Socialization is a critical component of a healthy, well adjusted adult dog. This is especially important in breeds that are known for their protective or aggressive nature. The personality and behavior of a mature dog will be strongly affected by how he interacts with littermates, his mother, and other pets – as well as people. . . especially children, when he is young.

From puppyhood on, it is imperative that you make every effort to expand his environment and expose him to new things. At this stage of life, puppies should be around as many different people and animals as possible to help eliminate fear of the unknown. Try some of these effective socialization methods with your pup:

	Enroll in a puppy socialization or obedience class, run by a professional, where he will meet other dogs.
	Take him with you on walks, when shopping, or even to work (where allowed). Gradually get him used to new sights and sounds.
	Invite your friends, including men, women, children and seniors, over to your house at different times to meet your new puppy.
	Involve him in as much of your daily activities as possible. Be sure to offer treats for good behavior.

Puppies that have been exposed to various groups of people and pets are less likely to be aggressive to those groups as they mature. And you will be well on your way to having an excellent companion for years to come.

Article courtesy of Dr Foster Smith

Naming that new family member can be a particularly tricky process especially when you have a large family who all have existing ideas of what your new pal’s name should be. While you can search around online and find huge lists of popular dog names what if you’re not looking for the most popular dog name and instead you’re just looking for something unique that fits your new pal? Well i’m going to start dropping posts here and there with some unique name choices for your newest family member!

- Atticus – Remember Atticus Finch from “To Kill A Mocking Bird”?

- Forbes – Looking for some new wealth in the family? Try the Forbes Lists!

- Arleigh – So named for the Arleigh Burke class of guided missile destroyers.

- Inigo – A fan of the Princess Bride? Why not try Inigo as a name?

- Holden – A la “Catcher in the Rye”

- Tiffy – Got a pampered pooch? Just think of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”!

- Jeeves – “Oh Jeeves?!” Got a pup that follows you everywhere like a butler?

- Seuss – Who doesn’t love Dr. Seuss?

- Sam Spade – The two don’t have to be used together but if you have a pup who’s a real investigator then you have yourself a Sam Spade a la “The Maltese Falcon”!

- Darcy – Got a real looker? How about naming him after Mr. Darcy?

- Tilly – Have a shy girl on your hands? Tilly might just fit!

Tabitha – Got a bewitching sort of girl?

New dog owners should always make sure that their purebred pup comes from a reputable and responsible breeder. This is really is the only way to ensure that the animal will be free of any medical or behavioral problems. If a breeder you speak with displays any of the following 5 behaviors, he or she probably isn’t breeding healthy puppies in accordance with standards that have been set for the breed.

1. The breeder is willing to sell you any puppy you want, no questions asked.
All reputable dog breeders
care about what happens to each and every puppy they breed, even after it leaves their care. Indeed, a good breeder will ask you many, many questions about your lifestyle, experience with the breed, house and property size, show or breeding experience, and any other aspect of your life that may affect the puppy’s future. If your answers to these questions are not satisfactory, then the breeder probably won’t sell the puppy to you. A good breeder will also require that you sign a contract in which you agree to: have the puppy fixed if you’re not going to breed it; notify the breeder if the dog develops any diseases or medical conditions; notify the breeder first if you are no longer able to care for your dog; and, do anything else the breeder feels is important for the health and well-being of the puppy and the breed. If your breeder doesn’t seem to care about the puppy’s future and only seems interested in payment, go to another breeder.

2. The breeder seems reluctant to answer questions about the puppy’s pedigree.
A reputable breeder knows all about the pedigrees of the puppies he or she sells. He or she knows who the parents were and can provide you with each puppy’s lineage, going back several generations. You will also want to register your purebred puppy with the American Kennel Club (AKC). The breeder is supposed to supply you with an AKC registration application with his or her portion already filled out. After you fill out and submit your part of the application, you’ll receive an AKC registration certificate. If the breeder you are dealing with cannot provide you with any documentation or registration papers for either the litter or the parents, be extremely wary.

3. The breeder does not seem too concerned with the health of his or her animals.
Any potential buyer of a purebred puppy should be able to see the facility in which the animal was bred. Do the puppies and other dogs there look healthy? If not, then the breeder may not be maintaining an appropriate standard of care. This could definitely affect the current and future health of the puppy in which you’re interested. The breeder should also have a record of the puppy’s health care, from birth to the present, and should be happy to provide you with copies. He or she should also guarantee that the puppy is free from any genetic disorders.

