Head Start Toddlers Camp

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Text Box: Two Day old Puppies
Text Box: Early Socialization Work:  Gentle handling and holding, playing with feet, ears, tails, mouth, and tummy. Introduction to family members, kids, friends, and other Doodles. Household noises:  Next to Kitchen for all those noisy kitchen family sounds, Vacuum cleaner, TV, Music Introduce Gentle Restraint "Settle" and "Calm" commands, as we hold the puppy Beginning of Bite Inhibition work Roll Over and Tummy rubs. Introduction to play toys and balls, chew toys, and strange items Weaning:  Includes hand feeding (introduces us as caregivers, works on bite inhibition work) and Bowl training (no greedy or over-bearing behavior allowed) Introduction to Early Grooming:  Nails clipped, Brushing and combing, Teeth cleaning, Ears being cleaned, Even a bath and blow dry. Introduction to learning to take treats nicely, command take it, "Nice" Beginning recall, “Puppy Puppy”, "Come Here" Beginning Crate Training Introduction to Leash   Text Box: Head Start Toddlers Camp is included in your puppy’s price and begins from the moment the puppy is born until 8 weeks of age. Here is an outline of what Training and Socialization is involved in this camp.  A more detailed description of a puppy’s development stages and our training role in it follows.  It is an exciting yet critical time for a growing puppy.   I highly recommend you take a moment and go through all of this if you are getting one of our puppies and feel free to ask any questions!    
Text Box: The first puppy stage is the Neonatal Stage, Day 0-12 days.    Puppies are blind and hearing is muffled. Puppies instinctively huddle together with litter mates and Mom.  We handle the puppies gently and often.  They are checked over and weighed daily.  We gently cuddle them against us and talk to them.  They are stroked and petted while they nurse and sleep.  We gently handle paws, tails, ears, and their tummy.  This is introducing early stress and is beneficial as it allows the puppy to cope with stress later in life.  Neonatal puppies are very impressionable and this is the best time to introduce them to being handled and held.  
Text Box: The next stage is the Transition Period 13-20 days.  This is an exciting stage as the puppies eyes are opening, though they don’t gain their full eye sight until around 8 weeks.  Ears are opening and you can start to see responses to sounds.  Puppies start to push up and start to walk in a wobbly fashion.  The puppy’s environment is expanded as we add the puppy exercise pen to the whelping box.  We then start to introduce a whole new environment rich in variety.  We have different textures for the puppies to walk on, a variety of toys that we rotate, as well as different people to come visit to ooh and aah over them. As they mature different larger objects are set in the pen and periodically changed and shifted around.  This allows the puppy to accept changes in his environment and learn to deal with the stress of change in a safe and reassuring environment.  Grooming is introduced as puppies get baby wipe baths, nails clipped, and gentle brushing.   By the end of this period puppies are starting to eliminate on their own, without Mommy dog stimulating them.  Introduction of food starts near the end of this period, the puppy mush!  Ground up premium puppy food, puppy supplement, a touch of canned food, and warm water.  Some puppies will lap this up right away others might need a bit of encouragement with a dab on the nose.  

Text Box: The next stage is the Primary Socialization Stage 3-7 weeks.  Vision and sight are improving and the puppy is using these senses more.  Depth is noticed and perceived.  Puppies now start to learn from experiences.  Positive experiences from us and their own interactions with littermates and Mom.  Puppies learn to bite, bark, chase, and fight.  Body posturing is learned through play, interactions with Mom, and with redirections from us.  Around 4-6 weeks puppies start the weaning process.  This is a very busy learning time for the puppy and a very busy time for us in overseeing and interacting with each of the puppies.  Much is learned with all these interactions and each is very important, Mom, Littermates, and Humans.  The Human Socialization Period ends between 12-14 weeks old.  It is not critical that the puppy know his new family just that the puppy learns to bond with people.  We continue with handling the puppy, introducing gentle restraint.  This is where a puppy is gently held until it stops struggling.  A puppy quickly learns to hold still to gain what it wants, either down to play or a tasty treat.  We step up our handling of the puppy’s feet, ears, and mouth, continuing with our introduction to grooming.  Praising a puppy for the behavior we want, ignoring or gentle restraint for the behavior we don’t want.  Also using the “owww” or “puppy yipe” for undesirable behavior and nipping.   We roll the puppy over for tummy rubs.  We continue to rotate toys and introduce chewing toys as puppy teeth are emerging! Crate training is introduced by adding a crate to the puppy area that the puppies can freely enter, exit, and explore.  Clearly defining play and sleep areas is important.  Around 6-7 weeks we will start to pull the puppies out for some one on one time as well as introducing short periods of isolation.  This starts to prepare the puppy for the time when it will go home and be separated from their littermates and Mom.   