Clover had her puppies on Tuesday 6th of November 2012. Six puppies, 3 boys and 3 girls. All good weights, healthy, happy, strong, drinking well. They have been given temporary names, because I find calling puppies “1st boy” and “3rd born” and “last born” tedious. This post is just to show you some puppy pictures. Enjoy!
First born, “Alfalfa”, bitch.
So we have been undertaking puppy preparations here, in anticipation for Clover’s upcoming litter. We have many basic things, as we have had litters before – thermometers, heat lamp, whelping box, and so forth. So, really, the only stuff we had to get is the fun stuff!
Leave with Work
I put in leave with work, as I pretty much don’t work when I have puppies. I need to be here for the whelping, and I need to be here to clean, socialise, and just generally care take puppies. At a young age, they are not too strenuous. As they get older, the elimination increases, and so does the work load!
Clover in the whelping box, the blanket over the top is to make it more den like for her. The whelping box is next to our bed. You can see to the right the towels ‘ready to go’ on top of a column heater. The brown blanket is lining a box, which has a hot water bottle inside – ready for puppies when they’re born. The blue toy outside the whelping box is Clover’s personal touch!
It is with great pleasure that I announce that my darling Clover, otherwise known as “Ch Burrowa Blue Flame TD ME”, has been confirmed pregnant. The sire of the litter is Caber, otherwise known as “Ch Glenbogle Kiss Chasey ET”.
On the left, Caber, and the right, Clover.
Clover had an ultrasound on the 8th of October, which was day 28 of her pregnancy. Though dog ultrasounds are not hugely accurate in determining numbers, excitedly, we had SIX puppies show on the ultrasound. This is a huge litter for Clover, doubling her 2010 litter of 3 puppies (her first litter), and a singleton litter in 2011 (Myrtle). It is more than we hoped for!
This post is a commitment to keeping you updated on the process of pregnancy, and puppy raising. My puppies are raised using Dunbar’s protocols: I don’t want to produce ‘lemon puppies‘. Unfortunately, pregnancy is kind of boring. At the moment, our efforts are spent on keeping Clover active, taking her for walks as often as we can, and currently catering to her new found food fussiness.
However, I’d like to describe how we got to this point. Why I’ve made the decision to have a litter from Clover, why I chose the sire we have, and the puppy buyer process. Continue reading
This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.
Imagine you are at the dentist and he slips with his little scratchy-hook tool, and stabs your gum a little bit. You respond by biting down on the dentist’s finger and punching him in the face.
Or you’re asleep in your bed and you partner wakes you as she hops in. This terrifies you, so you grab your gun from under the mattress, and shoot her.
Puppies need to be guided to learn to not use the full force of their bite as an adult dog. Photo © Ruthless Photos.
Ian Dunbar used similar human-aggressive examples in his seminar to make a point: Dog-human aggression is never okay. Just like humans don’t (shouldn’t) hurt people that accidentally hurt them, and don’t hurt people that scare them, dogs shouldn’t hurt people in response to pain or fear.
There are simply no excuses for a dog to be human aggressive – it is never appropriate and never acceptable, regardless of the context.
First, appropriate socialisation should aim to build a confident puppy that is never fearful enough to bite as an adult dog. Second, a puppy should be taught how to inhibit (i.e. make less forceful) their bite so that, if for some reason they are motivated to bite in their life, the bite is less severe.
Dunbar didn’t go into much detail about teaching bite inhibition at the seminar, but basically the process involves teaching the puppy to bite less forcefully and then teaching the puppy to bite less frequently (and eventually learn that they are not allowed to put their teeth on people). Alongside this, you add a cue that means ‘let go’. (It seems that the Dunbar seminar Crystal, at Reactive Champion, attended did talk about teaching bite inhibition in more detail.)
Furthermore, puppies that attend the Dunbar-style puppy classes, with offleash play, mean that they learn how to appropriately control their bite when interacting with other dogs.
The plan is that, after teaching bite inhibition to a puppy, the adult dog will be more likely to bite in an inhibited way. That is, the depth and seriousness of the bite will be less severe. A puppy that is well socialised, but does not have bite inhibition, makes for a dangerous dog.
This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.
Dunbar is big on socialisation, and thinks that breeders should put a lot of effort and attention to socialising their puppies. While breeders will select the best genetic combination, socialisation and training will seek to fix any deficiencies in the genetic package. He thinks many breeders are ‘not doing their job’ and are producing ‘lemon’ puppies. Good breeders, through socialisation, produce puppies that like being handled and like all people.
Clover: Pregnant but active.
Puppy buyers need to know that all breeders are not created equal, even if producing pedigree dogs. A pedigree is not a socialisation history, and (to Dunbar) a socialisation history is more important than their pedigree.
Breeders are responsible for training puppies until they are 8 weeks old. They should be selling well-socialised, housetrained, and chew-toy trained puppies. (And if they are, they can charge twice as much for one – Dunbar’s motivator to breeders!) By 8 weeks, the critical period is half over! So breeders really need to be doing something.
A puppy that is exhibiting fearful behaviour at 8 weeks or earlier is problematic. At 8 weeks, a puppy should run up to all people – men, women, and children. Continue reading