4. The breeder will not allow you to see the breeding facility.
Any reputable breeder will be happy to give you a tour of their facility. If the breeder you’ve chosen is not willing to let you see where your potential puppy comes from, the breeder may be running a puppy mill. Puppy mills are facilities that breed puppies only for profit, not for the benefit or love of the breed. Often, multiple dogs are crammed into one cage, the living conditions are filthy and the dogs there do not receive the proper nutrition or medical care. If the puppy you want comes from such a facility, it will most likely have serious medical and behavioral issues related to its stay there.

5. The breeder engages in questionable business practices.
If the asking price for your purebred puppy is significantly lower than other prices you’ve seen advertised for the same breed, there may be something wrong with the dog. Perhaps it comes from a puppy mill or has some serious medical issues. If the breeder also sells to pet stores, you can be pretty sure that he or she is operating a puppy mill. Reputable breeders usually concentrate on one or two breeds. If the breeder advertises that he or she has many different breeds for sale, then this is another indication that he or she may be breeding animals indiscriminately, without much concern for set breed standards.

Dog Article courtesy of I-Love-Dogs.com

When pups are born they are little more than blobs. Muscles and their nerve connections are only in the process of forming so coordination is poor, and that’s overstated. The pup can crawl. The direction is toward its mom and her nipples. Olfaction, the sense of smell, leads the pup in the right direction and the lips, nose, mouth area in general, touch a nipple and lips, tongue and their associated musculature react reflexively to produce the sucking response. Not a lot of brain work going on there. Sucking is a reflex with no conscious effort or thought involved in it. It is an involuntary act, which functions with only rudimentary neural development and little or no brain involvement.

Gradually muscles and nerves become better organized, coordination improving concomitantly. With practice the sucking reflex improves, becomes more efficient, the pup’s crawling becomes more directed even though front and hind feet are not usually in synch. By three to four weeks the synchrony improves to the point that the pup can walk.

At first there are mistakes, pup may stumble, trip over nothing, get one foot or two moving at the wrong time, a klutz. Nothing like the elegant bird finder one would hope for. Even at four months, many pups are still gawky, ungainly, and foot plopping clumsy. The road from the four week old stumbler to finished elegance is paved with practice, pushing the muscles and their associated nerves to never fail myoneural connections and strengthened muscles with lightning speed and totally smooth contractions. But the pup can’t do this all alone; it needs help from its dam. It needs even more help from the breeder because only the breeder can control the environment in which the pup grows up.

Borrowing the adage- if you don’t use it you lose it- and paraphrasing it to make it applicable to developing pups, we can say- if you don’t use it, you won’t ever have it to lose. More than forty years ago physiological psychologists, the only people working on behavior of animals in North America at the time and that only for application to human behavior, performed all sorts of experiments on rats, cats and to a small extent on dogs, to demonstrate both the old adage and the revamped version. These experiments ran the gamut from immobilizing a limb of a young animal from weaning to adulthood, patching an eye from birth, to single muscle denervation, to partial brain ablation. The effect on muscle development in all these experiments, and there were hundreds of them, was the atrophy you would expect but the effect on nerve and brain development was not predicted. Immobilization of a limb also prevented the formation of neural connections and the portion of the brain that dealt with the limb that was immobilized was smaller and had far fewer nerve cells present than the normal contra lateral leg. Animals that had visual input to one eye eliminated by a patch or by sewing the lid shut and patching it, failed to develop the ability to focus, developed strabismus and other visual impairments in that eye. Optic nerves connecting visual projection areas of the brain with visual cortex had no or far less than normal myelinization than in intact animals. The eye itself was complete in all respects and was normal size, but because of the effects on the nerve development, vision in the covered, unused eye was always drastically impaired.

The implication for the “use or lose” or, “use or it will never develop” on pups is that the more physically challenged the pup is the better the coordination. Environmental enrichment, to borrow a term from the animal care and welfare dictionary, means adding things to the rearing pen to provide objects that the pups (in our case) can manipulate, chew on, carry, climb onto, or over or around. These objects of enrichment provide the physical and mental challenges needed for young developing dog bodies and dog minds.

The wild canids, wolves, coyotes, foxes all provide pups with these challenges by selecting den sites with rocks, tree roots, down tree limbs, hilly and uneven ground around the entrance, or they move the pups at four or five weeks of age to a secondary den site that does provide it. For five years running there was an active fox den nearby that I could see each day as I drove to and from work. Each year the dog and vixen appeared in March. In April and May the dog fox brought food to the vixen in the den. The den was an old renovated woodchuck burrow on a south-facing slope with weeds and grass typical of an old field in this part of the country. In late May the pups emerged from the den and could be seen playing or sunning at the mouth. Within a week the vixen moved everybody, troop and baggage, to a den about 100 yards south of the natal den. This rearing den was at the base of a fallen down rock fence with a few split rails lying on it.

