Snapshot Sunday: Command Post Compliant

Like her mentor, Lilly, Pip is a great command post dog.

She can recharge her batteries, schmooze, and keep it all low-key if I get pulled into management tasks.

Puppy blogging resumes this week. We've been a little oversubscribed since Tuesday. PC and I and our friends and family and pack have had just enough time to care for the Roseannadannas' emerging social needs, not enough time to report on their adventures.

This is why we breed more working dogs.

Macro Monday: Moving Day

Rosie thought she had it tough three weeks ago -- six whole puppies to move into the living room, and with only one human to step 'n' fetchit for her.

At the PARSEC picnic this Saturday, someone spotted these lovely golden ants on the march. We quickly ascertained that they were moving house, from under a hydrangea in a landscape island to beneath a sidewalk slab about 12 feet away.

I got this with my iPhone. There is some quality loss from the YouTube conversion -- not sure why. The original is much sharper.



Notice how the larvae and pupae only go in one direction. The ants moving left to right are returning to the old nest for more kids or stuff to shift.

I think The Vandals really capture the energy of ant moving day.

Use Names

When they go to their permanent homes, the Roseannadannas will get their permanent names.

Each will have a registered name and a regular name, chosen by their new families. Their registered names will begin with "Brandywine" and then generally be or contain their regular names. Nothing too fancy. They won't be trotting circles for the approval of some schlub in a monkey suit, so there's no need for chest-thumping when naming them. Just something unique that will make it possible to identify them in pedigrees. There are just eighteen possible registered names that their new humans cannot choose from, so it's pretty wide open. And they can call the dog whatever they wish. That's his real name, the one to which he answers. One does well to consider this task weighty, but not solemn.

Every burrower, each flier
Came for the name he had to give:
Gay, first work, ever to be prior,
Not yet sunk to primitive.

Meanwhile, they need baby names, Earthsean use names, as they learn to become individuals.

So, some introductions.

Jane is a petite little girl, either black and white or very dark seal. She can howl. It doesn't sound exactly like a howl, but she throws her little nose up when she does it, and this summons her mother.

Bill is the smallest boy. He is seal and white. He is going to have totally adorable big freckles. Right now he just looks like he has a dirty face. He already shows a beautiful structure. A cuddle pup.

Laraine is a dark-faced beauty -- that little white dot on her head will be gone soon. She's a big girl, just like her Aunt Tia, whom she resembles. She's one of the two most adventurous of the pups.

Garrett is a big boy, who will look like his grandma Pip. He's also an adventurer and the first to conquer the walls of the now-defunct Moses basket.


Gilda is a petite thing who will look like her Mom, except for her coloring -- dainty limbs and ultra-feminine head and face. She is the blackest, glossiest black. She loves to snuggle.


Chevy is the biggest puppy, nearly twice as big as Gilda. He likes to talk, and growl, and issue complaints. He resembles his Uncle Moe and (social) Uncle Cole. So if Cole is Mini-Moe, Chevy is Micro-Moe. He's already a little pisser, and I am already working on extra conditioning with him, because he's going to be a handful. He may also be a very dark seal.

Transitional

Click little speech balloon icon for captions.

The Roseannadannas turn three weeks old today, leaving behind the label "transitional."

They have met and been handled by ten people, including two (older) children.

They've had a field trip outside every day in the past week when it hasn't rained. On each trip they are exposed to a slightly more challenging area (slope, undergrowth, and "obstacles" getting increasingly challenging.)

They are still riding in their Moses basket to their night crib in the bedroom closet, and back downstairs in the morning, but it is getting really heavy, and sometimes I have to sway it a little to keep them from climbing out.

They've experienced, I think, seven substrates, not counting human laps, etc.

They now rush the the front of their containment field when they see a person. Rush laps. Kiss faces, and try to get to faces to kiss them.

They know and trust Gramma Pip and Uncles Moe, Cole, and honorary Uncle Ernie. Aunt Sophia -- a proven good puppy Auntie -- is still at more of a distance, because Rosie says so. The grown dogs take on different roles. Moe is vigilant and protective, but increasingly keeps his distance as the pups become ambulatory, just as he did when Rosie and her siblings were tykes. Cole blocks Sophia and either blocks or distracts Ernie when Rosie starts getting unhappy about him. Pip would totally take over if Rosie would let her. She's very relaxed and matter-of-fact with the babies, just casually nurturing them, and they respond to her as if all puppies have a Gramma to babysit them, and it's just automatic for a puppy to grok that.

I'm just feeling little teeth under the gums now. Nursing is about to get a lot less fun for Rosie.

They are beginning to play with one another, soft toys, and parts of their mother, and to gum on humans in a way that suggests mischief or piranha-fish rather than suckling attempts.

Their new day pen is a 4'x6' space bounded by 16" deep (high) Closet Maid wire shelving* zip-tied at the corners. Big enough for a person to lie down and snuggle inside. It is half carpeted and bedded, half newspapers. They went to the newspapers to eliminate literally within seconds of being set down on the carpet remnant. They do this en masse when they wake up from a nap, even though the newspapers are slippery and hard to toddle on, to say nothing of hard to squat on.

