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Down
South Westies Monthly Newsletter
What's
New This April!
April
1, 2004 In This Issue:
1.
How
We Socialize Our Pups!
2.
Westie
Books On Website! 1.
How We Socialize Our Pups! Birth
Through Week Two
Puppies need their mom and the other littermates.
They can’t regulate their own body temperature very well, so they
must have a warm place to sleep. We
keep the temp in the Doggie House about 85 degrees
the first 2 weeks. They
don’t do much except sleep and nurse. We handle them sparingly during
the first two weeks.
Week
Three Through Four We
lower the Doggie House temp to 78 degrees.
They begin wobbly walking. Their
eyes are usually open around
day 14-16 and their ears by day 21. They
now have the ability to form
an attachment to humans so we gently handle them often. We supervise all
handling and our grand children are allowed to sit on the floor and hold the puppies. We give daily
individual attention to each puppy, getting him or her accustomed to
positive human interaction. We
begin teaching them to lap milk mixed
with baby cereal beginning with week three.
It is
just another part of the socialization process…carefully handling the
puppies. Week
Five Through Eight
The
mother will be in the process of weaning the puppies and we let her do her
job. The puppies get
individual attention throughout the day and are able to run with
mom in the fenced yard with our supervision.
At this age, they enjoy being held and need lots of attention.
Mom allows them to nurse only a few minutes daily. They are eating
Nutro Natural Choice Lamb and
Rice Puppy Food! They
have massive appetites. The
puppy is also learning other very crucial skills at this age.
He’s learning to speak “dog.”
He’s learning
social skills that will enable him to interpret unspoken messages
from other dogs and give appropriate replies.
Things like calming signals (a kind of a friendly,
submissive
gesture)
are learned at this time, and this will help your pup to communicate with
other dogs all through his life.
If he is removed from the litter unequipped with this vital
information, he could possibly get “picked on” or attacked frequently
by other dogs when they don’t receive the information they need from
him.
If he doesn’t “speak the language”, it will be hard
for him to express himself.
He could also become a
“bully” himself, because he won’t understand the signals
to
“back off” that the other dogs are giving him.
This could also lead to a nasty fight.
Your New Pup…Your Responsibility! You have picked up your new pup by now and the
journey begins! You now take
over the role of being the “mother” to your new puppy. To make the first few nights easier on your new puppy, we recommend allowing the puppy to be VERY near you. Those first few nights should hold as little trauma as absolutely possible. If you shut up your puppy away from you when you get home with him, he’s going to assume he’s been LOST or abandoned, and will cry to be rescued. You merely have to assure him that he simply has a new home, with a human parent, and that you can be just as loving and comforting as his real mother (almost). The puppy is
experiencing his FEAR IMPRINT PERIOD between 8 and 9 weeks of age, and any
traumatic encounters will stay with the puppy for his entire lifetime if you allow them to occur.
Be extremely cautious during this time. The key is to try to allow the pup to experience all kinds
of different sights, sounds, smells, all kinds of people, places, and
things. NOW is when you should
begin training your puppy. DO NOT wait until
he is 6 months old. The
puppy is a learning
“SPONGE” at this age, and to not give him
structured training is to allow him to learn BAD habits.
Puppies have a full adult brain at 49 days of age.
There is
absolutely no reason to wait longer than that to teach the puppy proper
behavior. It is much easier
to install correct
behaviors than to let the puppy grow up like a wild savage and then try to “untrain” the bad behavior later!
2. Westie Books On Website!
Be sure to check out our new “Westie Books”
page. You will find good
reading about your Westie as well as some books for the kids from
Amazon.com. Enjoy! Some
Favorite Links:
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