ENS and Puppy Weights

So you guys might be watching and wondering WHAT the heck and I doing to the puppies in the whelping box. Well today marks the day that we start ENS or "Early Neurological Stimulation". The concept is based on the military's Superdog Program which found that by giving dogs minute amounts of stress between the 3rd and 16th day of live, better prepares them to deal with stress later in life. So...we are giving it a go! Here's the program and what we're doing as well as the science behind it....

http://www.breedingbetterdogs.com/achiever.html


I also am supplement the Blue Boy because he's being bullied by the two other males and doesn't seem to be feeding as much. He's been doing really well since I began supplementing on 1/10/09.


Weights:
Blue Male - I have his birth weight down as 12 oz but I found the scale I was using wasn't that great so I got a secondary scale. He weighs about 8 oz right now, if the scale is accurate.

Black Male - 1lb, 8 oz

Teal/Tan Boy - 1 lb, 5 oz

Pink Girl - 14 oz

So everyone has good weight gain, except for Blue Male because I got his weight wrong in the drama surrounding his birth. Oh well...he physically looks like he is catching up and gaining fine so I'm not worried. We are calling him "Peanut" but I have a feeling he's going to catch up big time!

Additional Observations.....

Black and Tan puppies suckle so noisy that it sounds like a car! I feel so bad for cindy...they are just monsters. There is no real favorite position on nursing except I find the female and blue puppy stick towards the back nipples. The puppy who finds the nipple the easiest seems to be Blue puppy....he is going for the underside nipples more often than the larger puppies. I'm also finding that Blue LOVES to hang out between mamma Cindy's front legs. The other boys are a bit more independent but Mama-Cindy doesn't let them travel very far. The puppy that nurses the longest duration is the Pink Female. The puppy who is the most vocal is the Tan boy...which...BTW...was the criteria I used to pick Cindy out at birth. I asked her breeder who makes the most noise and she said "mauve girl is a screamer". I knew then that this was my puppy!

Physically speaking, the best markings are on the Black puppy and the Blue Puppy. Black puppy will probably end up with a lot of loose skin. The best head is a toss up between Black and Tan. Just like Cindy's litter....the boys had nice heads but they were all different "types". I'm seeing this in this breeding. We are calling Black Puppy "Dasher Junior" because of his emense size...though Tan isn't far behind!

Both boys have very nice broad heads and short muzles...but their only a few days old so who knows!

Blue boy is the smallest so its hard to evaluate him. Everything is very nice but it seems so small compared to the other boys. I have a feeling he just needs another week to catch up.

Pink girl showed the most amount of Stress on the ENS test. She fought on being held with her head pointed down, resting on her back, and on the cold wash cloth. All the puppies had a reaction on the cold wash cloth. Blue stressed on being held on his back. Its hard to evaluate the results because it could be because they were all nursing at the start of the test.

Tan and Black only showed stress on the cold wash cloth (trying to crawl away from it).


Besides the ENS testing, they all seem very responsive to touch and taste. Because puppies are blind and deaf at this age there's not many senses they can use. Pink Girl definitely notices the difference between mamma's milk and the formula! And it was interesting that they all respond to being scratched on the belly....Black boy even kicks his foot!

Mamma dog is handling everything like a professional even though this is her FIRST litter. She dotes on her puppies and watches them like a hawk. She's been doing really well with eating and has just started back on more solid foods. She has been eating a mixture of boiled chicken, cottage cheese and rice. We added nutrical (high calorie supplement) to that and a little bit of kibble.

Thats all for now....