What Goes On During Those First 9 Weeks?
From the day they are born until they go home at 9 weeks old, our puppies receive daily hands-on care, socialization, and age-appropriate enrichment designed to help them become confident, well-adjusted companions. We expose them to a variety of sights, sounds, textures, and positive human interactions while carefully monitoring their health and development. This early foundation helps puppies adapt more easily to their new homes, making the transition smoother for both the puppy and their new family.
Day 1 - Day 3
During their first three days of life, our puppies receive around-the-clock care and close monitoring to ensure they are healthy, nursing well, and gaining weight properly. We weigh each puppy twice daily to track their progress and quickly address any concerns. At three days old, dew claws are removed and tails are banded per breed standard. These first few days are critical, and we are committed to giving every puppy the best possible start.
Day 4 - Day 16
Our puppies are spending their days and nights with momma in their whelping box in the nursery, where they receive constant supervision and care. We closely monitor their growth, continuing to weigh each puppy twice daily, to ensure everyone is gaining at a steady pace.
Starting at four days old, we initiate Early Neurological Stimulation (ENS) exercises, which we conduct daily until they reach 16 days old. This stage is believed to be a crucial time for neurological growth and development. Even though puppies are quite immature at this stage, they are surprisingly sensitive to ENS training methods. These training sessions involve handling each puppy individually and performing a series of five exercises. We begin with one puppy and stimulate them with each of the following exercises for 3-5 seconds:
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Head Held Erect: Holding the puppy perpendicular to the ground with its head above its tail.
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Head Pointed Down: Reversing the puppy's head to point downward.
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Supine Position: Holding the puppy with its back in your palms, facing the ceiling.
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Tactile Stimulation: Gently tickling the puppy's toes with your thumb.
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Thermal Stimulation: Placing the puppy on an ice pack with their feet down.
2 - 4 Weeks Old
In addition we start introducing the potty trays to the puppy area. This helps them learn to go to a specific place to go potty and away from where they eat and sleep. This will make potty training easier for y'all once you get them home.
Around 2 weeks the puppies eyes and ears have fully opened, and socialization starts. They start discovering their voices, and start moving around and exploring their environment. We introduce new toys during this time to fulfill those curious little minds. We constantly check and trim nails because we don't want the nursing momma to be scratched, which could potentially lead to an infection.
We begin sound stimulation training with our puppies at this time. We expose them to a variety of sounds, ranging from soft crinkling sounds to gradually louder noises like a blender or a vacuum. During this time, we cuddle them in the evening while playing recorded sounds of fireworks, thunder and gun shots, as we want them to associate these sounds with being relaxed while receiving love.
4 - 6 Weeks Old
At 4 weeks of age we start helping momma slowly ween the puppies by introducing them to goat's milk and pulverized dry dog food. It is so much fun watching them try to get their whole body in the feeding bowl.
The puppies are introduced to dark spaces and elevated heights by using kid's play tunnels, foam play wedges and stairs. Exposing the puppies to these new experiences continues to build the foundation that was started during their early weeks of socialization. We also like to give the puppies personalized tours of the house, the pantry tour is one of their favorites! There is so much to see since all the different items have such vibrant labels.
During this stage we start introducing the puppies to our two cats, Arlo and Skeeter Ray. It is very important to us that this hunting breed understands the difference between small household pets and prey. We want to produce puppies that can turn that switch off when they are in the house. Cats are our friends not food.
6 - 9 Weeks Old
We continue working on exposing them to new environments. After their first round of vaccines, which are at 6 weeks old, we begin to introduce them to the outside world. Starting them in a small pen in our yard, as not to overwhelm them with the new area to investigate. They are exposed to a quail wing for the first time during this outdoor playtime. The puppies also make regular visits to Tractor Supply and Home Depot, allowing them to get car travel experience. When in these environments, whelping mats are placed in carts and we roll these little guys through the store exposing them to all different types of people. It is important for their socialization to see children and adults in hats, glasses, folks with facial hair, and different skin tones, this helps puppies become well rounded in different environments.
Puppy fear periods are temporary, natural developmental stages where a dog becomes extra sensitive to their surroundings, suddenly acting spooked by familiar objects, noises, or people. They typically occur twice in the first year: first at 8–11 weeks, and again during adolescence between 6–14 months. We keep the puppies for 9 weeks to monitor their development longer in order to reduce the chance these fears will become permanent. It's important to be consistent on the nail trims during this time, as the sound of the nail clipper or the nail grinder can all of the sudden seem scary to them.
Puppies are started on crate training to further their transition to their new homes. We listen to the screams so hopefully you won't have to ❤️. It's hard to listen to an itty bitty make such a racket, but you have to push through so they understand that crates are a good thing. All good things should happen in the crates, we feed in crates and give high value treats in the crate. You need to crate your puppy anytime you can't keep your eyes on them, this is for their safety. You should also crate them randomly through out the day, not just when you are leaving so the puppy doesn't associate being crated to being left alone. We also advise that if you are wanting to let you puppy sleep in bed with you, you don't start this during the night until they are completely crate trained and can go all night without an accident in their crate. I know the want to cuddle with them at night is hard to resist, the way we handle this is the puppy hangs out in bed with us while we wind down at night reading or watching tv, then once we are ready to go to sleep, puppy goes outside for potty break and then into the crate to sleep.