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Socializing Puppies During The Coronavirus Pandemic

3/19/2020

Play with good household nannies and nannoes is always on the "safe" menu!

Let's talk about the question that has to be foremost in any breeder's mind right now...socialization during the coronavirus pandemic. I'm in this situation myself with a 12 week old puppy in my house that normally would be in the midst of daily exposures to important things. I've taken a hard look at my past research on socialization and viewed that in light of the US government's call for measures to stop the spread of the virus, and I have, if not a plan, at least a distilled version of the considerations, with some definite "dos," some definite "don'ts" and some definite "it depends." But I will say at the outset this is all very fluid so, in the end, you have to be alert to changing facts and use your own judgement.

Update Saturday, March 21, 2020: Seven states and several counties in other states have ordered 100% of non-essential workers to stay home. Notwithstanding anything in this article, please comply with all federal, state and local laws.

Back in the day, (like, last week) socialization was a pretty straightforward weighing of risk benefit based solely on risk to the puppy- bottom line, wait until an appropriate age and vaccination status, stay away from high risk areas for canine infectious diseases and advocate for your puppy so that every encounter is a positive one:

But in the space of a week, coronavirus has changed everything and now governments in virtually every country are asking us to practice "social distancing" which is, on its face, contrary to socializing puppies. So now the puppy socialization diagram looks like this:

With that big, fat question mark on the bottom. The good news is that, although the safe space for socializing puppies has just gotten a lot smaller, it's still there. So let's look at what we CAN do and what we SHOULD do.

Two points to consider regarding our normal assumptions about socialization of puppies:

In their seminal work on socialization, Scott and Fuller accidentally discovered that puppies just seeing a person standing passively from the shoulders up behind a fence did in fact become at least partially socialized to humans. So actual contact with novel humans and things may be optimal, but a lot of benefit can still be had from a puppy just observing stuff.
Dogs relate to their world much more through their sense of smell than any other sense. As primates, we are focused on touching, holding and caressing, particularly front to front contact. Dogs naturally prefer to pick up information via scent, and that sense of smell is astounding - from Nova's article, "Dog's Dazzling Sense of Smell":
- "Dogs' sense of smell overpowers our own by orders of magnitude—it's 10,000 to 100,000 times as acute, scientists say. "Let's suppose they're just 10,000 times better," says James Walker, former director of the Sensory Research Institute at Florida State University, who, with several colleagues, came up with that jaw-dropping estimate during a rigorously designed, oft-cited study. "If you make the analogy to vision, what you and I can see at a third of a mile, a dog could see more than 3,000 miles away and still see as well.'"

These two points add up to meaning that your puppy can still get lots of beneficial socialization by seeing things and smelling them while you maintain a safe social distance. With that amazing sense of smell, you can stay quite far away from other people and your dog can "see" them with his nose very clearly.

What is social distancing, anyway? Good question. The answer is something of a moving target but in sum it's minimizing non-essential contact with other humans to slow the spread of the coronavirus. For healthy adults with no risk factors either for having been exposed or being at risk because of a health condition, the President has issued the following directives:

Work or engage in school at home
Avoid eating or drinking at bars or restaurants (use drive through, pick up or delivery)
Avoid gatherings of 10 or more people
Avoid discretionary travel
Avoid discretionary shopping trips
Avoid discretionary social trips
Do not visit nursing homes or similar
Go into public only if necessary
Remain 6 feet away from anyone in public (which, by the way, only reduces, not eliminates, your chances of spreading the disease)

Social distancing is not something you can ethically choose to ignore. The US government and governments around the world have called upon us directly to slow the spread of the virus. "Flatten the curve" means that, while we can't completely stop the spread of the virus, we can keep the serious case numbers low enough so that our hospitals have enough ventilators and staff to care for the critically ill. So that hospitals don't have more people needing ventilators than are available. So that medical staff does not have to make decisions about who gets to live and who gets to die. Like in Italy, this week.
Currently, the US government is asking us for serious social distancing for 15 days. There's more than enough you can safely do to keep you and your puppy busy and moving forward during that time, after which any puppy should still have at least a flexible period for more "hands on" socialization. That period may or may not be enough to adequately slow the spread, but let's take it one step at a time and do the right thing now. Update Saturday, March 21, 2020: Seven states and several counties in other states have ordered 100% of non-essential workers to stay home. Notwithstanding anything in this article, please comply with all federal, state and local laws.

Based on all of these considerations, I've come up with three rough categories for socialization protocols:

Green light, meaning go right ahead
Yellow light, meaning OK under the right circumstances
And red light, meaning not advisable

First, the green light activities:

Drive to new places and allow your puppy to watch the outside world from within the car with the windows rolled up. Have your puppy ride safely in his crate to each location and then take him out of his crate but stay inside the car when you arrive. Be ready to give your puppy treats when people approach the car to wave though the glass. This may also present an opportunity for you to counter condition any budding barrier frustration or car guarding your puppy might have.
Work on recalls and creating good conditioned emotional responses (CERs) to barrier frustration, fence running and moving objects on your own property
- Human household members walking on the other side of the fence
- Household dogs walking on the other side of the fence
- Motorized equipment and vehicles
Work on leash frustration by parallel walking on your own property with another household dog handled by a household member
Power up generalized positive responses to "weird sounds" using Susanne Shelton's protocol - here is a link to a previous live event where she explains everything, it's pretty amazing!
Attention is the Mother exercises at home using various distractions:
- Household members approaching
- Other dogs handled by household members approaching
- Household members touching - foundations for stand for exam
- Sound distractions
Sound socialization recordings
- Passive habituation to sounds
- Active training and performing learned behaviors for reward with sound in the background
Free shaping interaction with novel surfaces and unstable surfaces - something as simple as a large diameter magic marker taped to the bottom of a piece of plywood. Half a tennis ball glued to the bottom of a yoga block, a snow saucer - this does not have to be expensive or fancy equipment!
Free shaping multiple behaviors, both indoors and outdoors on your own property and in as many different rooms as possible.
Dress up in various outfits including hats, glasses, wigs, different shoes, etc.
Have other dogs in the household wear head cones and bandages
Play with other dogs and people in your own household

Whew! If you're lucky enough to have at least one other household member and one other good dog, you can keep extremely busy with this for the next two weeks and, who knows, all this emphasis on ignoring and emotional regulation just might be as good or better than if your puppy actually interacted with other people and dogs in an unregulated fashion during this time. At the very least, you'll be removing the possibility of having a negative experience with another dog or person which is a very good thing.

Next, we'll talk about "red light" activities that are no longer advisable:

Non-essential vet visits
Dog shows and dog sport venues (which are all cancelled, anyway)
Group Puppy Class
Public Transportation - even if you HAVE to take public transportation for some reason, you don't want a puppy magnet with you, inviting people to violate your safe distance
Non-essential shopping trips
Socialization visits to other people's houses
Play groups - even if you think you can keep your distance it will be remarkably difficult to wrangle puppies and do the safe and productive thing for them and keep your distance from the other pet parents. There will be times when you all have to go in and get your puppies and be super close to one and other.
Any other activity that puts you in a position where you might have to come in contact with other people - contact being defined as closer than 6'.

Finally, let's talk about the "yellow light" areas. I can't make a decision for you about these items, but I can give you thoughts about making your own decisions.

Your puppy's age and previous socialization experience will come into play, here. What is discretionary for one puppy may be essential for another. For instance, I would not bother with most of these activities because my 12 week old puppy has already had a lot of contact with the outside world and she rocked it out with no hesitation. It's just not worth the trouble for me to take the necessary precautions to do most of these activities.
But if I had a younger puppy, or a puppy that had more difficulty with her previous socialization, I might avail myself of more of these "yellow light" activities.

So, here are some ideas which I present to you, but I advise a great deal of caution with them:

