My breeding poodles are currently on high quality kibble and we also feed RAW. Nursing moms may get extra supplementation to produce a good milk supply, such as Oral Cal Plus calcium, B Strong,  canned food and RAW.  With my puppies, I introduce RAW and Foster Care milk supplment around 3 weeks old. Then around 5 weeks we intro kibble for one meal. Each litter of pups may be different as to how quickly they are eating the kibble dry. 

Early Neurological Stimulation (ENS) is time sensitive and must be performed from the third to the 16th days of a puppy’s life. 

The process consists of 5 simple exercises that introduce mild stressors that stimulate the neurological system:  tactile stimulation, lying in the supine position, held with head held up, tilted upside down, and thermal stimulation. Each exercise is done for 3-5 seconds.

Five benefits have been observed in canines that experienced ENS:

Improved cardio vascular performance (heart rate)

Stronger heart beats

Stronger adrenal glands

More tolerance to stress

Greater resistance to disease

In addition to my husband and I handling pups from birth, we have friends visiting and handling puppies from early on in a pup’s life. When the pups are a bit older, we may have local puppy buyers visit and play with the litter. We also borrow our friend’s kids so our pups get to hear, feel, and see what kids are like.

Puppies exposed to novel experiences and frequent novel items in their environment early on tend to create more neuronal connections in their brains and deal with stress better later on in life. It also helps builds confidence. New experiences are things like walking around on different textured surfaces, exploring different rooms, meeting new people, interacting with new dogs, hearing new sounds, smelling new scents, first solid meal, different bowls to eat or drink out of, standing on the grooming table the first time, first bath, first face shave, walking over a slide, going through a tunnel, balancing on a wobble board, first car ride, first vet visit and so on.  New items can be the first toy, each new toy, a krinkly item, a tarp, a tunnel, a ball, a swing, the first time puppy pads or crates are put in their area, wobble boards, adventure boxes, fit bones, squeaky toys, chew bones, and so on. Some things can be both a new item and a new experience such as seeing their first tunnel in their environment, then exploring it and figuring out you can go through it, drag it around, make krinkle sounds with it, or take a nap in it.

The pups learn a lot from their mother but we also like to let them experience as many other friendly adult dogs as we can. This is usually our own adults in our household and potentially our adolescent pups in a supervised manner. The more positive other dog experiences they have the more confident and socially smart they will be in their future interactions with strange dogs.

We add potty pads into the whelping box at around 2.5 weeks, usually as soon as the pups start walking around. Later, around 3-4 weeks we will add articial turf or pellets in a litter box. We work on keeping their area clean, expanding their area slowly, and they began using the potty area more realiably as they grow. For litters born during warmer weather we will also give them some outside potty sessions. In our cold Nebraska winters, they may use articial turf inside predominantly and only go out for rare short exploration in the snow.  While your pup will not go home housetrained, the foundation here with both potty training and crate training will give them a great headstart.

We add one or more crates into the puppy area around 3 weeks with the doors left opened or removed. The pups naturally go in to nap on comfy bedding or explore toys. Often the entire litter will pile into one! Later, around 6 weeks, we may have sessions putting the pups in with doors closed for a very brief period with a chew toy or bone with the intent to build up their tolerance very slowly.  At 7 weeks they will start sleeping with a buddy overnight and let out to potty. Each pup will experience sleeping alone in the crate a few times before going home. They will still miss their litter mates and may cry that first night completley away from their siblings, but the foundation here should make things a bit easier.

While also falling under novel experiences, unbalanced or wobbly surfaces are great for building confidence, coordination and greater body awareness in pups. We have a fabulous swing that the pups love to play in, fitbones, and wobble boards for them to balance on.

Poodles were historically water retrievers. We expose our puppies to water early with a crate tray filled with shallow water at around 4 weeks and later put in a shallow pool for them to play in outside when weather permits.

We do teach a basic sit command and do leash training with the puppies. However, all the great experiences they have here primes them to be confident and ready to work with their humans once they go home.

We have already mentioned benefits of novel items and experiences, unbalanced surfaces, potty training and crate expereinces, etc., for developing confident puppies with good habits. We pay attention to how our puppy area is put together with lots of enrichment items and opportunities for puppy interactions with their environement, items in it, and each other. We also get to learn a lot about each puppy as we are watching these interactions.

They are also so darn adorable, arent they? 🙂  We want our puppy parents to get to know and love their future pups by being able to watch them in their environment through our many videos and pictures.