HOW WE RAISE YOUR PUPPY
Let's start at the beginning. I'd want to know that my puppy has super healthy parents. Every Rutlands Cobberdog or Cobbeagle parent has been exhaustively DNA health tested All Clear of hereditary diseases known to occur in the breed. www.pawprintgenetics.com/
PHOTOS AND VIDEOS
Photos are taken of the Newborn litter and shared to FB then roughly each 2 weeks until individual Allocation Finals between 6 and 8 weeks. Sometimes I manage extras in between a busy schedule because I understand how excited you are!
Puppies are watched around the clock and picked up multiple times to be imprinted and for neural stimulation. I take the night shift and team members carry on during the day time when I may be grabbing some sleep. Rutlands dogs are very sociable and get on well together. The girls even offer moral support to expectant mother besties and wait out a patient vigil while labour is in progress. WORMING. Puppies are wormed at two weeks and then every two weeks thereafter until they leave us at 9 to 10 weeks of age to homes within Australia or twelve to 16 weeks old overseas depending on individual countries' regulations. The life cycle of ascarids (the common puppy worm) is 21 days and treatments kill only the hatched larvae, not the eggs, which is the reason such frequent worming of young puppies is necessary. |
Eyes and ears open at around 2 weeks old and pigment is usually through on noses pads of paws and eye and lip rims. Now they get extra playful and want to go exploring, so it's a good time to begin accustoming them to new sights, sounds and experiences.
The soft music they've had played to them up to this point, gets ramped up to the noisier stuff and they're introduced to the TV, and educational toys that bleat like sheep, moo like cows, wiggle and waggle and flash blinking lights while they play nursery rhymes! The puppies quickly learn that the crate is a safe happy place. Crates are never used at Rutlands as a correction or time out for unwanted behavior place.
|
By 6 weeks they're spending most of the day time outside in the Adventure Playground, and are fully established on their solid food diet. They'll continue getting drinks from their mama until they're vaccinated and microchipped at 6 to 7 weeks. After vaccination it isn't good to let them nurse any more because the antibodies in their mother's milk may fight with the vaccine which may not be fully effective in one or more of them. By this time, she'll most likely be teaching them to leave her belly alone, by growling at them, snapping and flattening them to the ground until they pay attention. Once they accept her discipline, she'll be happy to patiently play with them for hours on end while they chew her ears and tail, and climb all over her. The six weeks old puppies have already learned that the crate is a happy place to be and to wear a collar. They'll spend time outdoors and indoors as well, where they watch the TV, meet the noisy vacuum cleaner, new people, and go for short walks on the leash. |