If you have to make an essential trip to a dog friendly venue, you might bring your puppy. But keep in mind that your puppy will attract people to you. Are you able and prepared to tell people to keep away? Do you really think you can maintain that safe 6' social distance with an adorable puppy in your arms? How crowded do you expect the place to be? If it's a sole proprietorship you might be able to call ahead and explain the situation. If it's a big box store you're unlikely to be successful in keeping people away.
Neighborhood walks if safe from off leash dogs and you will not encounter any pedestrians that you cannot avoid. See above regarding the difficulties of fending off "puppy fans." Furthermore, I generally don't love taking my puppy anywhere with any chance of an off leash or "invisible fence" encounter. Even in regular times, I feel the risk is too great of emotional damage from walks in the neighborhood to justify this activity with a puppy in suburban areas, and you will have difficulty avoiding people in more urban areas where the risk of off leash dogs is less. For me, this is a no-go but you can make your own decisions based on your particular circumstances.
Visit farm/livestock in rural areas - same considerations as above - can you guarantee there will be no loose dogs or "puppy fans" that you can't fend off? A nice compromise might be to do a safari where you park, stay in the car, hold the puppy on your lap and roll the window down so he can hear, see, and smell everything
Nature Sniff N Strolls - You could take your puppy on a sniff-n-stroll in a natural area where there are steep slopes that keep the "sunday driver" pet owners away and very few people care to go. But that is really above the paygrade of most puppies (see our Puppy Exercise Article) so it's logistically difficult.
Drive to a venue, park your car, keep your puppy in his crate and open the hatch or door so he can see, hear, and smell everything going on. Post office, store parking lot, bank parking lot. Same issues with keeping people away as above, but this is the one I would be most tempted by and probably worth the effort to keep your distance. You might even set up an exercise pen around the open portion of your vehicle to keep people at a distance, if feasible.
Using visitors and visiting dogs on other side of your fence at least 6' away
- Practice recall and CER to leash and barrier frustration
- Use as distractions for Attention is the Mother protocols
Rent a training building - virtually all group classes have been cancelled so you should not have a problem getting a rental. But keep in mind that this is still a public place so use appropriate biosafety precautions - don't touch your face, wash your hands, wipe down anything before you touch it. And I'm assuming you are not in the epicenter of an outbreak...the actual risk will depend on your local outlook
Go to the drive through and buy your puppy a cone - I would feel comfortable doing this as food in general is not a good vehicle for the virus, but use these precautions with your take out food. I would bring my own napkins and remove any paper from around the cone.
Private lessons maintaining a 6' distance, preferably outdoors on a warm, sunny day- Again, assuming there are no other risk factors, you should be able to take a private lesson if you and your puppy remain inside a closed ring and the instructor remains outside the ring and maintains the 6' distance no matter where you are. Coronavirus will have a harder time living on the more porous surfaces outdoors that are exposed to sun and warm temperature.
Closed System Socialization - if you have a friend that you trust, and that friend has a dog or puppy that is suitable for socializing with your puppy, and both you and your friend have truly been in isolation for two weeks and plan on remaining that way, you might actually do a playdate. I don't actually know anyone who fits this category, but I imagine there might be some out there.
Curbside drop off - Some dog schools and daycares are offering curbside drop off - the puppy gets socialized by the instructors and the owners do not attend class. Similarly, some puppy owners are doing puppy swaps with curbside drop off, again, so that the humans never need to come into contact with each other. I'm really not sure about this as a coronavirus hazard - my yellow light with this is more that I would find it very hard to entrust my puppy to another person this way. We can't lose sight of the fact that it's better to do nothing at all than to have something bad happen to your puppy. I could definitely warm more easily to doing a curbside drop off to or from a trusted friend or trusted trainer who was going to be working with my puppy one on one with dogs that I also know and trust.

Getting a cone at the drive through has always been a rite of passage for our puppies, and it's still safe to do.

So, what am I doing with my 12 week old puppy? Well, as luck would have it, I just got back from Australia on Tuesday so unfortunately I don't have a lot of options. Australia is generally much safer than almost anywhere else in the world, but I had to pass through three airports to get home. I'm feeling great but I'll be staying put in my house for two weeks from the time I travelled, just to be sure.

Fortunately for us, Alana really did so well with her first off premises socialization that we're not in a rush to push things for the next two weeks. We have a house full of dogs, up until this week we had a house full of people each day, and I did do a lot with her early on. I will probably do some "closed car" things, but, other than that, I don't see the need to go off premises right now and will concentrate on my "green light" list.

Once I've been back in the country for two weeks, I'm going to set up some private agility lessons, preferably at my outdoor facility but even indoors I feel we can conduct the lessons safely. I feel that getting Alana out to understand that novel places mean we train and work together is very important, so that will be a priority for me. I may also be renting a building for training. I have no current plans for socialization with outside dogs or people, but it so happens that because Alana was a singleton I've done a lot of that work with her already - much earlier than I would ever do with a litter, so she has that in her favor.

I think you see how personal these decisions become, based on your unique situation and your puppy's unique set of circumstances. The takeaway from this article is that, at the end of the day, any socialization where you can ensure social distancing, yet still control and curate your puppy's experience, is fine. That can look very different, depending on the circumstances, and I don't pretend to have every possible scenario covered here, but I think now you have some good guidelines for making decisions.

All that having been said, as I mentioned at the beginning, it's important to remain fluid and responsive to risks in real time and comply with all federal, state and local laws. I will be updating this article as necessary but in the meantime, be safe, be careful with your puppies, and be kind to the community!

17 Comments

Some Like It Hot: The Thermoneutral Zone and Puppy Behavior

5/17/2019

2 Comments

We hear from a lot of breeders who are upset because their puppies sleep in the litter in the toilet area instead of the crates. If you want your puppies to sleep in the crate and not the shavings the easiest way to encourage this is for the crate to offer thermal relief for the puppy - the crate should be a more comfortable temperature for the puppy than the shavings.

Sounds easy enough, but what that thermal relief will be is HUGELY different from breed to breed. The “thermoneutral zone” is the temperature at which a dog can maintain his body temperature without expending energy to increase heat production or heat loss, and (sit down for this) it ranges from 68°F to 86°F for dogs. Literally, there is almost a 20° difference between the way different dogs experience the same exact temperature.

This puppy is seeking out the warmth of nested dog beds in a crate

This puppy has moved his bedding aside to get to the cooler floor of the crate

So if you have a 75° room, and you have a Newfoundland litter, you need to put ice packs in the crates to reinforce sleeping in them. If you have a Chinese Crested, you need a fluffy warm bed, maybe with a heated disc under it. There is no one right answer, there is only watching to see if the behavior you want is increasing or decreasing.

By the way, this thermoneutral zone concept is important to maternal behavior, as well. The breakout behavior you want to see is the puppies sleeping piled up and close to their mother, with mom comfortable and relaxed - she may be panting, but not restlessly getting up.

Perfect behavioral picture of a mother with neonates. The temperature was obviously just cool enough to keep the puppies close to their mother but warm enough that they are sleeping contentedly.

If your puppies are flung all over the box like drunks and mom is distressed and panting and can’t settle down, you probably need to try to lower the temperature a bit. You never want to chill your puppies as that can be fatal, but if your litter is strung out and mom is distressed, GRADUALLY lower the temperature in the room (no drafts!) and see if that helps.

If the puppies are in a pile and close to mom and OTHERWISE HEALTHY but crying and unable to settle, the room MIGHT be too cold. Experiment with tweaking the heat in the room or adding an additional heat source such as a bed buddy, nestled around the little in a half circle or a snuggle disc under the hospital pad next to mom. I usually will try the bed buddy first and if that quiets them down then I know the room is a tad cool and I will raise the heat a little, but not so much that they move away from mom, which is stressful for her.

This is true of literally everything. Are toys or food more reinforcing? Is social interaction a reinforcer? Is exploring a reinforcer? Is interaction with a novel object a reinforcer? You cannot answer any of these questions except with reference to how the puppies react. And the answer will often depend on environmental factors and change from day to day and hour to hour. Having a breed mentor is a good way to start, because it will give you clues about what might be successful. But in the end you have to rely on observation to know if in fact you’ve got it right for this particular puppy/litter.

This Leonberger litter would not calm down until the breeder resorted to turning a fan on them. This is 100% correct for this breed but could be fatal in a different breed...watch for the right breakout behavior and make no assumptions about what "should" be the correct temperature for your puppies comfort!

I’ll close this by saying that this concept also explains and would eliminate so many arguments about “what’s right.” Dog people are nothing if not of strong opinions, and they are very quick to proclaim what does and does not work based on their limited lens. There are certainly overriding principles but the details will come down to observation. So 90% of the arguments are between two people who are both right, under the right circumstances. Hope this gets you thinking and observing.

Read more about the thermoneutral zone: https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/va/va-16-w.pdf

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Re-Thinking Early Neurological Stimulation

4/22/2019

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Puppy Culture is an open source architecture - it grows and clarifies based on the input and feedback of the users. Pursuant to that, based on the discussions in our Facebook Discussion Group, I think a major re-thinking of Early Neurological Stimulation (ENS) is in order.

Don’t panic, I’m not “turning against” ENS! It’s still an awesome protocol under the right circumstances. But the piece that I think we need to embrace is that ENS really is a subset of a larger category, which is shaping the neurological development of neonates. And there is (or at least should be) more than one protocol in that category, depending on the circumstances.

For those of you who are not familiar with Puppy Culture, one of our core tenants is that we look for behavioral markers to know when a particular protocol is appropriate, rather than looking at the temporal age of the puppies. So we always want to know the developmental period, rather than how many days the puppy has been alive in order to do the right thing at the right time. And litters vary a lot - developmental periods have been documented to vary by as much as 16 days between breeds, and, in our experience, this is a pretty conservative estimate.

What I've recently come to realize is that, in the same way that we look for behavioral markers to know when to do what protocol in Puppy Culture, we need to focus on the circumstances of the litter to know WHAT KIND of stimulation is required:

Where all the stars align with a low stress birth and excellent maternal care, ENS is perfect, and should confer all of the benefits Dr. Battaglia talks about in Puppy Culture.

But, where the stars don’t align so well and there is a stressful birth or poor maternal care, ENS is unnecessary as the puppies already are stressed. Both Dr. Battaglia and I talk about this in Puppy Culture. In this situation you can focus on tactile stimulation that would simulate maternal care (licking). So long firm strokes of the body and anogenital regions, with your hands or possibly with a soft brush, rather than stressful ENS-type manipulations.

That's the Reader's Digest version of this blog...my reasoning for this is outlined at some length, below, (and I am only skimming the topic, at that). But I know it’s somewhat dense material and not everyone will wade through it, so I wanted to get it out up front that, in cases where the litter is stressed, I believe there is already enough stress to produce the results of ENS, and furthermore there is an alternative to ENS that the research indicates will be appropriate and beneficial under those circumstances.

Why Touch Shapes Personality

The neurological and endocrine systems of neonates are extremely flexible (approximately the first two weeks of life). In a safe environment with lots of resources, certain neurological and endocrine (hormonal) responses will aid survival, and in a dangerous environment with low resources a completely different set of responses will aid survival. This is why these systems are so plastic at birth - they develop differently to optimize based on the environment into which the animal is born.

