Snapshots Saturday: Kid Gene

I only want to produce English shepherds who have the kid gene.

That means they don't just tolerate whatever damn fool thing a kid does to them, they generally like it.

I want to see the pups become one big wiggle when they see a human child. I want them to leave their masters' sides to snuggle a toddler.

Pip and her sister Roz came with it. On the ride home with them from their breeder's, we stopped at a rest stop. The girlpuppies saw some children at a distance, and were overcome with joy. With careful selection of males, all of Pip's descendants have retained this magnetic pull to children, and a gentle and indulgent nature with them.

Today I gave a presentation on choosing and raising a small farm dog at the Mother Earth News Fair, courtesy of the nice folks at PASA.

Actually, I gave it twice.

The pups (the five who are still here; Gilda went home Thursday) were supposed to be part of a friend's stockdog demo, scheduled back-to-back with the presentation. Rachel never made it, apparently thwarted by the ebil power of PennDOT. So neither did the slow, fat ducks we hoped to "start" the pups on today.

Instead, at the command of a torch and pitchfork brigade, I did a repeat of the lecture, and the pups, Gramma Pip, and Uncle Cole then became the main attraction in the livestock pen. It was large enough that they could retreat from attention if they chose (they didn't, except to play briefly; naptime in the small puppy pen was enforced). The stock panels allowed petting access but not picking up. Also allowed Jane, who is an X-dog with the power to walk through walls, to slide out several times, but we retrieved her with the help of her admirers on the other side.

The awesome puppy-wrangler Rebecca Hostetter and I got pretty fatigued counting, counting, counting puppies. We each got to briefly visit the rest of the Fair when we rounded them up for naptime. Not enough time. Too many things to see. I cannot return tomorrow, but next year ...

For the participants at the Fair who have asked for my Powerpoint, I will have it online this week some time, and will post a link here when it is up.

The Pupdorf School

Conquer Mount Mulcherest or memorize the state capitals?

In face of the -- pardon me -- frakking absurd claim from a throne of authority* that puppies of eight weeks of age ought to be "error-free" housebroken, and trained to sit, down, and roll over, we here at Brandywine Bone 'n' Breakfast opt out of the Puppy Einstein / No Pup Left Behind hype. We are not in favor of eliminating recess from the puppy curriculum so that we can cram in another half-hour of multiplication tables and maybe up our scores on the next round of standardized tests.

Think of it as a Steiner preschool for puppies. Plenty of outdoor play time, access to natural materials in preference to plastics, simple toys (a knotted flannel rag is a favorite), opportunities to learn by imitation, and inclusion in adult activities, such as tagging along to help feed the goats.

I like how fluidly the pups segue their interactions -- amongst themselves, with their mother, with the other adult dogs, the human visitor, and their physical environment. (Including the truly impressive tunnel project they are collectively executing under that landscape boulder.)

When I raised litters at our former home -- a suburban tract house with a large fenced yard -- I put out lots of interesting obstacles for the pups to explore.

Notsomuch here. The topography, landscaping, livestock, shrubberies both domestic and freelance -- all fill that developmental niche much more organically than my old tires and wicket walks and ramps and puppy teeters. Bonus, there are periodic appearances by chickens. Very fast chickens.

There are some play objects on what is now known as the poopdeck -- a ramp, wobble disk, cardboard boxes, tug toys -- but now that they have unrestricted access to the outdoors most of the day, they spend little time there.

In a little over a week they'll be starting off in their new homes, perfectly ready to learn sit, down, and I before E except after C in a matter of minutes.

What they can learn best now is how to be happy, relaxed, bold, curious baby dogs in a world where the affairs of big dogs and big humans continue in their presence.

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*NB: An "authority" who, as near as I can determine, has neither bred nor raised a single litter of puppies. Ever.

Photo Phriday: Fun Uncle, #2

Ernesto is still a puppy himself. It's like having a teenage babysitter who still likes to play Legos with the kids.

Base Seven

One of the gospels of dog breeders who make a good-faith effort to do right by their puppies is the popular "Rule of Sevens."

Not a bad floor. If someone pays enough attention to a litter to meet this criteria, it's likely that the pups will go to their homes well-socialized and fairly resilient, ready to be well-adjusted pets or show dogs.

But if one is aiming to develop the most confident, flexible, intelligent, unflappable working companion allowed by each pups' genetics, one should be aiming higher and thinking more about process than checklists.

When I learned to do bodywork on animals, my witch doctor friend Maryna taught us a low-velocity, deep-penetrating pulse in-hold-pulse out pattern. One's fingers "intrude" on the muscles, ligaments, and tendons, remain at the point of deepest intrusion until they detect the desired change (a release of tension, or of some of it) and then gradually retreat, allowing the animal's mind and body to register the change and assimilate it into the whole.