From then on until the pups were weaned and out hunting on their own, each day was play time games in the rock pile. They used the rocks and split rails the way our kids use all the constructed apparatus we build for them in the playground. There in the rocks they developed the skills, strength, agility and coordination to catch a mouse or a rabbit or a ruffed grouse. The pups we raise need a similar physically and mentally challenging play ground to develop their muscle and brain power.

In the sterile four walls, wire or wood or cement block rearing kennels we use with only mom and the siblings, pups have nothing to use except each other to crawl over and hide behind. They still learn the stalk and pounce and the social amenities. But they are doing it in an aggressive, unimaginative way and, an aggressive, unimaginative dog is not what I want for a hunting dog. Pups need the physically challenging environment where they can develop muscle coordination, agility and strength. At least equally, or even more so, they need the mentally challenging environment. They need to develop problem solving ability, mental agility and mental coordination. They are not going to get it unless the breeder provides the opportunity. The restricted brain and neuron development that results from limb restriction and from visual input deprivation will occur in other parts of the brain if the pup is not mentally stimulated. Totally deprived of stimulation, pups either cannot learn or are poor learners at best.

Specific areas of the brain are responsible for controlling specific aspects of behavior and physiology. For example, the area of the brain known as the visual cortex serves to integrate the mass of light signals that enter the eye. We know that lack of visual stimulation in a young animal will limit development of the nerve cells, neurons and transmission of impulses along the nerve fibers and so impair the function of the visual cortex and vision. Emotion is controlled by parts of the midbrain, primarily the limbic system. A pup never experiencing and coping with frustrating situations has limited chance to develop the checks and balances of emotion controlled by nerve cells in the septum and the amygdala, both parts of the limbic system. Impaired emotional control interferes with problem solving ability and with temperament.

True, genetics plays a role. The pup must inherit the potential for development of all areas of the brain just as it must inherit the potential for muscle mass, development, reaction speed and so on. Without the inherited potential all the physical and mental challenges in the world won’t help. But conversely, with no physical and mental challenging, a pup’s potential will not be realized, no matter how much it starts with. Inherited potential and learning in the form of physical and mental exercise are so interdigitated that saying where one starts and the other stops is just not possible. But we do know that the more that is learned, the more challenged the mental and physical capacities are within reasonable limits, the more that can be learned and the more that can be achieved physically and mentally. Mind challenging problems are exercise for the brain and will enhance its development, and similarly, physically challenging pups is exercise for the muscles and will promote their development.

How do you exercise the brain? Just give the pups problems to solve. You can treat the pups singly or as a group, but at least part of the time it should be singly to be sure each pup is acting as an individual and not just following his brother or sister.

As I pointed out in a previous article in Gun Dog, pups have developmental mile posts based on the kicking in of the various sensory modalities. Solving a problem based on visual or auditory perception or on mobility is unrealistic if the pups have not yet attained these perceptual modalities or have not yet gained sufficient mobility and manipulatory skills. So the problems we pose for a pup to improve his smarts will depend on where he is developmentally. The time when that particular modality or combination of modalities and mobility skill should be challenged for maximum benefit should begin just as the pups pass that particular developmental milepost.

The challenges should start easy and simple and become more difficult and complex. What challenging “think” situations you present to the pups will depend on what problems the dog will be expected to face during the rest of his life and on your own inventive genius. An example of a problem every dog must face, and hopefully solve, many times in his life is that the best route from point A to point B is not necessarily a straight line- say retrieving a bird that fell on the far side of a hog wire fence with 4 or 5 strands of barbed wire on top when there is a gate opening 50 yards to the left. The dog that was challenged with detour problems, also known as “um weg” problems (literally “around road” problems), as a pup will have the smarts to size up the situation and make the detour, and save a lot of money in vet bills by not needing to have the wire cuts stitched up.

If we want to challenge a pup physically to improve muscle coordination, we put up a barrier that he can see over but not through and can crawl over. To mentally challenge the pup in a detour problem, the barrier must be too high to crawl over or see over but one he can see through. The object the pup wants, such as food, a chew toy, another pup, is visible but attainable only if he goes around the barrier. Creating this situation requires only a wire barrier such as a refrigerator shelf or a shelf from your wife’s new electric stove, you know the one you bought to offset the new shotgun you have on order. Set up the barrier so it reaches part way across a corridor or hallway. The goal can be made accessible by going around one end or both ends. If accessible around just one end, change the open end frequently. Gradually the barrier will be widened and angled so pup solves the problem of going away from the goal object in order to get to it instead of standing in front of the fence barking like a stupid idiot. You really want a dog whose actions speak louder than his words. I certainly do.

