Australian Labradoodle puppies - our socialization

We are! Now we know why mom kept us in her tummy for so long! Usually my mother gave birth on day 60 and now she waited an additional 3 days. However, it turned out that we are very tiny and weigh only 280-300 grams. Those three extra days probably made the difference - once again mother nature knew what she was doing and further proof that nothing needs to be rushed.
Mom gave birth to us for only seven hours and labor lasted until 4 am on November 15, so now we have exactly one day. Our Lady sleeps with us and makes sure we stay warm and eat enough. If one of us strays too far from mom (which can be heard because we make squealing noises), the lady quickly puts us back to mum's place - then we calm down very quickly. She then says that we are like newborns who need to be woken up 50 times a night. But we are loved, warm, soft and smell wonderful.

Our mother is doing great. She didn't get rid of three placentas but the Lady gave her oxytocin the next day and moments later all the placentas came out. That's good, you don't have to worry now about any infection that could set in because of these residues. Mom eats a lot now - no wonder she has us to feed. Every few hours she is fed by the Lady in our farrowing crate. She wouldn't go out for food herself, she doesn't want to leave us even for a moment. So you make sure she eats and drinks a lot.
At the moment, as our Lady says, we are to feel safe. So we stay with mom and only mom. No one else can visit us. Every day we are weighed so that you know if we are gaining weight correctly. For proper development, we should double our birth weight. We have ribbons on and in this way you are able to distinguish us and know if and which one is not gaining weight as it should. Thanks to this, our Lady will be able to intervene quickly.
A new phase in our lives will begin on Sunday. We will start early neurological stimulation, which will make our nervous system resistant to various stressful situations. (We'll talk about that later)
In the meantime, we invite you to visit this novelty because here we will be adding photos from the next, critical periods of our development. We invite you!

AUSTRALIAN LABRADOODLES, PUPPIES
WEEK 1

We already have one week. And what does prenatal life look like? Fantastic!!
Mom takes great care of us. He's got plenty of milk now. Over the course of yesterday, each of us gained about 60 grams. This is really a lot for puppies whose birth weight is 280 grams.
Caramel eats a lot and well! Every day she gets a completely balanced food plus natural yoghurts.
The first week was not the easiest because three of us were not gaining weight properly. The mistress had to make sure that the stronger brothers and sisters did not push the smaller ones away from mom and milk. The lady says that during the first week we should double our weight. 6 days - 70% weight is a really good result. If it happened that one of us did not gain weight during this week, or gained a little weight, he probably would not survive. Therefore, the Lady cared especially for those of us who seemed less assertive in fighting for their own and often shared their mother's tit with others.

The lady also makes sure that we are warm. We are unable to maintain our own body temperature yet. We are warmed by our mother, or a lady who makes sure that the room in which we sleep is properly heated.

We still have our eyes and ears closed, but we have already got to know the smells of our mother and the lady who takes care of us every day.
AND! On Sunday we started a very strange exercise. It's called "Early Neurological Stimulation." You can read extensively about its benefits on our nervous system in the original article "Breeding Better Dogs"
http://breedingbetterdogs.com/pdfFiles/articles/early_neurological_stimulation_en.pdf

For our Lady it means a lot of strange things that we don't understand yet, but for us it means only that:

1. Sometimes we hang upside down

2. Sometimes head up

3. Sometimes we are laid on our backs

4. Occasionally tickles the feet

5. Sometimes placed on a very cold towel

However, the lady says that these exercises cannot be overdone and she makes sure that they are performed only once a day and only for 3 seconds each exercise.
These exercises allow us to experience stimulation that does not take place in natural conditions at such a young age. Their task is to stimulate the nervous system earlier, which results in better performance and faster development of the animal in the future.

What are the benefits of early neurological stimulation:

1. Improves the functioning of the heart vessels
2. Strengthens the circulatory system
3. Strengthens adrenaline-secreting glands
4. Increases resistance to stress
5. Increases disease resistance
“In learning tests, the early-stimulated puppies proved to be more active and exploratory than their non-stimulated counterparts. When trying to solve simple problems such as going through a maze, the unstimulated puppies were restless, extremely agitated and made more mistakes. The stimulated puppies were more calm, learned to navigate the maze more easily and quickly, and showed no signs of stress.”
http://www.coape.pl/art_stmulacja_neurologiczna.html

what? See you next week!