Suffice it to say that the kinds of emotions and behaviors we want our dogs to have are by and large facilitated by convincing the puppies’ systems that they are going to be living in a safe and resource abundant environment. But we also, when possible, want to challenge the puppies’ endocrine and neurological systems ever so slightly to get additional gains in those systems. This is the tightrope we are walking when we get into protocols that shape early neurological development.

Why Circumstances Matter

Now back to ENS. ENS assumes that the environment truly is low stress, low danger, and high resource. In this case, we can pick up bonus development by introducing low amounts of stress. But what does that mean in terms of a litter in the breeder’s house? It means the dam is not stressed, has good mothering skills, plenty of milk, and is in good health. It means the puppies have not been stressed in any way, their birth was uneventful and natural, that they are eating and gaining normally, and are not sick in any way. This describes perfectly the average German Shepherd litter that is free whelped - the mother cares well for the puppies and the breeder hardly touches them for the first two weeks. ENS in this situation is almost certainly very beneficial.

But what if any of those dimensions are missing? If you’ve been to my Puppy Culture seminar, you know we talk a lot about neonatal neurological and endocrine development and how touch, stimulation, and maternal stress can effect that development, positively or negatively. I’m going to pick out one small part of my presentation to talk about, which is the role of tactile stimulation. Many of you are familiar with the “licked rats” studies (if you’re not familiar with it, you can get an overview, HERE). The reader’s digest version is that maternal care, specifically licking completely changes the development of the neurological and endocrine systems of neonate rats, specifically the systems that regulate emotional stability, resilience, and stress reactions - the HPA axis .

It’s been demonstrated conclusively that rat pups whose mother licked them have much better emotional regulation and behavior than non-licked pups. And this is independent of DNA - they have cross fostered rat pups and the result is clearly dependent on maternal care, not the genetics of the pup. Read more HERE and HERE

Best Practices for Breeders

The studies show That this "licking effect" can be reproduced by human caregivers. In the absence of maternal licking, tactile stimulation of the rat pup’s anogenital region with a soft paintbrush or a Swiffer brush applied gently over their whole body could produce results similar to maternal licking. Beneficial results were found with as little as a few seconds three times per day, but it appears that the maximum experimental result so far has been with 15 minutes of stimulation per day.

So, practically, what does this mean to you as a breeder? Say, for instance, your bitch has had a c-section and is slow to come around to caring for the puppies. You’re already picking up and manipulating the puppies to feed them, to clean them, to move them in and out of the whelping box. They’re either getting a feeding tube down their throat several times a day, or being held in position while sponge or bottle fed, or their dam is being pinned down while the puppies are slid on to her teats to nurse. The last thing those puppies need is extra stress.

But what they are lacking is maternal licking, which is extremely important to favorable development of the genes surrounding the HPA axis. So (and I’m just taking a stab at this, based on the rat research) long soft but firm strokes along their bodies, and also anogenital regions (unless you are already having to void the puppies yourself). You might consider using a large paintbrush with soft bristles which might more accurately reproduce the action of a tongue. I have not used a brush myself but it would be consistent with the way the rat experiments were designed.

We have recent personal experience with this. Naboo had her two boys by C-section and it took her five days to fully come around to caring for the puppies. In the interim, we were holding Naboo in place so the puppies could nurse, and then cleaning the puppies ourselves. One of the puppies seemed to have extreme reactions to being held and cleaned, so we began stroking him for a few minutes each time we took him out to feed him. At first, he wailed and resisted but after only two days he immediately settled when stroked. I know it’s a sample size of one, but we have seen similar results in other litters, and it makes sense, based on the research.

So, the bottom line is, if you have an outstanding earth mother who free whelped and is caring for a thriving litter of puppies, do ENS, it’s really helpful. But if you have any other scenario, consider simulated maternal stimulation (SMS), instead. And, of course, the scenario can change - you might have a litter with a rough start that settles in, in which case you can switch from SMS to ENS. Once again I will disclaim that this is all just my personal experience and how I read the research - but it has definitely been proven that too much ENS is bad for puppies, so I think this is an excellent stab at better practices.

A New Place To Put Your Energy

We get an awful lot of breeders who are super concerned when told that they need to skip ENS because the puppies already have enough stress. These breeders never seem happy with the answer that they should leave out ENS protocols. They feel like their puppies will be short changed. And it seems like many breeders push doing ENS when perhaps it might be better not to do it.

Mulling it over, I think these breeders have the correct instinct, in that we can positively influence the neurological and endocrine development of puppies quite easily in the neonatal period, and they want to take action. But, up until now, they have felt that ENS was their only option. So breeders push hard to “get ENS done” even when it might have been better not to.

And that’s what I believe we need to re-examine - ENS is a fantastic protocol under the right circumstances, but it’s not your only option for influencing the neurological and endocrine development of your puppies. You should always consider whether SMS (Simulated Maternal Stimulation) might be the better protocol, based on the circumstances of the litter.

Hope this helps you make the best choices for your litters. I will be thinking and researching this more in the coming months and perhaps even doing an update to the Workbook down the road.

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Folate for Brood Bitches To Help Prevent Cleft Palates

4/8/2019

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Seriously, where does the time go? One of those tiny Spy x Pippi puppies is now 3.5 years old and has been bred! Fingers crossed for Bijou's puppies to arrive in early June. Going to be posting a lot about the pregnancy process in the coming weeks so stay tuned.

In other news, we're excited to announce that we will be publishing Magda Chiarella's prenatal nutrition book for brood bitches! I'm beta testing the book and recipes with Bijou and I'll be sharing some of my favorite bits of information from the book here over the coming weeks.

Speaking of which, Here's Bijou having her morning frozen folate slushy - coconut water, spinach, kale, and flaxseed meal. It's remarkably delicious and the bitches eat it up like crazy.

We also do supplement with folic acid in pill form, which has been shown in numerous studies to greatly reduce cleft palate and other midline defects in dogs

But we also firmly believe that taking a pill is not the best way to access nutrients - what we think of as "folate" is really a whole array of nutrients that work together and support each other to create a health effect. So we do the folate shake daily at least one month in advance of breeding.

One more thing, you CAN overdo it with vitamin B9 supplements (folic acid). The FDA recently established upper limits for humans and we try to keep our supplementation within that range, relative to the body size of the dog. Magda talks about dosing in her book but we give our Bull Terriers 200 MCG per day - invest in a pill cutter, because the smallest dose you can get is 400 MCG.*

Food sources of folate do not represent a hazard in this regard so you needn't worry about overdoing the folate shake. However, if you were feeding your dog a huge amount of pasta or bread or any of the other made-for-human-consumption processed foods that have synthetic folic acid "fortified" into them, you have to consider that as part of your dog's daily intake limit of synthetic folate.

Some folks have expressed concern about giving bitches flax seed because of the phytoestrogens in it. But flax seed delivers bioavailable Hyaluronic acid and high concentration of Omega 3, while containing only miniscule amounts of phytoestrogens in a form that is not harmful. So rest easy on that score!

Finally, there are a lot of reasons bitches can produce puppies with cleft palates that are not related to folate deficiency, from environmental toxins to medications to genetics. So supplementation is not going to guarantee that you won't get any clefts in a litter. But giving folate rich food and low doses of folic acid won't hurt, and it will certainly help in many cases!

If you want to be the first to know when Magda's book is released (and possibly get a sweet deal on a pre-order) be sure to join our mailing list

* Note that, although the dog studies cited did use massive doses of folic acid, the recommended dose at the conclusion of the studies specified a dose consistent with what we have mentioned here.

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Goose Poop And The Future of Dog Shows

5/3/2016

1 Comment

Here’s a few tips and thoughts on dealing with dog show distractions.

Last weekend was a great one for us at the Bull Terrier Club of Philadelphia’s Specialties - two BOVs and a Group 2 for Saki, and a RWB and a WB for baby Bijou. And there were PLENTY of distractions to test our Attention and Free Stacking skills....

You can count on there being dropped bait and goose poop at outdoor shows. You can certainly “correct” your dog for diving into the distractions, but you’re going to pay for that dearly because corrections have a “carpet bombing” effect - they suppress not just the target behavior but serve to dampen the dog’s overall behavior. Not what you want in a show dog.

My suggestion is, if your dog’s nose dives in the grass, try playing with him to keep his attention, rather than “correcting” him for sniffing. It will serve the double purpose of getting him out of the grass and up on his toes. Here’s Saki, finding some dropped bait as she waits her turn last Friday at the Bull Terrier Club of Philadelphia specialty:

That jump and bark didn’t hurt her any she went on to Best of Variety and a Group 2 that day (thank you, judges Susie Harris and Bruce Schwartz!)

Here’s 8 month old baby Bijou’s fourth time in the show ring - I don't expect her to exhibit her trained behaviors right off the bat and I'm feeling it out to see how much I can get from her. I start with play to get her engaged and take one shot at the free stack, just to see what I have. I'm getting nothing on the free stack so I go right to stacking her with my hand on her collar at first, and then gradually sneak out in front of her as much as possible.

We most definitely begin training attention and free stacking as early as 5 weeks old. We want to imprint the "Distractions Are Cues for Attention" concept in our puppies, and we want "stack" to be a default behavior that just feels good to the puppies. But we also spend a lot of time just playing with puppies, so we have play available to use in the ring to get them up on their toes, and ignoring distractions.

