News
N-litter - 1 week old
The 4 boys have now passed their first week and are doing well! They are weighed daily and they have all four gained weight as they should and have doubled their weight 1 week old. It is amazing how fast they grow at this tender age!
The boys are spending the majority of time sleeping, only interrupted by their time at the milk bar. While they sleep we constantly see the puppies twitch with little characteristic muscle contractions. This twitching is called activated sleep and helps the puppies to maintain and develop muscles. The puppies spend so much time asleep that it would be difficult for them to build enough muscles to ever stand on their feet without the activated sleep. The muscle contractions is a key indication that the puppies are healthy and doing well.
Two videos of the 4 eating & sleeping baby-boys – also showing the characteristic activated sleep:
Dogs are an altricial species, meaning that the young are incapable of moving around on their own soon after being born. On the contrary precocial species such as goose and horses can stand on their feet and move around within a couple of hours and therefore potentially meet something dangerous. They imprint their mother and almost fear everything else. This is part of their strategy for survival. Dogs are younger born and before they are fully developed. This make them helpless and dependant on their mother. They are born completely helpless. Blind and deaf – and totally unable to escape together with their mother. They have no ability to wander away and will always be under protection of their mother for the first weeks of their lifes and don´t develop the ability to feel fear until later. Fear would be a useless response for them at this age as they can not run away or fight. They have a longer and more flexible period in which they form social attachment. This process is called socialisation and it forms the basis of the dogs ability to bond. But even in altricial species there is a critical socialisation period that ends when the young has the full ability to run away and/or defend it self from danger. This socialisation period has already started, and even though the human handling of the puppies at this age are kept at a minimum, the little puppies are handled several times each day i.g. when the little family are moved from the whelping box in order to have it cleaned. These moments are so very precious to us. To be able to handle and interact with these little new lifes are such a privilege! Here the little family is having a cosy time on the lap:
Dogs are social animals and use a wide range of vocalisation in their interaction with each other and other species. Neonatal puppies (0-14 days old) don´t have the ability to interact socially and don´t need a wide range of vocalisations. At this age the only sounds that the puppies make is know as et-epimeletic sounds. Meaning sounds that induce their mother to care for them. Interestingly the mother knows that the puppies cannot hear her and does not use vocalisation towards them. If she needs to communicate with them she nozzles or touches them
