The early days of a puppy's life are so important.  When I first started raising puppies and talking to breeders, everyone had an opinion on how a puppy should be treated in its first days after birth. I remember one breeder emphasizing how important it was to not touch the puppies unless it was absolutely necessary because of biosecurity.  While avoiding parvo is always a top concern for breeders, I have since learned that more dogs are given up due to behavior issues than are lost to parvo.  So while we are still highly conscious of biosecurity, we put a tremendous amount of time and effort into ensuring that we give our puppies the best start towards loving people and having good behavior.

Our litter of 15 Aussiedoodle puppies was an game changer in how our early handling of puppies.  Ensuring that all 15 were gaining enough weight meant that we were bottle feeding them around the clock.  The constant handling had a long term affect on their development.  They loved people, they were easy to groom, they potty trained easily. 

 

It became apparent that lots of early love made them more confident, friendly and all around better dogs. The more I have read and researched, the more I have learned just how important lots of love in the first 2 weeks really is.  Our experience plus this article about the military Super Dog program has changed how we treat our puppies for ever.
 

Your Labradoodle puppy, Golden Doodle puppy or Aussiedoodle puppy will be raised as a member of our household.  We are with our Mamas as they whelp, encouraging them, comforting them, and giving them fresh goat milk and organic vanilla ice cream to help them through this time.  The moment the puppy is born, we help our Mama clean them off and make sure that they get colostrum, which is vital for them to have a healthy immune system.  We have someone with them or checking on them every few hours day and night for the first 48 vital hours. We are carefully monitoring them to make sure that they are eating and staying warm.

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On Day 2 we begin clipping their nails and Day 3 starts ENS (Early Neurological Stimulation) and ESI (Early Scent Introduction).  Per studies, it is good for the puppy to be separated from their mom and litter mates for 3 minutes per day.   We use these 3 minutes to provide the movements of the Super Dog program and Scent Training. 

At two weeks, we start early potty training and baths.  We continue to hold each puppy everyday and enjoy how sweet they are with their now open eyes.  At this point, we do invite family and friends to come meet the puppies and hold them.  Hand sanitizer and soap are of vital importance at this stage, as we do take the health of our puppies very seriously. When their ears open, we make sure that they are exposed to normal household life.  With lots of kids in the house, there are lots of banging doors,  loud footsteps and talking.  We also run the vacuum, the blender, and all the other loud appliances we can in their hearing.

This is how we use the early days of our puppies lives to set them up for success in the real world so once you adopt your puppy and take them home you can enjoy your new puppy to the fullest. 

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