You need to know where you are, and adjust your expectations and technique accordingly. What I want or can expect from a puppy is not the same as what I want or can expect from a special. When I take out a six month old puppy I'm not chasing points, I'm investing in the show dog that they will someday be. And that begins with imprinting a love for the show ring, and letting go of the idea that a puppy should "show" right out of the box.

Patience and play do pay off, and when Bijou comes back in the ring for RWB, she's all business. Bijou’s settling in and she even gives me the beginning of a really nice free stack ...

You Killer Free Stack alums will notice the finger cue and see how well Bijou's remembered it...Also note Bijou's double take when the judge approaches for the second time - those of you that have watched our Attention is the Mother of All Behaviors video will recognize that as "Distractions are Cues For Attention." It really is worth it to put in the effort with puppies, they remember their early lessons well.

While they may come out distracted at first, if you are patient, kind and forgive puppy behavior, you can trust that your early training will shine through once the puppy settles down. But, in all fairness, you do need to train your puppies to fluency before bringing them to a big dog show.

Thank you, Ray Sharp for awarding Bijou RWB and congratulations to Krista Prater Piles and Farina (the red bitch in the first video) on going WB and finishing Farina's championship that day!

But what does goose poop have to do with the future of dog shows?

What do they see when they look at us?

However, I’m sad to say that this is not always the case, and what happens in the ring can be off-putting for the novice observer. I realize that our dogs can embarrass us and we feel the need to “do” something, but harsh corrections are unseemly and do not reflect well on our sport. It's wrong on every level to even appear to be cross with a dog in the show ring and it puts the judge in the awkward position of either saying something or being seen to condone your rough behavior.

As a professional dog trainer, breeder, and brand new AKC judge, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to dog shows and what makes them great. I want to share that awesomeness with the world, and bring more people in to the sport of purebred dogs. All the exhibitors you see in these short video clips are handling their young dogs in an appropriate and kind manner, and the picture is a pleasing and inviting one. I think anyone watching these clips might be encouraged to try their hand at dog showing.

It's these kind of moments that tell the story of who I hope we all are.

Let’s all heed the AKC’s advice and consider the family with the 7 and 12 year old children visiting a dog show for the first time.That family could either be the future of our sport or walk away disgusted, depending on how they feel about what they see. You are here to show your dog, but don’t forget that you're also a walking embodiment of the sport of dog shows every time you step in the ring. What do people see when they see you with your dogs?

We should be extending the same sense of fair play and sportsmanship to our dogs as to our fellow competitors. I would encourage you to treat your dogs with patience and kindness as a service to yourself and your dogs, but at the very least I ask you to do so for the image of our sport and the future of purebred dogs.

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Aaaaand They're OFF! Socialization and The Race Against Nature

9/3/2015

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Sonya and Bikini Bob, sharing a moment.

The third week in the puppies' lives marks a big shift here at Madcap - we're entering the puppies' critical socialization period, and now the real fun begins. Things are going to begin flying fast and furious at us as far as developmental periods and windows of opportunity go, and we're thankful that we mapped out a plan from the time we confirmed Pippi's pregnancy. The next 9 weeks will be the most powerful ones in the puppies' lives and what we choose to do or not do during this period can completely change the outcome for their futures. Getting all the bases covered in a timely fashion and scheduling all the activities and visits the puppies will need is a much bigger job than most new breeders anticipate!

Luigi Meatballs, soaking up the love with Sonya's mom, Linda. It would hardly be useful for this puppy to be afraid of things, because he really can't run away or defend himself. His evolutionary strategy is literally to be so cute and trusting that we immediately want to protect him.

Why do I call this a "race against nature?" Because when you meet a "great" dog, one that's never aggressive, calm in public, friendly to strangers, gives up his food and possessions willingly, a fun companion that you can take anywhere and do anything with, that is directly in opposition to a dog's default genetic programing. People often think there's something "wrong" with an aggressive or fearful dog, when in fact that's normal - you have to do some pretty strong interventions in the first 12 weeks of the puppy's life in order to shape the kind of dog you would want to live with.

Why should this be so? We go into this in depth in Puppy Culture, but suffice it to say this is an adaptive evolutionary strategy tied to the mobility of the puppy. Puppies don't have the mobility to travel too far from the protection of their family too much before 8 weeks old, so it stands to reason they should trust everything they meet. By 8-12 weeks old, they have the wherewithal to wander off and get into trouble - it's a very good thing, from a "survival in the wild" point of view, that they should mistrust and fear stuff they encounter at that point. Bobcats, high and unstable surfaces, bodies of water - the world is full of dangerous stuff and, in the wild, at least, fear of the unknown is an excellent adaptive strategy. Not so good when your dog goes to your daughter's soccer game and perceives the bleachers as monsters and the other children as a threat...

So It's a "race against nature" because the puppies' biological clock is ticking and that window of opportunity is closing a little more each day. Contrary to what you might read on the internet, you don't have until 4 or 5 months to get this socialization work done - a great deal of the most important and irreplaceable socialization experiences should take place when the puppy is still with the breeder. Sure, if important things were missed by the breeder, you can try to make up for it later, but it's a long hard slog up a steep hill, and the hill gets steeper and steeper every day after 12 weeks old.

I know, I know, people will tell you that the socialization window is more flexible, but in my experience, touching hundreds and hundreds of puppies, there is a vast difference between working with a 11 week old and a 14 week old puppy. Your experience may be different, but that is mine. And that doesn't even take into account all the protocols that should have been done during early developmental periods - protocols which can never be done effectively at any later point in the puppy's life. There are windows of opportunity that close as early as five weeks old. I hate to sound like a broken record but that's why we made Puppy Culture - it's five plus hours on this topic so if you're interested in learning more, it's all in there.

So, our core task as breeders is to teach puppies to be enrichment/novelty seekers, and to trust that the world holds good things for them. To that end, in this first week of the socialization period we begin inviting potential puppy owners over to meet us and help begin the socialization process. We also introduce at least one new toy, visual object, or experience to the puppies each day during this week. In practice, we usually are introducing several new things to the puppies each day, but we make a note of at least one new thing just to keep the record straight, because it's easy to get mixed up when you're so tired ;o).

Here are the puppies having a time with Tuesday's enrichment item - It's an awesome toy I picked up at Tractor Supply. I love it because it has a furry outside crinkly part, plus a squeakers and a bungee inside.

OK, sometimes we leave the toys in when the scene is just too cute to break up....

It's important to note that we take the enrichment items out of the whelping box after the puppies fall asleep. I don't believe in cluttering up the puppies' environment with a lot of stuff that's just going to get dirty, anyway. They're learning how to walk now, so they need unobstructed space in which to move. Also, in my observation, the most productive enrichment at this stage involves the presentation of novel objects so you get the startle/recover/curiosity/exploration cycle. Of course, as they get a few days older and move in to their weaning pen, they will have toys and objects to play with all the time. But that's a different class of enrichment and is not as effective (in my observation) for building enrichment seeking/emotional stability.

New toys are great "novel" items - we buy them by the box full from Pet Edge. It's amazing how you can put three toys down, one of which is new, and the puppies will swarm the new one. But something as basic as being taken out to walk on the living room rug for a minute is equally novel and good. Just a sheet of foil in the bottom of the whelping box for a minute or two, or adding a potty area with pet litter, are new experiences that trigger the startle/recover/ curiosity exploration cycle very nicely.

Most puppy toys are more for an 8 week old puppy than a three week old infant - Babies R Us has great tiny toys for infant puppies. Pricey, yes. If you have the time and stamina you can haunt baby consignment shops and find tiny toys there sometimes, too.

Breeders tend to get "Gadget Envy" when it comes to enrichment items. They see all the cool "stuff" that other breeders are using, and they feel like they might be falling behind or letting their puppies down in some way. Not to worry. I freely admit that I love scanning our Puppy Culture Discussion Group to see what kind of new and cool enrichment items people have dreamed up, (and yes, I spend stupid amounts of money on stuff). But I want to put your mind at rest on this point - it's not rocket science, and many great enrichment items cost nothing and don't have to be fancy.

Remember, these little lives have been on this earth for about 21 days - something as simple as a crinkly bag of baby wipes is like a trip to Paris for them.

Yes, adding a potty box counts as a "new thing." Don't be surprised if they don't quite get it at first - at least this puppy is demonstrating that he has the right concept, even if his execution needs a little polishing...

Our puppies will meet four different families this week. Laurie is an old "virtual" friend whom I've know for almost a decade - so wonderful to finally meet her in person (and possibly place a puppy with her!) We can now check off the box next to "People With Tattoos and Cool Jewelry" on our socialization list.

The aftermath.

The puppies can hear now and sound becomes a very important tool in shaping their personalities. This is a deep subject that could be a whole article, but I'll distill it down - there are three basic areas of importance when it comes to sound at this age. Our goal is to balance these three types of sounds to create emotional stability and low stress levels:

Ambient Environmental "Centering" sounds. A recent study has shown that classical music has a de-stressing effect on shelter dogs, and hard rock music has the opposite effect. So we play a soft bed of classical music in the puppy room all day. Here are some of the Pandora stations we like -this is what we play for the puppies almost all day:

Classical Relaxation
Classical Dinner Party
Bucky Pizzarelli & Frank Vignola
(OK not classical but honestly so awesome it has to be good for the puppies ;o))
Stephane Grappelli (ditto above)

One of the absolute best $199 you'll ever spend. Perfect for the puppy room, where space and surface area is often at a premium. Wireless, light, easily pairs with your computer via bluetooth. Sound is AMAZING. No I do not get a spiff from BOSE ;o).