WEEK 2

Dear families!
We have 2 whole weeks!
Our Lady loves us more than life and says that we are very calm and quiet puppies.
We start to play a little with each other, with mom and Mrs. Our claws must have been trimmed because we were scratching mummy a lot
This morning we got dewormed for the first time and we took it pretty well
We already use four paws and as soon as the Lady enters the room we run to her. We can't see it yet, but we already recognize its smell.
Our eyes are already open, but we cannot see yet, because our eyeballs are covered with a special coating that will gradually come off and we will be able to get used to various visual stimuli.
We still can't hear.
Sunday will be the last day of early neurostimulation and we will start new exercises. This time they will have the task of making us immune to motion sickness.
Puppies are born blind and deaf. The only senses we can work with after birth are the senses of smell and touch. Puppies are regularly picked up and touched by us.
And how do we work with the sense of smell? This sense in dogs plays a dominant role, and its sensitivity is about ten thousand times greater than the sense of smell in humans. To understand the difference between how we distinguish smells and how dogs distinguish them, let me use an example. Imagine the smell of mushroom soup… Ready? When we enter the house for a cooking dinner and say "mmm, I smell delicious mushroom soup", the dog distinguishes the smell of all the ingredients separately (salt, pepper, carrot, celery, parsley, chicken, mushrooms, cream, etc.)
So, since we have the opportunity to train the sense of smell, we set to work hard. This week we introduced different animal scents: wild boar, rabbit, pheasant and fox.
NO ANIMAL HAS BEEN HARMED BY OUR SOCIALIZATION PURPOSE; – ) WE RECEIVED ALL SAMPLES FROM OTHER PEOPLE; – )
Why did we use different animal scents?
For dogs, the smells of wild animals are not something they come into contact with on a daily basis in the usual home environment. As a result, many adult dogs show a fear of these smells. They are related to something unknown. Unknown, however, for many dogs (especially those not socialized) is associated with a threat. Following this lead, the sense of threat triggers one of the survival strategies (escape, attack, freeze, flirt (CS), pretending to be dead (some animal species)

There is one conclusion - the amount and variety of stimuli in the critical periods of a puppy's development have a direct impact on his self-confidence in adult dog life.
We invite you to view the photos…

and

WEEK 3
What changed?
1. We opened our ears
2. We parted for good
3. For the first time we ate something other than breast milk - yogurt and balanced food.
4. We met other dogs
5. We met different people
6. We listened to different sounds
7. We visit different rooms in the house
8. We learn the rules of the toilet
9. We do special exercises that will keep us from getting motion sickness.
A lot to do for the third week, right?
When our ear canals opened, the first sounds we heard were the sounds of a heartbeat and the rush of amniotic fluid. The lady plays us a special CD with such sounds. How does it affect us? The first sounds we hear after detaching the ears are the sounds we know - the sounds of prenatal life. This makes us feel safe. Change can be scary, but if this change is associated with what is familiar and safe, it makes us feel more confident.
Even if something changed, one factor in that change was something we've heard before - our mother's heartbeat. It has been scientifically proven that these sounds have a calming effect not only on human newborns, but also on dogs, which is why they are so often played in shelters - unfortunately, so far foreign (with excellent results)
The next sounds we heard were the noises:
– pianos
– microwave
– a vacuum cleaner
– car accidents
– children at school
- crying babies
- church bells
– fireworks
- storm
– alarm
– ambulances
– a hammer
– hair dryers

These noises were played very softly at first so that the puppies could get used to them. If we played the sounds too loud at the very beginning, we would get the opposite effect from the intended one. Puppies would just get scared (which in turn could affect their future perception of loud, sudden noises). You use special CDs intended for this purpose. One of them is noises for the socialization of dogs and the other is a CD with sounds for children.
What else? You train with us every day. These are special diaphragm exercises. Thanks to them, we will not suffer from motion sickness, and the first trip to the vet at the age of 6 weeks will not be scary for us. Standard socialization consists in transporting dogs in the car at a very young age. What we do is much more pleasant and easier. Firstly, we don't have to drive for hours, and secondly, we save puppies from unnecessary stress.
We also meet other dogs from the environment and other people. They are very gentle with us. In this way, we learn to understand that a woman, a man, a child are safe and not to be feared.
We slowly get to know different environments - in this way we learn that change is not dangerous, what is more, it is the only constant element of the environment (things are constantly changing)
And here are our photos ;)