First vet visit is during this time too.  As we progress into the weaning stage meals are supervised so inappropriate behavior is discouraged.  We hand feed one of the meals.  A messy ordeal but it sets us up as the care giver and a puppy starts to look to us for its food.  It gives us the opportunity to teach bite inhibition work as sharp little nips are met with a yipe and a pull back of the hand/food.  Gentle licking gets the food back. We can work on the command “Nice” Take it “Nice”.   I want to take some time to talk about bite inhibition.  I believe that this is a critical quality to train into your puppy, that it develops bite inhibition and a soft mouth now during puppyhood before going on to learn not to bite, nip or mouth.  The time frame for you to develop a soft mouth on your puppy is now and until around four and half months of age.  I will start your puppy on this but you need to continue this work after you get your puppy.  Enrolling in a puppy class is a great way to continue your puppy’s head start training and socialization.  Puppies bite!  It is a natural and normal puppy behavior.  Puppies play biting is a where they learn to bit gently and in control.  Their jaws are not strong enough to inflict harm even though those puppy teeth are needle sharp!  A puppy learns his bite hurts when other puppies yipe or when we cry out.  He learns to soften that bite when playing or taking treats.  It is very important that puppies experience this play biting with litter mates, their Mom (who if is also raised and trained in bite inhibition will pass that on to her puppies), and even other adult dogs.  Dogs with proper bite inhibition training are less likely to bite and break the skin or cause injury in the event of a stressful situation where the dog is frightened or even hurt.  This is even true in the event of a dog fight.  Where it will sound awful and like they are killing each other but when over there won’t be any actual bites.  These are some of the bite inhibition exercises that we will be working on: Hand feeding, teeth cleaning, gentle tug-of-war, play fighting, teaching give, and play time-outs.  Play time-outs are great training tools.  They work two ways.  When a puppy is play biting with a littermate and bites too hard the other puppy will yipe and take a moment (a time-out) to lick the wounds.  The offending puppy learns to play more gently or the fun playing time stops.  Time outs also teach a puppy that you are in control and to learn to quickly and easily settle and calm down.  I highly recommend that you get and read Dr. Ian Dunbar’s book “Before and After Getting your Puppy”  I am going to quote an excerpt from their book from the puppy priorities section, Bite Inhibition Section.  Bite Inhibition  A soft mouth is the single most important quality for any dog.  Hopefully, your dog will never bite or fight, but if he does, well-established bite inhibition ensures that our dog causes little if any damage. Socialization is an ongoing process of ever-widening experience and confidence building that helps your pup to comfortably handle the challenges and changes of everyday life.  It is impossible to prepare your puppy for every possible eventuality, however, and on those rare occasions when adult dogs are badly hurt, frightened, scared, or upset, they seldom write letters of complaint.  Instead, dogs customarily growl and bite, so the level of bite inhibition training from puppyhood predetermines the seriousness of the damage Adult dogs with poor bite inhibition rarely mouth and seldom bite, but when they do, the bites almost always break the skin.  Adult dogs with well-established bite inhibition often mouth during play, and should they bite, the bites almost never break the skin because during puppyhood the dog learned how to register a complaint without inflicting any damage. Bite inhibition is one of the most misunderstood aspects of behavioral development in dogs (and other animals).  Many owners make the catastrophic mistake of stopping their puppy from mouthing altogether.  If a puppy is not allowed to play-bite, she cannot develop reliable bite inhibition.  Pups are born virtual biting machines with needle sharp teeth so that they learn biting hurts before they develop the jaw strength to cause appreciable harm.  However, they cannot learn to inhibit the force of their bites if they are never allowed to play-bite and play-fight. Bite inhibition training comprises first teaching the puppy to progressively inhibit the force of its bites until painful puppy play-biting is toned down and transformed into gentle puppy mouthing, and then, and only then, teaching her to progressively inhibit the incidence of her mouthing.  Thus the puppy learns that mouthing is by and large inappropriate and that any pressured bite is absolutely unacceptable. Urgency Rating: You have until your puppy is four and a half months old, so take your time to ensure your puppy masters this most important item in its educational curriculum.  The more your puppy bites, the safer its jaws will be as an adult, since she has had more opportunities to learn that biting hurts. If you are worried about your puppy’s biting behavior, enroll in a puppy class immediately.  You may seek further advice from the trainer, and your puppy may let off steam and redirect many of her bites toward other puppies during play sessions.   The next stage is the Human Socialization Stage 7-14 weeks.  This is covered in more detail in the next training camp session.