Sharp, sudden, sounds during the 3-4 week period to encourage the startle recovery cycle. This is to build emotional resilience as we discuss in Puppy Culture

"Habituation" noises, both live and potentially recorded, of things like show noise, babies crying, other animals noises, machinery, engines, etc.

One last word about music. Far be it for me to dictate your musical tastes, but just be aware that the music you play for your puppies can have a lasting effect on his adult personality - look at what happened to one of my friends' puppies when she played Jethro Tull for the litter...

Normal German Shepherd puppy.

German Shepherd puppy who listened to Jethro Tull for the first 8 weeks of his life.

Weaning is going nicely. Pippi is definitely interested in spending less time feeding them, and we've got them eating a slurry of goat milk and lean ground venison, so everyone's happy.

Digging in the raw goat milk and raw venison slurry. It smells exactly as awful as it sounds.

A little sugar added to the milk can convince the hold outs to take the plunge

They started showing interest in lapping liquids a while ago, but psychologically it can be difficult for the puppies to take the leap and really start eating on their own. That nursing has deep emotional salience for them - it's not about food, it's about all the self-soothing that goes along with it. So we had some stubborn hold-outs who were crying instead of drinking. Here's a few tips if you run into that situation - obviously this assumes that your bitch is not interested in staying in the box with the puppies anymore, and that can vary HUGELY from bitch to bitch:

Put a dish of warmed milk in just before you let mom in to nurse. Give it a good 10-15 minutes before you let your bitch back in. Sometimes the whiners just get hungry enough and jump in.

Add a little sugar to the milk. I know, not the best for them, but they do love it and it can get them over the hump.

Because they want to nurse, you can offer the die-hard hold outs their cake, and let them eat it, too. Offer them your finger to nurse on. Allow them get engrossed in nursing on your finger, then slowly lower your finger to the milk dish. Nine times out of ten, the puppy will be happy to lap the milk if you keep your finger resting next to their mouth. Seems to satisfy the emotional need to nurse, even though they're lapping.

Just to clarify, Pippi will still feed them occasionally for the next week or so, but by next week she'll be about done with those sharp teeth on her teats and the other adults in the house will be taking over raising the puppies. The "Nannies/Nanoes" can hear and smell the puppies in the puppy room and they've started trying to sneak in...good times, ahead :o).

Pippi, enjoying some "me" time in the backyard. She's lost a lot of coat but overall maintained very good condition. At this point she's very happy to tool around outside for 10-15 minutes at a time before she needs to go in and check on the puppies. She won't get in the box - she just sticks her head over the side, stirs everyone up, and then walks away, which is not helpful.

She swears it's comfortable.

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Opening Eyes, Entering Transitions, and Being Part Of The Solution

8/26/2015

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We're calling her Bijou-Bee. Those shining little eyes are like a hotline to our souls...

The first puppy opened her eyes at 12 days old. It will be a while before the puppies have useful vision, but when they start pointing their little muzzles at us and trying to focus, it's just heartbreakingly sweet. Those shining little eyes are like a hotline to our souls.

To review, puppies' eyes and ears are sealed shut when they're born. Their eyes open first, (usually at around 12-15 days old for our breed) and their ear canals usually open around 7 days later. That period, between the time that their eyes and their ears open, is known as the "transitional" period. This is because useful vision and hearing are thought to be necessary for the puppies to enter into the next developmental period, which will be the socialization period.

What's really important to know is that scientists use behavioral rather than time line markers to determine when different developmental periods begin and end. So it's the eyes opening and the startling that dictate the beginning and end of the transitional period, not "The third week of life" as those ubiquitous internet "Puppy Development" charts would lead one to believe.

This means that one puppy's transitional period might be when the puppy is from 10-21 days old, and another might be from when the puppy is 18-22 days old. I'm not kidding, it can vary that much, or more. The litter that Pippi's was born in was ridiculously slow to open their eyes - some of them had just started to open their eyes at 23 days old. I died a thousand deaths and was sure they had no eyeballs. But everyone turned out just fine :o).

Seriously, this puppy was 23 days old in this photo. Happiest day of my life when the last one of this litter opened their eyes...In case you don't already know, no, I could not just pry their eyelids open to peek and see if there really were eyeballs in there. Those eyes are sealed shut for a reason, and that reason is that the puppies' eyes are so unformed at that point that light would permanently damage them. I just had to sweat it out. Photo courtesy Marianne Dalton.

As you can see, that puppy (Henry) whose eyes were still closed at 23 days, grew up to see just fine, as did the rest of the litter. Henry's driving abilities are hindered more by his lack of thumbs than his eyesight...

The takeaway here is that you do have to observe each puppy in each litter to know in what developmental period that particular puppy is at that moment in time. Why does it matter, you ask? Because what's extremely beneficial during one developmental period could be extremely damaging in the next, or vice versa. This is so poorly understood and the available information is so scattered (and often incorrect) that it prompted us to make a 5 hour film on understanding puppy developmental periods and appropriate protocols per developmental period - Puppy Culture. I truly don't want this blog to be a big shill for Puppy Culture so I'm putting it out there as a resource on this topic and moving on.

For those of you who are interested in some of the finer points of Bull Terrier type, The Bull Terrier is the only AKC breed who's standard specifies a triangular eye: The EYES should be well-sunken and as dark as possible, with a piercing glint and they should be small, triangular and obliquely placed; set near together and high up on the dog's head.

Pippi at nine weeks old - perfect triangular eye. Eyes on colored animals can be very deceiving because smut or dark pigment around the rims can give the illusion of a round eye when in fact the eye is correct. I chose this photo because the lighting very clearly shows the shape of the eye.

You can see by comparison that this adorable fellow has round eyes. The color is not terrible but, still, lighter than Pippi's. Ideally, the eye should look almost black. BTW, this is a rescue dog from the BTCA website - his eyes are a long way from his heart and there are many more like him looking for great homes - go to the Facebook and visit the Rescue Welfare Trust Fund of The Bull Terrier Club of America to see all the available darlings looking for homes! And when you're done looking there, check out Glenna Wright's Facebook page, 'cause she's got seven rescue Bull Terriers under her roof looking for homes. And she's bred scores of champions, ROM champions, and two Silverwood winners, she's got a litter of her own on the ground right now, and she and her husband still find the time to foster seven rescue dogs. There's a special place in heaven for Glenna.

While the socialization period for these puppies will not officially begin until later this week, the puppies are already responding to our touch and showing a desire for human contact.

They crawl onto us when we sit in the whelping box and give every appearance of loving their individual daily massages. Are we just oversized heating pads or is this the beginning of an emotional attachment to humans? Hard to say but certainly some of them are already showing a preference for cuddling with us rather than lying next to their mother or on a heating pad.

Pippi still wants to nurse them and clean them, but she's really done with them after a few minutes. She's not sleeping in the whelping box with them as much as she used to, and appears to be regulating their intake. Thus it was a development heartily welcomed by everyone in the household, both dog and human, when the puppies began lapping liquids on Monday night. It means that we'll soon be able to space out nursing much more and won't need to man the whelping box 24/7.

The whole weaning process varies so much from litter to litter and breed to breed, that it's difficult to give one "procedure" for weaning litters, but, for what it's worth, this is how we do it. We feed our moms goat milk and mother's pudding in the whelping box, the puppies tell us when they're ready to start lapping liquids by jumping in and helping themselves.

Catfish was the first to jump in...

and then the rest of the litter followed.

This litter began snagging mom's food before their eyes were even open - they jumped into her dish of pudding at 14 days old. I do not recommend giving 14 day old puppies mother's pudding - way too rich with too much sugar plus corn starch which is not what I would start a baby with. We let them have a little fun and then took the bowl away, and we have not fed Pippi pudding in the whelping box since. But the point is that we knew the puppies were ready to lap liquids from that moment, so we moved ahead with introducing goat milk to them.

Because they're so young, we've been really taking it slowly and only giving them a tiny bit of goat milk in the bottom of a pyrex pie plate, just to get them used to lapping liquids. I feel it's an aspiration hazard to give them liquids before their eyes are open so we just coat the bottom of the plate with milk - maybe 1/8 inch. But from here on in we'll present a little dish of goat milk for a few minutes before each feeding. By a week from now we'll have them doing goat milk meals to completely replace a feeding or two each day.

Here they are, going to town on the milk. Of course, there had to be drama associated with this. Note that Bijou Bee in the background is using her new-found eyesight to look for her mother instead of joining the others at the milk dish. She's making loud complaining noises as she pointedly ignores the milk.

MOM????!!! I'm dyin' in here!

After immense amounts of complaining, she dains to try the milk, still whining pitifully the entire time.

I guess Bijou Bee didn't like the milk, and I guess she was annoyed that everyone else was having a good time eating because, after a couple of perfunctory licks at the bowl, she did this, still whining pitifully the entire time. We call this move the "Dog In The Manger" - "If I can't enjoy it, neither can you." Note that our tiniest girl, Mina, is not deterred by the fact that her walrus-like sister is sitting on her head. Go far and prosper, little one.

Speaking of Mina, this is a big milestone for her and a big weight off our shoulders. She'll now have the opportunity to eat as much as she wants without having to fight the bigger puppies, and we won't have to be constantly watching out for her to make sure she's getting a good turn on a good teat. You'll see her gain by leaps and bounds over the coming weeks.