DIFFERENT SOUNDS

WE MEET PEOPLE

WE MEET OTHER DOGS

MIRACLES

WEEK 4

Dearest families
life is great! We do many things right now. We have heard many different sounds:
Life is great! We do a lot of cool stuff now. We've heard many different sounds: mowers, clocks, stepping on stairs, saws, hammers, drills, washing machines, microwaves, vacuum cleaners, ambulances, refrigerators, blenders, cutting vegetables, boiling water, frying eggs, washing dishes, electric shavers, hair dryers. hair, bathing, toileting, brushing teeth, washing hands, playing the guitar, drums, piano, helicopter, rocket, plane, speedboat, merry-go-round, screaming children, crowd of people, flute, cymbals, printer, scanner, chalk writing on a blackboard, typing sounds, table tennis, tennis, basketball, roller skating, diving sounds, fishing, toy train, fishing, music box, car, train.
In nature, the mother has nannies to help, these are other female dogs from her herd. Thanks to this, when he goes hunting, he has someone to leave his puppies with and they feel safe ... In our herd, the role of such nannies is performed by Goddess and Donnan. Donnan has gone on a week-long vacation, but Goddess is the perfect nanny. She is very gentle and patient.
We've started what's called an "enriched environment". The lady calls it a Waldorf kindergarten for puppies :-) Now we explore a lot. The enriched environment contains many different objects of various textures (metal, glass, cardboard, materials) (note - puppies cannot be left alone - they must always be supervised during these games. The enriched environment is not just an ordinary playground for puppies. in such a way that puppies can freely climb on and under objects, explore their interior. This teaches us to solve simple problems and shows that the world is not so bad and scary. Puppies' environment must be rich in various stimuli, because now - in a critical period of socialization they learn the most and the fastest.You have hidden little tidbits all over the enriched environment and we are bravely looking for them.
We invite you to watch the photos.

WEEK 5

Oh, it's happening. We've explored a lot in the last week. The lady introduced us to what she called "The Golden Dozen", Margaret Hughes (one of her parts)
She built an educational path for us, which we explored for three days. The path consisted of twelve different surfaces (according to the rules of the golden twelve, a puppy should walk (among other things) on 12 different surfaces until 12 weeks of age)

Our path consisted of:
1. A wet towel
2. Newspapers
3. Trees
4. Bricks
5. Rusting bags
6. Styrofoam
7. Metal mesh
8. Bottles and cans
9. Plastic insulating foil with tabs
10. Boar skins
11. Cord
12. Plastic citrus containers

When we touched objects with our paws for the first time, we did not know what they "eat" with. However, after two runs, we had no problems with it. In fact, we really liked this form of activity, especially that there were hidden treats along the path.
The lady says that this kind of exercise is very important for us because we not only explore, but we use different senses when exploring. The sense of touch is very important to us. Our delicate hands touch various strange objects, and the more we explore, the more confident we become.
We continue to explore the different rooms and enriched environment. Now a constant element of the environment is real and sudden noise. Sometimes a plastic bottle or a metal can will fall. In this way, we get used to the fact that such noise is nothing dangerous.

Christmas stories will be coming next week. We helped a lot during this year's holidays. Oh, there will be some laughter.

WEEK 6

Oh there's a lot going on. We experienced many different things this week.

First, we went to the vet and got vaccinations. We also have our passports.
The visit to the vet went great and we were not afraid of anything. We do not even mention the car trip, which was a pleasure for us. As soon as we got into the car, we fell asleep immediately. Driving the car was pure pleasure for us. Do you remember our diaphragm exercises, which were supposed to protect us from motion sickness? It is thanks to them that we endured our first car trip very well. There is no fear that it will be otherwise.

We met different people this week. Now we know what it means when someone rides a bike or skateboard. We also know what noise is associated with it. We also experienced what people call Christmas. They even decorated a tree. Some of us were even very helpful, and some of us didn't like the decorations at all and stubbornly took them off the tree or stole them from the box.
Our playground was enriched with balloons that sometimes burst making a lot of noise.

Aaaa and Mr. Santa visited us with delicious treats. He came to us on a blue reindeer. Some of us wanted to ride the sleigh ourselves.

We went outside for the first time - the weather didn't bother us at all. We met Uncle Donnan and played with him.

We still need a lot of safe exploration - the safer this exploration is, the better for our future mental stability.

Enjoy viewing our photos.

WEEK 7 AND 8

We've been gone for a long time - sorry. So much was going on around and there was no time to update the news. But here we are. A lot has happened and we have a lot of new photos.

We were taken to a frozen lake:

We went to the forest to explore the area and get to know different, different smells

We practiced on the agility obstacle course

Ball tent

We passed temperament tests

We played outside at night

We had fun in the snow

We tried the bones for the first time

We practiced sit, lie down and high five

All this so that we know that the environment is changing and the one thing we must be prepared for is change. We also learned what positive reinforcement training means and in the future we will be prepared for what follows when we go to dog kindergarten for the first time.

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Elizabeth Gajewska
First Australian Labradoodle Kennel in Poland