This principle of pressure and release works in behavioral rehab, too -- you push your student/patient/subject to the point of discomfort, hold that degree of pressure while the mind copes with the challenge and achieves some incremental change, and then gradually take the pressure off, allowing a period of rest while the change assimilates into the whole animal.

Without pressure -- challenge -- there is no forward momentum. Without pausing and holding the pressure, there is no change. And without retreat and rest, there is no processing of what just happened, no long-term application.

The Roseannadannas don't need rehab. They are clean and shiny and new; they are perfect, and so is their world. But their world will expand, and they will expand to meet it, through the same process of pressure, hold, release.

Much of the "pressure" comes from inside the puppies. They are bursting to grow. They push their own comfort levels in order to satisfy their intense curiosity. This is the pressure to expand that is natural to every intelligent creature, and all we need to do is support it.

Monday they were enjoying their free-range time. Now, whenever I can, I close the gates and open the doors so that they have access to the puppy-proofed kitchen and living room, the deck, and the whole outdoors via the front door (which opens from the kitchen). They are lightly supervised as we go about our business. The big dogs can mingle with them, or go in the back door to the parts of the house that are gated off -- pups can't get there yet. There's nothing between pups and poultry other than the poultry's good judgement and speed.

In general, they move in groups -- this is their time to learn about dog society with one another. They spend a lot of time playing and contending, and a lot of time sleeping. They play with Cole or Ernie or mob their mother. They play with any humans who are among them. The social world takes precedence.

But some of the time, they are pulsing out -- pushing the physical boundaries of their world. On
Sunday, the theme was to climb the landscaping boulders in the front yard, push leads into their crevices, and generally work in three dimensions. Monday we were all about getting into the mint patch for a little aromatic puppy caving. (Few photo ops in that endeavor.)

Generally, when I walk a hundred feet from the front door, the pups fall back. But not always. On Sunday, Garrett followed me all the way to the barnyard for night chores, then found his way back without drama. This meant negotiating some stone steps, down and then up. Monday, tiny Gilda followed me to the pole barn, hung out while I assembled tools, and then followed me back. These are long treks for little puppies, precursors of the pack walks that will start in a few days.

As they develop, we also provide some pressure -- not often to push them further outwards, but to direct their expanding psyches.

Chevy roo-roos and wants to be picked up. I love his drive to engage a person, but he's a bit pushy and full of swagger. I pick him up and cradle him, and he becomes slightly stiff -- he did not want to be cradled on his back, he wanted to come into my lap and nibble my chin and generally have me enable his agenda. I keep him cradled and he pitches a minor tantrum. Alas, it does not succeed in granting him his wish. When the tantrum abates, not before, I set him upright in my lap for stroking and kissies. Pressure ... hold ... hold ... hold ... hold ... releeeease. We will repeat this many times.

Gilda is playing with a bit of cotton rope. I take the end and apply gentle traction. We play "tug" while I stroke her whole body with long, firm, calming strokes, the way I've seen the best schutzhund trainers work with a young puppy. Nothing exciting, no thrashing around, no proving I'm stronger than a five-pound furball. Her grip stays firm. I let the rope slide out of my hand (gradual release). We will teach her to release a toy in a few weeks. To my delight, when she finds she has full possession of the rope, she cheerfully brings it back to me and asks me to re-engage. Playing with someone is more fun than having something. A lesson she will learn many times, in many contexts, until one day she is teaching it to some pup in the dog park or some toddler who is learning about grabbiness.

The pups have the routine and the familiar, and they have challenges to the routine and familiar. I put a new obstacle onto the deck -- it is a challenge and a diversion. Can I climb on it? Under it? Does it move if I hit it? Is it shreddable? This is exciting! But other things stay the same. If I get too stimulated, I can always go sleep on my same pillow with my same brother. Mother changes -- now she says no to me, and sometimes she plays with me -- but she is also the same -- she smells the same and the milk still tastes so good and she still cleans me like she did the minute I was born. With every pulse of pressure to grow and change, there's a corresponding path back to the familiar, a physical or emotional space to rest and contemplate that becomes the springboard to dive back into the unfamiliar. Each pulse-hold-release strengthens the whole pattern, until the familiar becomes the puppy's own sense of herself, and to the degree that her genetics permit, nothing can faze her.

Macro Monday: Hornworms' Lament

“Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly. Insects, it seems, gotta do one horrible thing after another.”

-- Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Our friend Andy spotted these two critters on the currant tomato that is growing rampantly in the washtub by the grape arbor.






They are larvae of Manduca quinquemaculata -- the five-spotted hawk moth -- aka tomato hornworms.

And they have munched their last nightshade leaves.