And them mom comes in to clean up. That giant thing to the left that's almost as big as all the other puppies put together is Bijou Bee, happy at last.

Mommy, thank goodness you got here - they wanted me to drink milk from a DISH!

While our hearts go out to Bijou Bee as she has a come apart over her first-world problems, we all know her future is assured. We can enjoy her little drama, because we have the long view of her life. If Mark and I have any breath left in our bodies, she'll know nothing but love, acceptance, and security for the rest of her days. But not every dog is so lucky. So now I'm going to tug on your heartstrings a little.

As dedicated Breeders, we're the solution, not the problem. We put quality pets into the world and stand by them from whelping box to grave. Our puppy people become our families, and we educate people on why they should buy a dog from a caring breeder and not a pet store, puppy mill, or careless breeder.
We're changing things every day, and people are learning more and more about the value of getting a well socialized puppy from a good breeder or foster/rescue organization. But the reality is that there are lots of people who should not have a dog. And after you spend an hour of your precious time explaining to them why they should not have a dog, they're going go to someone else and get one. They'll go to one of the many unscrupulous sources churning out dogs to supply those consumers who think they deserve to have a dog because they want it and want it now. And once those puppies are out the door, that's it. When it doesn't work out, there's no loving breeder to go back to. The lucky ones get dumped into rescue or a shelter. The unlucky ones get tied to a tree, locked into an empty apartment to starve, dropped on the street, or other things that are so much worse, I can't even bear to talk about them.

These dogs that are caught in the crosshairs of human selfishness and human indifference are real dogs who deserve love just as much as any other dog. So it becomes the responsible breeders who have lovingly placed and kept tabs on all of their own puppies who wind up stepping in with rescue to clean up the mess. Because at the end of the day, we do what we do for the love of the dogs and our breed, and we care for every one of them, whether we bred them or not.

All dogs deserve a great home, so if you're interested in helping out with rescue or adopting a dog - here are the rescue links I mentioned:

Rescue Welfare Trust Fund of The Bull Terrier Club of America
Glenna Wright's Facebook Page
Blue Ridge Bull Terrier Club

There are lots of other great organizations and I don't mean to leave any out by mentioning these three - they just happen to be three that I have worked with and try to support.

Abby is 2-3 years old and grew up in a crate two sizes too small for her. She needs an only dog home. Contact Glenna Wright at glntom@aol.com if you're interested in adopting her

Ace is 8 years old and deserves a better middle age than to be dumped into rescue. Ace is dog friendly. Contact Glenna Wright at glntom@aol.com if you're interested in adopting him.

Sweet dreams, young royals!

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Ten Days Old: Supplementing, Five Generations Under One Roof and (Micro) Chaos Theory

8/20/2015

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The puppies have gained amazingly. We like to see them double their birth weight at ten days – they’re pushing triple. Everyone’s fat and shiny and quite precocious. They’re showing huge will to get up on their legs and walk, and a few of them are pooping on their own. We’ve now got five generations of Madcap Bull Terriers under our roof – more about that, later.

On the topic of supplementing a litter, as with almost everything else in dogs, there's no one right answer, it depends on a number of variables, and it varies tremendously from breed to breed. I have learned my lesson that just because a bitch CAN feed a large litter, does not mean that she SHOULD. Pippi’s mother, Daphne stayed in the box 24/7 with her second litter and they nursed in shifts just about continually. She was dripping milk and easily fed all 8 puppies - and she also wound up with eclampsia, which I hope none of you ever have to experience because it's scary as all get out.

The bottom line, for me, is that Bull Terriers are not really "big litter" dogs - I think a well cared for Golden Retriever or a Rottweiler might be able to handle a huge litter and be just fine, but I don't think you can trust things will be OK with a Bull Terrier bitch and a large litter, no matter what you feed her. This is what what my breed mentors said and did with their litters and, through hard experience, I've come back to their advice. Even though Pippi is making plenty of milk, we’ve begun supplementing the puppies with goat milk.

We do everything in our power to get as many calories with quality calcium into our bitches as possible, but I still believe there are some breeds that just can't safely handle nursing a huge litter.

There’s a behavioral aspect to this, as well. Pippi does not stay in the box continually with the puppies, so when she gets in to feed them, they literally stand up on their little legs and start swarming like screaming cockroaches. The sound and the motion are truly alarming. I’ve seen bitches give a keening pack of puppies that quick, darting back and forth look that appears to me to be more prey drive than maternal instinct. Not interested in testing that theory, so we quiet down the puppies by giving them a little goat milk delivered on a cosmetic sponge before letting Pippi back in.

Use plain non-latex cosmetic sponges and trim a little off the sides to fit your puppies' mouths. I hear some sponges have added medications - don't buy that kind, buy the kind with nothing added.

The rule of thumb for orphaned puppies is 1 cc per ounce of body weight for a full meal replacement - that's way more than you need as you still want your puppies to nurse. I just a give a few ccs to take the edge off. For a 2 pound puppy I do 6-12 ccs, depending on how vocal they are.

Times nine. It's just a lot of puppy to keep feeding. We're calling him Phineas, by the way.

I don’t always do all the puppies – even if I can knock down a few of them a little, I can put the other ones on to get started. The ones that already had some milk from the sponge will then wait for the teats without doing their “Night of the Living Dead” routine.

You need to find yourself a good syringe to do this. This one is a little small for the job but it has a nice rubber plunger that will glide smoothly.

I bought this one without checking and I was furious when I started using it. It sticks and then jumps forward and shoots milk all over the place. Even though sponge feeding is relatively safe, there's always an aspiration hazard when milk starts flying around so don't buy syringes with hard plastic plungers like this one.

You want to use goats milk, not cow's milk. Goat milk is made up of smaller molecules that are easier to digest. Cow milk can really upset the puppies' tummies. I have tried goat milk "replacer" in the can and found it to be awful - gave my puppies gas and made them colicky. Go figure, puppies don't do well when fed soybean oil. If you were feeding an orphaned puppy, goat milk might not be enough - at least not this summer goat milk which is very light. In the fall the milk has a layer of cream on it so you might get by with that, but if you're feeding orphaned puppies, my suggestion is to get a good home made milk replacer recipe and skip the canned/powdered stuff.

The goat milk should be just warm. I like to use a ceramic bowl as it seems to keep the milk at a good temperature for longer.

Here's a little film we made so you can see the mongol hordes in action, and how sponge feeding them knocks them back to, if not civilized, at least manageable.

A couple of tips about sponge feeding:

I fed the puppies with a sponge when they were two days old and they took to it right away without question. But I did not sponge feed them from day 3-8. When I tried to sponge feed them again at nine days old, they were having none of it. The trick, I found, is to wait it out. I pick each puppy up, open their mouth a little and put the sponge in so some milk gets on their tongue. If they nurse, fantastic. If they don't, they get to go back in the pile and reflect on their hunger. I rotate through them this way and find that most of them will take the sponge on the second try.
My puppies much prefer the smaller sponge - it's more flexible and I imagine more like a real teat. However, I'm not convinced that they couldn't suck it right down their throats if given a decent chance. I keep a firm grip on the sponge and I also find that resting my fingertips on their gums gives them something to push against, which they seem to like.

Someone took this prodigious crap all by himself.

I have dug him out from under Pippi many times in the past ten days

I know that some breeders of other breeds would be horrified to hear that we crate our novice moms between feedings, but if you want to keep an entire litter of Bull Terrier puppies alive, it’s usually necessity. I can’t tell you how many stories I have heard where the bitch was doing so well with her brood that the breeder though she could get up and take a quick shower – and came back to a dead puppy that mom stepped on/lay down on and crushed. So if we want ANY sleep or bio breaks in the first 2 weeks, we need to crate our bitches or risk losing puppies. Always exceptions to the rule, of course, and I’ve heard of (and had) some great Bull Terrier moms, but I don’t think it’s the norm.

This topic points up the importance of having a breed mentor, as opposed to a general mentor when it comes to whelping litters. The variations between breeds is HUGE (and wonderful, and fascinating) and you do need to have someone in your breed brief you on the peculiarities of your breed when it comes to raising a litter.

I love reading well written stories about breeders and the history of their dogs, but I realize not everyone does, so I’m putting what follows as a “bonus” at the end of our ten day blog.

With Pippi’s litter, we have five generations under one roof. Their stories, and the story of how I came to be writing this blog to you about this litter, is as good an example as any of how the butterfly wing can move the mountain.

but•ter•fly ef•fect noun
(with reference to chaos theory) the phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere

If you ask me the secret to having such longevity in our dogs, I can’t really say for sure. Yes we feed raw organic and grow much of what our dogs eat. Yes, we do limited vaccinations and we spend an astonishing amount at the vet each year. We’ve got a nice acre fenced in for them, and they all get lots of enrichment and interaction with us. But really a lot comes down to the luck of the draw, and we’ve been very fortunate through the years.

Ruby - Great Great Grandmother (Ch Corsaire Carpe Diem of Madcap VA, RN, NA, NAP, NJP, RL-2)

Ruby’s our grand dame – 14.5 years old and as vital as ever. Victoria Corse called me out of the blue in April of 2001 and just said, “You’re taking this puppy.”

A great photo of a great show girl. I do, however, remember being terrified when this picture was taken as she'd spotted a dog walking nearly within striking range. Note the death grip on the leash. Good times.

