It’s been a long winter and we’re ready for puppies!
I keep hoping to see more sunny days, but in the meantime I’m going to sit inside and play with some puppies. We have one litter now, and two on the way soon. Please reach out to us if you or someone you know is looking for a Sheltie to add to your family. I thought I’d share a bit about how we handle puppies.
We whelp our puppies upstairs in our home in my home office. We’ve got a whelping box ready, cameras set up to watch what’s happening remotely, and all the supplies we need for when the dam is in active labor. After the puppies are born, I sleep in that room for a bit so I can check on everyone through the night. It’s also great to be able to work from home when I can and be right there.
Week three: the puppies have opened their eyes and they can hear, so we start playing music, opening windows, and exposing the puppies to lots of different sounds. You can find playlists and youtube videos with various truck sounds, airplane sounds, etc. I try to vary what I play day by day.
Week five: this is usually when we move the puppies downstairs to their own pen in our living room. Here they are exposed to the daily sounds of our family, adult dogs that are roaming around, kitchen noises, tv, the works. This is also when I can really get creative with what I put in the pen with them. I vary what toys are in with them every few days. I also expose them to different textures to walk on, put a wobble board and different levels of things to climb on in with them, and just generally make it a new environment as often as possible. Our puppies quickly get used to all of these things and it helps them adapt to new experiences as they get older.
We’re handling the puppies daily, of course, and from about four weeks on we’re consistently touching their feet, brushing them, and getting them used to being groomed. Their first bath is often right before their vet check and first set of shots. Ears are done now as well.
Week six: as long as the weather is good, this is when they start to be taken outside for some time. We have an enclosed exercise yard that they can explore, and again we vary what experiences they have when they’re in there. This way we can also vary which adult dogs interact with them as they get older.
Weeks seven and eight: many puppies are getting ready to go to their new homes, so we try to work on exposing them to some alone time in a kennel, so the ride home isn’t scary.
I’ve left tons of things out, I’m sure – but this is a quick look at some of what we do to get our puppies ready to be used to new experiences when they leave.