A few detour problems will enable the pup to later solve a variety of problems, even those only vaguely related to the original detour problems. He can solve other spatial problems that come up years later without need of a whole new learning regimen. He can also solve temporal problems like how long is 10 minutes. No, it doesn’t teach him how to tell time, but he learns patience, waiting for something he wants is not much different from going away from something in order to get it, even going out of sight of it and approaching from a different angle. Mentally exercising a pup gives him the smarts to figure it out.

Self confidence in puppies can be increased by letting them learn how easy it is to go up a see through ramp and walk on an elevated see through bridge. It also improves perception of depth by challenging them with these visual cliffs. New experiences are most important. The more pups hear, smell, touch, chew on, investigate by all the means available, the better off they are for it. From 5 to 6 weeks onward, exposure to the world in the form of walks with mom and the littermates is easy experience to give them, weather conditions permitting. Every experience pups have will stimulate neural development and so brain development. As the brain develops, so does the learning ability, insight into problems and so problem solving ability, which in turn stimulates more neural development. The pup will then keep right on self-improving.

Therefore, besides the specifically related, distantly related, and even unrelated learning relationships, there is the overall general improvement in learning ability. A criterion of intelligence is elevated learning ability. By exercising the brain with mental challenges we improve the total brain function, not just one area of it. The breeder has the power to improve nerve conductivity in both speed and accuracy, recovery time of the neural synapses is shortened as the chemical and electrical signals react faster, and the nerves can fire repeatedly quicker. The brain mass increases dramatically as nerve cell density increases. Overall brain efficiency markedly improves. Just as the effect of physically challenging the muscular system, the whole body benefits, not just one part, so the whole brain and nervous system with all its neural and neurosecretory functions benefits from the challenges of mental exercise.

Most dogs are born with more “brains” than we give them credit for. Whether the potential is realized, even beyond our fondest dreams, is in the hands of the breeder and in the environment he sets up for the pups. A sterile, coddling, do nothing environment produces sterile minded dogs. A challenging, stimulating environment that exercises both muscles and neurons produces pups that approach or even surpass their potential. The message to the breeders is to make the pups work for a living mentally and physically during the 10 or so weeks you have them and everyone will be amazed at your well balanced, super smart product. To the potential buyer, the message is to make sure the breeder that is producing your puppy works them up to their physical and mental capabilities.

This article was reprinted from GUN DOG MAGAZINE
and located on Woodhaven Labs

Keep the babies together as long as they are about the same age; this will help socialize them to their own species and will help in keeping them warm. Try to assemble the following equipment:

The Nest Box

1. The nest box in which the babies live should have tall sides so that they cannot climb out by mistake and become chilled. A cardboard pet carrier is perfect as it is portable, dark inside, and closable. These are inexpensive and should be available from a pet store or your veterinarian.
2. Place towels in the bottom of the box and cover them with a diaper so the babies rest directly on the diaper. Most diapers have elastic leg holes and may have to be trimmed so they will lie flat. Expect to change the diaper several times daily. Keeping the babies clean and dry is very important.
3. Place a heating pad under the nest box so that only half of the nest box is warmed. This way the babies may crawl off the warm side of the box if they feel too hot.  Alternatively, a water bottle filled with warm water can be buried in the blankets as a heat source as long as the babies have room to move away from it if they are too hot.

If the baby’s temperature drops below 94F degrees, the heart rate drops and intestinal motion ceases.  Death occurs if this is not corrected. Warming should take place over an hour or two to avoid shock.

The Diet

1. Pet Ag manufactures KMR (Kitten Milk Replacer). It comes in a powder and a liquid. The powdered form seems less associated with diarrhea than the liquid plus with the powdered form, the water content can be adjusted in the event of dehydration.For puppies, Pet Ag makes ESBILAC. Again, both powder and liquid forms are available.
2. Mix up the powder according to the directions on the can. If you are using the liquid form, you may want to dilute it with one part water for every two parts of formula. As the babies get older, less water may be used whether you are mixing up the powder or the liquid. If diarrhea occurs at any time, you should add more water to the formula to make up for fluid lost as diarrhea.
3. Store the can of powder in the freezer after opening. Do not mix up more than a day’s worth of formula. Use a blender to mix the formula several hours ahead to allow time for the bubbles to settle.