The stuff that looks like a a threadbare white shag carpet are parasitoids -- the pupae of a braconid wasp. As larvae, they already ate most of the insides of the hornworms, which maintain just enough life to cling to the branch where they stopped. (I took these photos on Saturday, and the worms are still where we left them.) Soon they will hatch out into adults and go hunting other hornworms on which to lay their eggs. I've never seen a hornworm with this heavy a parasitoid infestation. I guess they aren't any more doomed / dead than one with a few pupae.

I'm ambivalent about this particular horrible thing. The hornworms can really play hell with the tomatoes, and the little wasps are very effective at controlling them. But the adult moths are magnificent -- easy to mistake for hummingbirds when one first sees one -- and we have lots of tomato foliage. When I find a healthy hornworm, I tend to just stick it on a robust volunteer tomato somewhere away from the garden, or else on some wild nightshade.

The life cycle of parasitic wasps is the stuff of nightmares and the inspiration for some viscerally horrifying speculative fiction.

Detail

It Takes a Pack to Raise a Puppy, Part I: Uncle Cole

A great mother gets a puppy -- or a whole mob of them -- off to a great start.

But it's not natural that she should have to do it alone.

While the pups work out many of their social principles internally, with puppy-on-puppy interactions, there is no substitute for lessons learned from grown dogs.

Not all of those lessons are about respect, self-control, good manners, and other civilized virtues.

Some of the most important ones are about having fun (with a little thrill of "danger," perhaps), being indulged, knowing that you are widely beloved.

The entire pack here is solicitous and protective towards the puppies. Woe to the errant woodchuck or crow who "threatens" the wee ones as they play on the deck or yard.

Uncle Moe is psychologically incapable of letting it go and romping with tiny puppies. He knows this about himself and withdraws from mayhem. Sophia and Ernie are still kept on the periphery for the moment, because Rosie says so -- she will soon relax this rule. Pip enjoyed them a bit more when they were at the snausage stage.

Cole is, as I expected, coming into his own as the Fun Uncle. The guy who will let you get away with stuff that Mom pops you for. He will feed you candy and swing you around and get you riled up before bedtime and tell scary stories and wrestle.

He had a dress rehearsal with the Indiana Plague Puppies this winter. Those pups came to us at about seven weeks old, and he didn't know their mother at first, wasn't sure what to make of them or what he'd be allowed to do. In time he found ways to have a blast with them.

These puppies are pack puppies. He and Moe probably both half-think that they are the Daddy, seeing as neither ever got the memo about their testicles. It's likely that they have an unconscious sense of their own relatedness, driven by olfactory information about their MHC that shunts straight to their primal lizard brains. (Moe as a biological uncle, and Cole as a cousin, though it's not clear exactly how close.)

This video shows Cole playing with the four-week-old Roseannadannas for the very first time. At first he is afraid to contact them. They might break. He might get in trouble. Best to dance without touching. In less than ten minutes, he is flopping on the grass for them, inviting them to pile on.

Yes, the whole episode was really that silent. Most of the whining you hear is one or more pups in my lap, complaining that I am paying attention to the camera and not puppies. When Cole plays with age-mates, he is very vocal -- sounds positively savage. I don't think he makes a peep here. What does he need to say, with a grin that big?

I was going to edit out Rosie interrupting the play, for length, but decided to leave those moments in. Notice how she comes in and disciplines the pups -- that is diminishing after a week, as they learn to solicit and give respect to her. Also notice how Cole literally fades into the background when she does this. Don't get involved, Dude.

But for sure, be there when Mom lets you out of your room and off grounding, because we are gonna have some fun.



I'm so happy the pups have this in their lives. It will make them richer, more complex, more flexible beings than if they'd been raised by just their dam, with cameo appearances by humans.

I'm even happier that Cole has puppies in his life.

One of the volunteers who cared for Cole during his troubled puppyhood and adolescence told me that, because of his severe intraspecific aggression, they thought that he could go into a home where there were no other pets, and with an owner who would keep him away from other dogs, not take him out to parks or places where dogs congregated. That was the best life they hoped for Cole, and they worried that he was so aggressive to animals that he wouldn't be granted that.

When Pip adopted him, Cole was allowed to be a puppy among adult dogs -- psychologically speaking, for the first time in his life. Now he's getting the immense privilege of playing the junior uncle role in the pack -- a useful station in life that prepares one for full social maturity as a stable, well-adjusted, happy adult.

Wean

We are beginning to wean the Roseannadannas.

Force-weaning is unnecessary, and frankly a bit barbaric. Unless a bitch cannot nurse her pups -- mastitis is commonly the cause -- there's almost never a reason to pull them cold-turkey off her milk.* Mother will wean, and the gradual process is part of their physical development and education as social beings.

Rosie feeds her babies when she feels the need to now, not whenever she is with them and they are hungry. This means that she is starting to tell them no. Sometimes Hell No. She's got the clawed breasts and chewed nipples to justify it.

I was reflecting on the advice we trainers all give to owners -- the injunction to, above all else, be consistent.

