Amiass and her two little daughters.
It has been a tough week for us because on Friday (May 9th), we lost our Fouji. At some point, I will write more about her. That is not the subject of this blog, but her loss has been a dark cloud over us all week.
The puppies are three weeks old today and they are irresistibly cute. Their mother, Amiass, we have realized, is a true narcissist. If she sees us pointing a camera at one of the puppies, she immediately poses right in front of it. If she sees one of us reaching for a puppy, she situates herself right in line to intercept any anticipated affections. While her self-promotion is a bit annoying at times, we hope that every one of these babies will have her outgoing, affectionate personality (perhaps with a little less narcissism).
Everyone now has their eyes open; they have had their nails trimmed a few times, and a couple of them have taken their initial taste of whole goat milk mixed with a bit of organic barley flour. The concept of lapping liquid is a little tough for them and I did not want them to keep getting milk up their baby noses.
They are still nursing greedily, and Amiass continues to enjoy her pudding daily in addition to a colossal amount of food. She is doing great and is maintaining her fantastic condition. Her natural fitness and athleticism are additional traits that I hope she will give to these babies, as she did to her first litter.
They have started to have the startle reflex. At this stage of neurological development, startling is no more than a reflex; fear has not yet developed. That is because puppies at this stage are not able to run away (flight) or to defend themselves (fight) and they are totally dependent on their mothers to protect them.
The three boys with their initial attempts and roughhousing.Exercising the startle reflex in puppies also exercises their recovery time from startling. This allows the breeder a window of opportunity to help puppies improve their recovery times before fear has developed in them and creating negative associations. By deliberately exercising startle reflexes we can improve the speed of chemical return to homeostasis from a sudden flood of adrenaline and subsequently cortisol to sustain the required energy to fight or flee.
The speed at which an adult dog is able to recover from a startle (moment of fear) shapes and becomes part of their adult behavior, and probably even their adult personalities.
In Puppy Culture, they call this shaping the “so what” effect for bomb proofing puppies. At our house, we have a host of volunteers who are helping us with the startle reflex in our puppies by barking every time Amazon delivers a package, or they see a brave squirrel on our fence outside, or they hear a doorbell on television. 😉 The puppies have been exposed now to barking Sloughis, dropping books, the sounds of the television, the vacuum cleaner, the telephone ringing, the dishwasher, the chime of my kitchen timers, and the next door neighbor’s very noisy construction crew re-roofing his house. We will be continuing to work on this startle reflex this week.
We have also begun, in a very limited and controlled way, allowing the other Sloughis in our house to see the puppies and for the puppies to see them. They still spend most of their time sleeping right now, and also eating. However, in the few minutes that they are awake, they play a bit with each other, walk around with increasing competence, and are beginning to learn to leave their sleeping nest to potty.
We will be setting up their litter pans later today with bedding pellets. This will be our first attempt at potty trays with puppies, so it will be interesting to see how it goes. Using potty trays is supposed to make eventual housebreaking much easier in puppies that are otherwise too young and to immature to go outside. Dogs have a natural instinct to keep the nest clean, so the first step is making a designated sleeping and non-sleeping area. We have been doing this already on a part time basis all week. The puppies have an area set up in the dog room (where they sleep in their whelping pen with Amiass), in my home office and in the living room. They have spent their days for most of the last week in my office with me during the work day and then in the living room after the work day has ended until we put them to bed. They have gotten quite good at leaving their sleeping nest to potty already, so I am hopeful that the transition to the litter pans will go well. I will update this topic next week and let you know how it is going.
This is Girl No. 2, the last born puppy in the litter.
Their updated 3-week old weights are listed below, and their updated individual photos are in the gallery at the end.
We are very pleased with their growth (although Ocerico Alinghi still holds the record for the biggest puppy we have ever had, weighing in at 25 ounces at birth), and we are delighted with how they are looking. They are really, really beautiful puppies, at least we think so.
The speed at which an adult dog is able to recover from a startle (moment of fear) shapes and becomes part of their adult behavior, and probably even their adult personalities.
In Puppy Culture, they call this shaping the “so what” effect for bomb proofing puppies. At our house, we have a host of volunteers who are helping us with the startle reflex in our puppies by barking every time Amazon delivers a package, or they see a brave squirrel on our fence outside, or they hear a doorbell on television. 😉 The puppies have been exposed now to barking Sloughis, dropping books, the sounds of the television, the vacuum cleaner, the telephone ringing, the dishwasher, the chime of my kitchen timers, and the next door neighbor’s very noisy construction crew re-roofing his house. We will be continuing to work on this startle reflex this week.
We have also begun, in a very limited and controlled way, allowing the other Sloughis in our house to see the puppies and for the puppies to see them. They still spend most of their time sleeping right now, and also eating. However, in the few minutes that they are awake, they play a bit with each other, walk around with increasing competence, and are beginning to learn to leave their sleeping nest to potty.
We will be setting up their litter pans later today with bedding pellets. This will be our first attempt at potty trays with puppies, so it will be interesting to see how it goes. Using potty trays is supposed to make eventual housebreaking much easier in puppies that are otherwise too young and to immature to go outside. Dogs have a natural instinct to keep the nest clean, so the first step is making a designated sleeping and non-sleeping area. We have been doing this already on a part time basis all week. The puppies have an area set up in the dog room (where they sleep in their whelping pen with Amiass), in my home office and in the living room. They have spent their days for most of the last week in my office with me during the work day and then in the living room after the work day has ended until we put them to bed. They have gotten quite good at leaving their sleeping nest to potty already, so I am hopeful that the transition to the litter pans will go well. I will update this topic next week and let you know how it is going.
Loved watching the little ones eat. And thanks for their stats. So cute. So big. So yummy!!!