I went to see her and, indeed, she was a stunner. She showed like a house on fire in the breed ring, is fun as heck as a pet and was a terrific performance dog. She also wants to mix it up with just about any dog she meets. As you can imagine, getting her to reliably perform around other dogs was a feat. Anyone who’s taken my Attention as a Behavior seminar can thank Ruby, because she taught me everything I know about teaching a dog to ignore her surroundings.

Yes, I showed her in agility and rally and she loved it. She was in the top 5 APDT Level Two Rally dogs one year.

Augie - Great Grandfather (Ch. Madcap Veni Vidi Vici, RL-1)

A head like his mother - beautiful in profile and still filled and powerful right down to the end of the muzzle.

Did I mention how smart he is? That's him on the cover, BTW

I bred Ruby to the most sweet, soft Bull Terrier we could find (who conveniently also had the beautiful shoulder construction that Ruby needed) and produced Augie, who truly looks and acts like Ferdinand the Bull. Lover of cats, foster mother to orphan puppies, surrogate parent to guinea fowl keats, tireless puppy babysitter - he’s just a happy and sweet guy.

Augie didn't so much jump as fling himself at the obstacles with abandon

He’s gorgeous, moves like a dream, and also happens to have one of the prodigiously bad under bites I have ever seen. The fact that he could finish his championship with that bite is testament to just how beautiful he is. As it turns out, that bad under bite is possibly one of the best things that ever happened to me. More on that, later.

Zulu - Great Grandmother (Ch TNG N Buoy's Concrete Blonde ROM, VAX, RA, NA, NAJ, AXP, OJP)

I kept running into June Krukenkamp with her young white bitch at the specialties. The bitch was pretty but still immature and kept getting passed over, but I really liked the bitch and made it a point to spend time with her. Her temperament was beyond delightful - a perfect combination of Bull Terrier spark riding on a “hail fellow well met” attitude. When June mentioned that she was thinking of placing her, I jumped at the chance to lease her and breed her to Augie.

That killer front!

I had no intention of keeping Zulu, but Zulu decided she was mine and was not taking no for an answer. And she’s turned out to be so wonderful and so deep in so many ways, I’d really need a whole blog just to talk about her. She’s the start of our “can do” bitches – whatever we ask of them, they deliver in spades. Best of Variety at specialties? Sure. ROM championship. Of course. Group placements? Roger. ROM champion offspring? Absolutely. Neutral dog for seminars with reactive dogs? Yes. Puppy socializer? Affirmative. Agility, obedience, rally, water sports? Yes, indeedy. Zulu can never die; I don’t know what I’ll do without her.

Daphne - Grandmother
(GCH Madcap When In Rome ROM, NAP, NJP)

This photo tells you everything you need to know about Daphne. She's as cuddly as she looks.

So then came the wonderful Augie x Zulu litter of 9, one of which is Daphne. She’s following in her mother’s “can do” footsteps in every way, except that she’s added Movie Star to her resume - Daphne and her first litter are the subject of our film Puppy Culture. As of this writing, Daphne’s produced two AKC Grand Champions and two ROM champions, and there’s more where that came from. Right now she’s delighted to be retired from the whelping box and moving on to the agility ring.

Mother - Pippi (GCH Madcap Jump The Broom, ROM)

We bred Daphne to frozen semen from a dog who, in my opinion, never got the recognition or use that he should have because he was tri colored (long story, but Bull Terrier people don’t like tri coloreds). We got a super litter, one of which is Pippi. Pippi is really different from other Bull Terriers that I have known and is incredibly socially motivated – she does agility with me for the pure joy of it – no food or toys required. She’s also the only Bull Terrier I have ever observed to learn by imitation – she learned to sit up on her hind legs by watching the other dogs do it.

She quickly earned her Grand Championship and ROM championship and she’s taking her first turn in the whelping box with this litter.

Pippi at work

The Puppies

Daphne and Pippi were line bred, so we chose to go out to an English dog named Ch Emred Devil's Spy when we bred Pippi. We are super fortunate that it it appears to have clicked, and so far the puppies look outstanding.

So that brings us to the fifth generation, which are these little babies – but first a small back track…

What Was That About Augie’s Bite?

So, in that Augie Zulu litter, there was a puppy that I called Nora. Nora was a “wow” puppy. She was my pick from the start and I just adored her. As luck would have it, she also turned out to be the only one out of those nine puppies to inherit her father’s horrendous bite. At about 5 months old, her bite shot under so fast and so far, I swear you could hear it move. I was devastated, of course but I decided to keep her anyway.

This was perhaps not the greatest situation as I was running on two other litter mates and already had four big dogs and I was single at the time and had a more than full time corporate job. So when I got a long and heartfelt email from a guy who seemed to offer the perfect home in every way, with the added bonus that he was looking for a Bull Terrier to do agility, I made the heart breaking decision to place her.

Nora returned here to live with me again only five months after I sold her and she brought her owner - that nice guy, Mark Lindquist - back with her. Mark and I got married and now we're breeding Bull Terriers together, so there you go.

Mark may not get sexy billing in this enterprise, but he’s IT, logistics, fulfillment, and customer service and had a hand in every editing and creative decision. I never would have or could have made Puppy Culture without him. So if you enjoyed watching Puppy Culture, you can thank Augie for passing his bad bite on to Nora.

This blog has been about our dogs, but really this story is every dedicated breeder’s story. Any long time breeder who looks at a five generation pedigree sees not just names, but dogs, stories, people. Overflowing memories of places and events, happy and sad times, people and dogs loved – some of them lost, some still with us, and some of them yet to come – and the shiny threads of serendipity that hold them all together.

So when I look at this litter of tiny babies in the whelping box, I can’t help but wonder what mountains these butterflies will someday move, and I’m in awe at how unknowable and wonderful the possibilities are.

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Four Days Old

8/15/2015

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Bikini Bob

We’re past first 72 hours (also known as the “Thank You For Not Dying” stage) and we’re beginning to enjoy the puppies more, rather than hovering over them watchfully. A friend of mine commented that she has no memory of any of her litters before 3 days old and I have to agree - there’s something about the first 72 hours that generates manic feelings of instinctive protectiveness rather than actual bonding. Now they’re more like “real” puppies instead of half-baked embryos that we have to protect, and we can start relating to them as individuals. We’ve even given some of them names. It happens that this change in our emotion toward the puppies corresponds with the time that the bitch’s real milk (as opposed to colostrum, which is lower in calories) normally comes in.

I guess there must be some physical changes in the puppies that signal us to take a deep breath as the most immediate danger has passed. Pippi’s milk came in beautifully and everyone’s gaining nicely. We’ve got good weight gain on everyone, including the littlest ones. I chose to supplement the three tiny ones with some goat milk during the second day, just to give them a little jump start.

This is why he's called Bikini Bob

Now that Pippi’s milk is in, there’s more than enough to go around so I’m no longer supplementing (for now, at least).

I really like using a napkin holder for the puppies when I weigh them. Nice traction and cushion for the puppies and easy to get a reading. Best to put a little towel in the bottom if you plan to use it for napkins ever again.

Our tiny red girl is now Mina, because it sounds like a small pretty name.

We're calling him Catfish.

We're calling this opinionated young lady Sassy.

Madcap Jump To Conclusions

OK I need to come clean here and tell you that when I was weighing the puppies on the first day, I was having difficulty matching up the puppies with the IDs on the whelping chart, and I eventually figured out that one of our all white girls is actually a boy. Pippi's show name is GCH Madcap Jump The Broom ROM and all the puppies will have "Jump" in their show names. So this little guy's registered name will be "Madcap Jump to Conclusions." He actually doesn't have a call name, yet. People wanted me to call him "Pat" but that's not fair as he's a perfectly masculine little guy that we just messed up IDing because the next puppy came so quickly that we did not have a chance to take a good look.

A number of people have objected to calling our black puppy "Catfish" on the grounds that catfish are ugly nasty fish. Rubbish, I say. When I kept aquariums, catfish were my favorite fish (tied with the clown loach) because they're so funny, adorable, and playful. Look at these guys. If you don't think they're cute, you're beyond counsel and I leave you to your own devices.

Regarding tiny puppy names, they almost never stick and puppy families generally have their own ideas about names. We tell everyone they can call their puppy whatever they like, but we chose the show names. I've got no problem if you want to call your dog Beau, or Misty, or Shadow, or any of the other ubiquitous pet names out there, because it's your dog and it pleases you and that's all good. But I'm not walking into the ring with a dog named "Madcap We Luv U Pup-Pup." I'm just sayin'.

This is also the time when our bitches start with the heavy panting, and also some restless behavior. I’ve never had children but I’m told that the first time your milk comes in it’s uncomfortable (that’s medical-speak for PAINFUL) and just producing that milk has to be an effort, so it’s not particularly surprising that the bitches begin to pant and want more support to stay in the box.

My life, for the next 10 days. Sleep is overrated, anyway.

A Bull Terrier in her element. She has chewed her way through this mattress and has threaded herself through the hole. This makes perfect sense to them.

In addition, Bull Terriers are generally not interested in doing anything that resembles a “job” so the responsibility of caring for the probably puppies weighs heavily on them. I’m guessing some of the restlessness is just boredom with being in the whelping box and wanting to get back to what they do best, which is wrecking stuff.

In any event, this means that, if you're a Bull Terrier breeder, you'll need to man the whelping box 24/7 and probably actually be touching their brood bitch for the first two weeks. And it also means you won't be getting any REM sleep for a while, which truly does make you hallucinate.

