies to eat. Gross, right? We guess it was the best thing they could come up with as far as puppy mush in the wild! What’s even grosser is how tasty the puppies think it is! YUCK!!
Puppies are also doing a lot of exploring their world and playing at this point in their lives. When they begin weaning, we move them from their whelping box into a bigger pen that has a lot of fun items to play with and explore - as well as a potty area for them to begin to start using. Each day, they get new toys added that are different textures or make different sounds so that they can continue learning about the world around them! Every day, during our puppy culture protocol, they hear new sounds and interactions that they will experience when they go out into the world in just a few short weeks!
Individual time with the puppies is getting more and more fun as they are really becoming more interactive on a daily basis. They are so funny and love to run at us and do the cutest little puppy barks and growls! So ferocious! Our staff members are always excited to do individual time with the puppies at this age and see their minds expanding before our eyes every day. They are also being encouraged to sleep in a crate nightly, which is just a crate in their pen which we carefully ensure has the most bedding and soft things to sleep on! This way, we form a positive association with the puppies and their crates from an early age...which makes it easier on you, their pawrent when they come home! They are also spending increased amounts of time in their kennels individually at this point, which again should make the transition to your homes MUCH easier!
WEEK SIX
Usually, by this week, we have all but decided to keep every last puppy in the litter for ourselves, and this litter is absolutely no exception! There is NOTHING cuter than the group of pups running up to us to greet us every time we come in to their room to check on them! Lucky for you, we don’t have enough room to keep all of them in our program!
This week, the puppies are learning all sorts of new things! The puppy culture protocols we are using are starting to introduce puppies to more and more things that will be a part of their lives for the long run, like grooming, treats, and even a little obedience training and a TON of outside time, YAY! Conceptually, their little minds are able to handle a lot at this time in their development, and we are carefully and thoughtfully walking them through a variety of practices to ensure that they’re the perfect additions to your homes. We’ve been studying your family’s profile sheet and are starting to form some ideas about who we think might be the PERFECT addition to your family! The puppies still have a lot of development to do in the next week before we make final decisions, but we’re well on our way now!
Another mile-marker for week six is the pups’ first visit to the vet! The litter likely visited the vet this week and absolutely every person at the vet fell in love with them! Our vets are always are as excited as anyone to see another “JennaLee” litter. Quinn’s litter checked out perfectly! The puppies also got their first rounds of vaccinations this week, and are officially cleared to go outside! It’s always lots of fun to watch the puppies explore the wide open outdoors for the first time, and we plan to take them outside everyday this week for play time. Remember when bringing a new puppy home they are not fully vaccinated yet. This means they should not go where a lot of dogs are, or have been. If it is your yard, or a yard of a friend who you know has a healthy and vaccinated dog you can start introducing play time usually after a week of the puppy being home. Puppies do not have a strong immune system to fight those big dog germs, and some of these disease can mean life or death for small puppies.
This week the staff is working over time to do puppy culture and individual time with each of the puppies. Usually by the end of these last two weeks we have a couple dozen papers and test results to go through and find the right family for each one.
WEEK SEVEN
This week with your puppies, we’re focusing more on socialization practices, crate training, and potty training to help get your puppy ready to go home with you! Also, weather permitting, we’re spending more and more time exploring the great outdoors with them! It’s so much fun to watch them see new things for the very first time. We always try to include you via our social media pages, too!
Puppies are past their first "fear period" that generally happens in the fifth week, and are WIDE OPEN and full of energy by this point! This is the week that we do our personality assessments as the puppies have really come into their own by now. We use the Volhard Puppy Aptitude Test, as well as some of our very own practices that we've found helpful to our clients in the past when it comes to pairing them up with the perfect puppy for their specific lifestyles.
Puppies are definitely still developing at the 7 week mark, but they're really becoming 'little dogs' by this point in time! At JLDD, we allow our momma dogs to make the call on when they're ready to go back to their guardian families and leave their puppies. Some moms are ready to go soon after weaning, and others are very attached to their pups and will stay with them until their go-home day. If their mom stays with them, she is busy teaching them important "dog skills" like what is 'too hard' when biting (they still try to nurse sometimes...which isn't so comfortable with their sharp little razor-like teeth!). Lots of moms also spend plenty of time being silly doodles with their puppies and teaching them fun stuff like how to play! Puppies LOVE to play chase at this point..both with us or their moms!
If a momma dog has opted to go back to her guardian family by the time the puppies are 7 weeks old, we have our trusty "grandmas" on the premises that are experienced retired mommas that are excellent at being 'stand-ins' for the puppies. They are some of our original females, and actually are the grandmothers (or great-grandmothers!) to many of the puppies! Even when mom does stay around, our grandmas also help out with puppy socialization, which assists the puppies when they arrive at their new homes, potentially with other dogs that they'll need to know how to act around.
WEEK EIGHT
At week 8, the puppies are getting ready to leave us! We're sad, but honestly, each of them are SO READY for individual attention that we're glad for them to be able to get that with their new families! They all deserve it! The puppies are energetic and "all in" or "all out" this week....when they play, they play HARD and when they sleep, they sleep harder! Crate training is usually going pretty well at this point, and the puppies understand so much of what we've been teaching them over the past 8 weeks.
They are so much less reactive to various 'scary' noises than they were the first time we played them back at 4 weeks, they are better problem solvers, they are more sure of themselves and are able to navigate the world around them really well. They've been on car rides, gotten vaccines and dewormers, understand treats and basic requests, and LOVE giving kisses to us! Watching them blossom, and helping them their family they fit with just perfectly is a pleasure for our team!