But Rosie -- their first teacher -- is not at all consistent. Sometimes she will let them nurse, sometimes she won't. Sometimes she just exits stage left, sometimes she is quite forceful and scary in her nipple-denying tactics, even seeming to practice entrapment by not choosing to walk away when she easily could do so. Downright erratic.

Is Rosie then a bad mother? Or are dog mothers a bad template for teaching things to puppies and dogs? Shouldn't we throw out Nature's horribly flawed schematics and adopt the cold perfection of the Skinner box and the dolphin tank?

This begs the question, what is Rosie teaching her pups?

If the lesson was meant to be "You can't nurse anymore," then Rosie would be a mercurial tutor.

What if the lesson is something else?

Perhaps "You are no longer a helpless blind hamster; your needs will not be met before you are even aware of them, ever again. Deal with it."

Or, "You will ask before invading the personal space of a superior being."

Or, "Because I'm the Mommy, that's why."

Or even, "Don't let the door hit ya in the ass on your way to your new home." (Extended goodbye version.)

I think it is the pinpoint edge of the general principle that leads from infancy to full social adulthood: Love, she is conditional after all.

I think unconditional love ends for every mammal the day she bites Mommy's nipple hard enough to hurt. From that day on, we need to control our selfish impulse to atrocity in order to merit care and acceptance. This is a good thing.

So Mommy starts saying no, and we humans, who will (collectively) continue to nurture and guide long after her crucial job is completed, take over a little of her first role as food-givers and contingency-enforcers.

This will be the second litter I have weaned on raw meat, hand-fed. I found the conventional kibble-derived puppy-gruel to be unsatisfactory in several ways -- the mess (smelly, crusty puppies), the excessive competition among the pups, the repeated salvos of attacking yellowjackets, and the gawdawful diarrhea that my vet prescribed "special" food to correct.

I start them for the first few days on "satin balls" -- a rich firm mixture of ground beef (our dog beef has heart and liver in it), eggs, cereal, and some nifty supplements (recipe below). Puppies quickly discover that they love meat, and also that I am made of it. The hand-feeding is an opportunity for them to learn that I love them, but that this love does not extend to allowing them to feast on my living flesh. (For starters.) They don't learn to sit for a cookie or take a treat politely at four weeks of age -- they learn the groundwork for those and every other shred of good manners they will later acquire.




I mentioned posting the recipe for satin balls in the clip. This is the one I use, with a nutrient analysis. The Knox Joint Gelatin /Osteo Bi-Flex is harder to get than the TEN packets of gelatin in other versions of this recipe, but much cheaper.

Ingredient	Amount	Calories	Fat	Protein	Carbs	Calcium
Ground beef, 70% lean	10#	15060	1361 g	651 g	0	1089 mg
Total Cereal	Box (12 oz)	1134	6g	23g	261g	1134 mg
Oatmeal	Box (18 oz)	1914	38g	64g	344g	0
Wheat germ	Jar (12 oz)	1225	33g	79g	176g	133 mg
Olive oil (vegetable oil)	1 1/4 cup	2387	270g	0	0	3 mg
Unsulfured molasses	1 1/4 cup	602	0	0	147g	1872 mg
Raw Eggs	10 large	735	50g	63g	4g	265 mg
Knox Joint Gelatin (Osteo bi-flex nutrajoint)	3 oz **	250	0	100	0	0
Flaxseed Oil	1/4 cup	482	55g	0	0	0
Salt	pinch	0	0	0	0	0
Total	15# mixed	23,789	1,813 g	980 g	932 g	4496 mg
Amounts per pound		1586	121 g	65 g	62 g	300 mg
Per one-ounce ball		99	8 g	4 g	4 g	19 mg

Whiz the cereal in the food processor or smash it up by stomping on the inner bag. I like the cereal to be very fine, and even food-process the dry oatmeal.

Mix all ingredients in a really big bowl. Get in there with your hands, a spoon will not do it. Add some more eggs or a little water if too stiff.

Roll into little balls and freeze, or freeze big clumps in ziploc bags.

Puts weight onto sick, starved, parasitized, and recovering dogs, and poor keepers. Good during times of stress -- such as nursing, hunting, SAR missions. Not for fat dogs!

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* I have been reminded that it is common in certain breeds to take Momma away from her own offspring before she kills them. Literally. I consider this a flashing neon sign of rather vulgar proportions in the window of Nature's shop that says "DON'T MAKE MORE OF THESE."

** The analysis for the Osteo Bi-Flex Nutrajoint / Knox Joint Gelatin is not quite on -- when I did this analysis all I had was Knox plain gelatin, which is what you see in many satin balls recipes. This stuff has more calcium and less protein than plain gelatin. I had a hard time finding it, finally sent PC to a K-Mart in Ross that had it.