It is harder than you think to get a photo of a new little puppy that is not a total blur fest, but my daughter tried to help me and we got some of them, and they are super super precious!

Each day my goal is to try an capture non-blurry photos, even in their sleep it is super hard.

Well we have ORIENTATION this morning, my voice, my smell, my movement now brings the puppies to a side of the whelping box to greet me. This is part of the social skill set, to orient towards what feels – safe, is trusting, and feels good.

It puts into perspective a few things – puppies could give a shit with who is in charge, or what some people term as dominant. Puppies 100% want safety, to trust their environment, and have access to food. If a person has good management, this is not difficult at all.

In the whelping box, their first little world, there is knowingness and safety. Their Mama comes to feed them, check on them, clean them, and give them comfort almost all night long. I am there as basically their snuggler and maid. I come in and hold them, snuggle them, whisper things in their ears, and clean their bedding. When my family comes to spend time with the pups, they snuggle them and pet them, and love on them as well. So their first human experiences, in the safety of their little whelping nest, is of love and safety.

I couldn’t find the study this morning, but I’ll keep looking. Years ago they did a study on 5 litters, all whelped next to each other in kennels. One had no human interaction up to 5 weeks of age, the others had varying – from very little to a whole bunch, all up to 5 weeks. THEN, at five weeks, all five kennels had normal handling social interactions to humans. The first kennel that had no human interaction would not tolerate humans – voice, nearby, touching, delivering food, non of it. The pups had past the point of imprinting, bonding, or accepting humans. They were no different from a wild canid. The other kennels had varying degrees of acceptance over time. After eight weeks only one kennel had socially healthy pups, in regards to human interactions, and it wasn’t the kennel that was over handled and lavished, it was the intermittent exposure to humans that were kind and trusting, in tone, handling, movement, and delivering food – but for short periods of time.

So let that be a lesson when an ad reads – raised in a family home with lots of kids handling the pups. Not always the best move unless mom was managing the hell out of the children.

Okay – puppy photo bomb time! We tried right as they were ready to snooze –

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5 photo of first day of life, working on a good non-blurry one today

#6

#7