Hands-on litter raising

There are numerous ways a breeder can raise a litter of puppies.

I am not here to judge any of the ways someone chooses to go about it, only to share what I do.

The way I raise my pups from the start I like to call hands-on raising. All starts from the moment they come to this world. While confident that my females are capable to whelp fine on their own, I still like to assist them, especially with large litters.

I move my bed next to whelping box for a month. That allows me to check puppies and mother dog through out the night, make sure all puppies get to eat equally, that mother dog does not lay on them or in general keep the area clean.

With large litters sometimes there is also need to feed them extra milk from the bottle. I prefer the puppies nice and fat.

Early neurological stimulation starts after the pups are few days old. This helps to boost their immune system for life and also makes them handle stress better in future.

Nail-trimming & dremeling is something I start also few days old, and continue doing every week.

Potty training starts as early as the puppies can stand on their feet. I have a designated area in the whelping box that consists of absorbing bed sheet and wood pellets. By the time of 6 weeks the success rate using the designated area for potty is 95-99%, with very few occasional accidents. It is important to keep in mind that this does require a lot of work, organisation and consistency to achieve. Puppies do not like using dirty litter box, so this means constant cleaning, day and night.

Whem the weather allows, my puppies start to go outside around 3 weeks of age, during the daytime. In the beginning the area is small and simple, later on the area gets bigger and also more complex. I build and reorganise the area every day, to keep them mentally and physically stimulated. This boosts their confidence and also develops the problem solving part of their brain.

I start feeding puppies with soaked kibble at around 4 weeks, and I introduce them with different kind or foods as time goes by, to make them used to vegetables and different protein sources.

Overall, I spend all of my day with them or around them. They get a lot of cuddles all of the time, and a lot of handling, playing. Also teaching them proper ways to interact with the human. As they live inside, in my livingroom&kitchen and outside in the garden, they get to see and hear all kinds of sounds, lawn mower, washing machine, vacuum etc. Also the place I live has a lot of thunderstorms, so this is something they hear a lot.

Biggest part of raising my puppies, is love, unconditional love that I have for each one of them.