MAKESHIFT FORMULA UNTIL KMR/ESBILAC CAN BE OBTAINED

PUPPIES
1 cup whole milk
1 tsp. salad oil
1 drop multi-vitamins (if you have any)
2 egg yolks

KITTENS

1/2 cup whole milk
1 egg yolk
1 drop multi-vitamins
3 Tums (antacid) crushed

Mix in a blender whichever formula you use.

The Bottle

1. Obtain a pet nurser bottle from a pet store or your veterinarian.
2. Use very fine scissors or a hot needle to make a hole in the nipple. The hole should be big enough that formula will slowly drip out if the bottle is held upside-down and gently squeezed. The nipple should not collapse when the baby is sucking.
3. Warm the bottle in a cup of hot water. Always test the formula before giving it to the babies. Taste it to be sure it is not sour. Do not use a microwave oven to heat the bottle as it may not heat evenly with some areas of the bottle being scalding hot.

How/When to Feed

1. Expect to feed them every 2 to 3 hours during the day. If this is done, the babies should be able to sleep through the night.
2. Do not wake the babies at feeding time. Let them sleep. When they wake up hungry, they will let you know.
3. During feeding be sure to tip the bottle so that no air is swallowed.
4. Play with/rub them after feeding to “burp” them.
5. Occasionally small amounts of formula will come out of the nose. The baby is drinking too fast. If excessive amounts of formula appear to be coming out the nose or if you are concerned, call your veterinarian.
6. Maintaining proper weight gain is crucial to survival.  Kittens with birth weights of less than 3.2 oz (90 grams) have a 59% mortality rate (though a less than 10% weight loss in the first 24 hours of life is considered normal).  After the first 24 hours, weight gain should be steady: 0.25 to 0.35 oz per day for kittens and 5% to 10% of the birth weight daily for puppies. An accurate postal or kitchen scale is helpful during this early period to be sure the baby is on a healthy track. If the baby is not gaining weight as desired, try to adjust food intake.

Urination/Defecation

1. Infant animals are unable to take care of these matters alone and must be given help. Normally their mother’s tongue does the job as she washes them. Use a cotton swab, tissue, or your finger to gently rub the baby’s genital area. Have a tissue ready to catch the urine.
2. Rubbing the anal area as well may also be necessary if the babies do not seem to be defecating as much as expected. Watch for diarrhea. Normal infant stool is normally very loose but should not be watery.

Bathing

1. Using baby shampoo and warm water, bathe the babies a couple of times daily. Urine will burn their tender skin and caked feces can lead to infection so keeping the babies clean is very important.
2. Take care not to submerge the infant in water. Be careful that it cannot drown or choke on the water and be sure the water temperature is acceptable.
3. Gently blow dry the babies when the bath is over. Do not allow chilling.

How to be Sure You are on Track

The best way to be sure everything is going well is to track weight gain in your new babies. A postal scale or food scale (ideally one that measures weight in grams) will be helpful. A puppy or kitten should gain 10% of the birth weight every day and should be drinking 22 to 26 cc of formula per 100 grams of body weight over the course of the day. Puppies are variable in growth expectancy depending on breed but kittens are more predictable and should gain 50 to 100 grams weekly.

Kittens weighing less than 90 grams (approx 3 oz) at birth have a very high mortality rate.

Starting Solid Food

1. When the babies start biting and chewing at their bottle instead of sucking (3-4 weeks of age), they may be started on some finely textured canned food. At first it may be necessary to mix solid food with a little formula and /or smear a little around their mouths gently with a finger.**Friskies canned Kitten Meals for kittens     **Chicken or turkey baby food for puppies
2. Between ages 4 and 6 weeks, they should begin readily accepting solid food. New homes may be found for them at age 8 weeks. Be aware that in many states it is not legal to transfer ownership of a puppy or kitten until this age anyway.

NOTE
Colostrum is the first milk produced by the mother shortly after giving birth. It is rich in antibodies which will protect the babies for the first several months of life.

Without colostrum (if their mother did not nurse the kittens during the first 2 days of life) the babies are virtually without an immune system. Especially great care should be taken in cleanliness and the babies should be vaccinated at 2 weeks of age. They may require a plasma transfusion to make up for the colostrum. There is no substitute for a real mother.

For more information on raising orphan kittens see: http://www.hdw-inc.com/tinykitten.htm

Many foster parents have difficulty distinguishing male and female kittens at this early age. For some guidelines and (illustrated) instructions, see: http://vetinfo.com/csexcat.html

Date Published: 1/1/2001
Date Reviewed/Revised: 08/14/2006

Copyright 2006 – 2009 by the Veterinary Information Network, Inc. All rights reserved.