All that having been said, at the end of the day Pippi is shaping up to be a gem of a brood bitch. She's produced beautiful puppies and tons of milk and she's taking really good care of them. She's learning to be careful where she steps, she adores the puppies, and she adores her humans, too. She just needs a little extra coaching, which is the least we can do for her, given what she's done for us :o).

We do everything we can to make our dams more comfortable and want to stay in the box more

We use infant nail clippers

The finished job

This how tiny they are

So on day 3-4 day we clip nails as the tiny pin pricks have to be uncomfortable for the dam. Those little feet are half the size of my fingertip, so clipping neonate nails is not for the faint of heart.

Pippi is eating prodigious amounts of food. We feed raw, so she’s getting approximately 4 pounds a day of meat/bone/tripe plus two complete batches of Mother’s pudding (recipe below) - that means 2 packages of vanilla pudding, 8 cups of goat milk, 10 egg yolks (I add extra yolk) and a cup of sugar each day. That’s easily 6 times her normal intake but that’s about right - producing milk is a calorie and calcium-intense proposition.

Her liquid intake is equally impressive - from the time she started whelping to through the first day of the puppies‘ lives, she drank almost two gallons of goat milk and at least two quarts of water. Most of that was offered to her in the whelping box as at that point (the first two days) she was not voluntarily leaving her puppies.

We make two batches of pudding a day

Interestingly if you offer a bitch a calcium rich food in the late stages of her pregnancy, she will probably turn her nose up at it. But as soon as she begins whelping, she will lap up as much goat milk or other calcium rich food you can give her. The reason for this is (spinning it down to a lay terms-nutshell) when the body gets more calcium than it can use, it “gets used to” excreting the excess. So if a bitch gets any more calcium than she needs during pregnancy, a whole system kicks in to get rid of it. But after whelping, she has a HUGE draw on her calcium stores. The problem is, if her body is in “excrete” mode, that’s a process that’s slow to reverse, and that will make the bitch unable to assimilate the massive amount of calcium she needs (as her body is dumping it as fast as she takes it in), which can complicate delivery, make milk production difficult, and even threaten her life if calcium levels get too low and she goes into eclampsia (or “milk fever”). This is, by the way, why calcium supplementation is not recommended for pregnant bitches. Paradoxically, supplementing calcium during pregnancy will actually make things much worse.

All those egg yolks for Pippi mean lots of egg white omlets for us

Speaking of food, I’m going to back track a bit to whelping preparedness. Please do have something nice to eat (and drink) on hand when your bitch goes into labor. You’re going to be sitting there for many hours, and there’s no reason to suffer more than you have to. In an ideal world you should also have a few meals set by for the first week. It’s bad enough to be curled up in a whelping box with a fussy maiden bitch - don’t make it worse by eating sad food.

Here’s the recipe for mother’s pudding - great source of calcium, fat, and protein for lactating bitches, plus quick energy from the sugar. Bitches love it and will (in our experience) gladly lap it up even when they’re being finicky about their regular food. Our 55-65ish pound bitches will consume two batches per day when lactating.

Pudding Recipe for Nursing Mothers:

1 package vanilla pudding (VERY IMPORTANT - do not use instant pudding!!! It has an additive that can give the puppies diarrhea. Use the kind of pudding that has to be cooked.)

1/2 cup sugar

4 cups milk (I use raw goat milk but pasturized goat or cows milk is fine if that's what you have)

4 egg yolks

Cook on low heat to a pudding consistency.

I offer it to my bitches and let them pretty much have as much as they like.

It's basically the recipe on the pudding box with twice the amount of milk and extra egg yolks.

If you don't have a package of vanilla pudding on hand you can mix the following in a saucepan and cook to pudding consistency.

2/3 cup sugar

6 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 cups milk (or one can evaporated milk plus equal parts water to make quart)

4 egg yolks

3 teaspoon vanilla

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Puppy Culture - The Next Generation

8/12/2015

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First born

It's hard to believe that it's been three and a half years since we began filming Daphne and her first litter for Puppy Culture. But the years pass by when you're not looking, and in the wee hours of Monday morning, August 10, 2015 we welcomed nine of Daphne's grandchildren into the world. Mom is our Pippi (CGH Madcap Jump The Broom ROM) and Dad is Zak (UK CH Emred Devil's Spy.)

First breaths. Pippi trusts me, but she really wants her baby.

Daddy lends pre-whelping support

Textbook whelping with nine healthy babies

I tried to line them up per color so you could see the differences. The two reds were born a dark dust color but their color is coming through and they look like they will be rich red like momma. 9 puppies, four girls and five boys. Four white, two brindle, one black brindle, two red.

Here is their birth order/color/sex/weight at birth/24 hour birth weight.

1.     White bitch (now with blue ID) - 10.8/11.1

2.     Red dog - 7.5/7.5

3.     Brindle dog -11.9/12.7

4.     Red bitch - 6.4/6.5

5.     White bitch – 9.8/9.6

6.     White with right black ear dog – 9.7/9.6

7.     Black brindle dog – 8.0/7.7

8.     Brindle bitch – 12.0/13.1

9.     White dog – 8.5/8.7

The three littlest ones (red dog, red bitch, and black brindle dog) were clearly much younger than the rest – less hair on face and feet and had that eel-like appearance of 61 day puppies. We only did one breeding, probably a day after ovulation. It so happens that the breeding was done on the early side for logistical reasons (she was bred on the day of ovulation rather than two days afterwards, as we normally would have done with only one breeding). The semen was excellent with 96% motility, so I’m thinking it fertilized every egg in there over a period of the 3-4 days, which is why some puppies are so much younger than the others.

Some puppies just jump out at you from the moment they're born. This is our brindle girl.

This was our attempt to let the little ones nurse extra while the rest of the litter napped. As you can see the largest puppy woke up and joined them.

The birth weights were lower than what we are used to in our litters – the smallest is generally more like 10 ounces with the largest to 16-17 ounces. The smaller puppy size, combined with Pippi’s statuesque physique is probably what led to such a text book whelping – we literally had not finished cleaning the previous puppy before she lifted her tail and shot another one at us. First puppy was born yesterday at 1:20 AM and last one at 5:30 AM – 9 puppies in about 4 hours.

Well done, Pippi!

We consider 7 ounces a threshold for concern, so we’re keeping a close eye on our little red girl. So far she is vigorous and shiny and shows no signs of being anything other than tiny and extremely hungry ;o). We’re giving her and her two small siblings extra rotations on the teats.

She may be tiny, but she has absolutely no problem latching onto the largest teat and sucking it dry

This is what we use to ID the all white puppies - gel food coloring. It has more intense color than liquid food color and is 100% safe to use.

Of course we love that some of the puppies gained weight in the first 24 hours, but weight gain in the first 24 hours is a bonus. We would expect to see the puppies maintain their weight or even lose a little in the first 24 hours. A combination of the stress at birth and the nutritional composition of colostrum means that some puppies will not gain weight the first day. Pippi’s real milk should come in within the next 24 hours, so for the non-weight gaining puppies (the three littlest ones) we expect to see some gain by tomorrow. We expect to have to supplement the litter because of the number of puppies, and we may start doing this sooner rather than later if the wee ones don’t have significant gain in the next 12 hours.

In any event, if we don’t see any weight gain by three days old, that’s a major cause for concern. We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it, but not gaining weight in the first three days can be a sign of low immunoglobulin levels which associated with high neonatal mortality rate. You can read more about this and possible remedies in my article on fading puppies: http://puppyculture.com/fading-puppy-syndrome.html

Hold still, you have to poop.

Pippi

Zak

Pippi is an outstanding mother and she’s getting the hang of this motherhood thing very quickly. She has her moments of panic and confusion, but we’re very encouraged by the fact that she seems to learn quickly. She’s gotten over having to stare at them every moment to make sure they’re still there, and she will voluntarily get up and go outside to potty. She’s even appears to be learning how to move the puppies around with her nose which is very unusual for a Bull Terrier. Baby steps :o).

Postscript On The Headlamp

Everyone is asking about the headlamp so here's the info on the one I have - we did have to send back the first one we got as the switch was faulty, but the company gave us great customer service and replaced the unit without question. I do recommend this one. CLICK TO VIEW HEADLAMP ON AMAZON.

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Author

Jane Messineo Lindquist (Killion) is the director of "Puppy Culture: The Powerful First Twelve Weeks That Can Shape Your Puppies' Future" as well as the author of "When Pigs Fly: Training Success With Impossible Dogs."

Jane has had Bull Terriers since 1982 and she and her husband, Mark Lindquist, breed Bull Terriers under the Madcap kennel name.

Her interests include dog shows, agility trials, gardening, and any cocktail that involves an infused simple syrup.

Visit Jane's Websites:

Puppy Culture

Madcap Bullterriers

Ruby - Great Great Grandmother (Ch Corsaire Carpe Diem of Madcap VA, RN, NA, NAP, NJP, RL-2)

Augie - Great Grandfather (Ch. Madcap Veni Vidi Vici, RL-1)

Zulu - Great Grandmother (Ch TNG N Buoy's Concrete Blonde ROM, VAX, RA, NA, NAJ, AXP, OJP)

Daphne - Grandmother (GCH Madcap When In Rome ROM, NAP, NJP)

Mother - Pippi (GCH Madcap Jump The Broom, ROM)

The Puppies

What Was That About Augie’s Bite?

Postscript On The Headlamp

Author

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Daphne - Grandmother
(GCH Madcap When In Rome ROM, NAP, NJP)