For a completely raw video, taken with some smudges on the lens, of their first time outside on grass, look here.


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* One of the few human constructions that I am convinced will survive global nuclear annihilation. Based on my observations during Katrina recovery search.

Bye Bye Baby(hood)

With the appearance of all their tiny peepers over the weekend, the Roseannadannas are officially no longer neonates.

They've now entered the week of their life that has long been relegated to, in essence, "miscellaneous" or "other" or puppy limbo -- what behavioral researchers call the "transitional" period, prior to the explosion of learning and brain pruning between the ages of three to twelve weeks.

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As neonates, they experienced three different puppy dens and a Moses-sized wicker basket. A couple days after the first Moving Day, Rosie decided that she didn't want to give up the company of the rest of the family in order to care for her puppies. So, until they start eating solid food, they all get loaded into their Moses basket at night and come upstairs to bunk in my bedroom closet. Most mornings they get breakfast in bed -- a chance to imprint on human scent, snuggle, bump into Uncle Moe, and occasionally plop off the edge of the bed, lemming-fashion, and promptly fall asleep on the rug. Then, downstairs to the day den.

Their eyes opened precociously. They are sometimes getting their feet underneath themselves. I'm hearing proto-barks and liquid little growlettes among the squeaking, crying and puppy whale song. They recognize the existence of people and toddle closer, even climb into laps. They are great climbers; whenever I didn't provide lumps and bumps and texture changes in the puppy den, Rosie would heap the bedding into an infant monkeybars structure.

They are rather relaxed about handling. I'm still looking for that orienting reflex that allegedly "forces" a young puppy to right himself when he finds himself saluting the sky. Their reflex on being picked up and put in nearly any position is to go slack and fall asleep. They especially love being cradled.

If altricial infants can be said to "imprint," they have been imprinted on the scent and touch of human beings and the rest of their dog family, a great springboard for multi-species socialization.

Photo Phriday: Oh Hai!

Ten days old. Precocious peepers.

Brain Breakfast

Old wive's white-coats' tale -- you can't teach a puppy anything before his eyes open.

No less a pair of authorities than Scott and Fuller proclaimed it, more or less.* After all, neonatal pups are blind, hear poorly, and don't get around all that well. Terrible at mazes. Nevermind that their little noses can lead them to the biggest nipple in their dark, warm world. Humans are a bunch of sight snobs. Worse than our hangup about thumbs.

Michael Fox** discovered that neonates could be conditioned to localize the scent of anise, but essentially concluded that this was as far as it goes.

Jebus Christmas -- they are living, growing beings. They don't just wake up from a coma at three weeks of age. Shit is happening.

Differential equations and whistle commands -- save it.

Neurological connections, resilience, trust, persistence, scent-imprinting -- now we're talking.

While the neonates' nervous systems are pruning and strengthening connections, their immune systems are also beginning to develop under the protection of mother's magic colostrum.

Interestingly enough, the same kinds of mild challenges can strengthen both body systems, just as massive insults to one can throw the other out of whack. (The immune system/nervous system nexus is huge and unappreciated. The New Agers basically ate the white-coats' lunch on this one, and it will be a while before those who apply the scientific method sheepishly catch up and distinguish the valid information from the moonbeams.)

Our "program" for imprinting and stimulating neonatal puppies is mostly the terrible chore of picking up little grunting sausages for snuggle time every day. I know! What we breeders sacrifice. Zrrrbting pink bellies, nibbling tiny toes, smooching little schnozzes -- oh the humanity.

But we do some extra stuff, too. We get a head start on the "Rule of Sevens" and make sure that the pups experience different surfaces in the whelping box. (With this litter, Rosie is intent on making sure they experience four or five different dens in the first two weeks -- still fighting that battle.) We create little moraines under their blankets, so that puppies must climb obstacles to reach the milk bar. (Or Rosie bunches the bedding into Mount Pupali and really gives them a workout.) As soon as Momma allows, pups are touched and cared for by their relatives -- Gramma Pip and Uncle Moe are already cleaning pups. And we do "Superdog" early neurological stimulation -- a little first taste of challenge for the puppies' developing brains and nervous systems.

The neonatal exercises arose from the DoD's "biosensor" program -- an attempt to breed and develop a better military working dog -- in the 1970's. The "Superdog" breeding, developmental, conditioning and training protocols were mostly cloaked in obscurity -- possibly secrecy -- but a few consultants, including the late lamented Cap Haggerty, brought results and protocols out into the light. While the program itself was not a success -- whether due to errors in breeding selection, failure to follow up with appropriate socialization, training shortfalls, or the interaction of all three -- there was a general consensus that the neonatal conditioning, once initiated, improved the results within the program.

It takes only a few minutes a day. Used as directed it does no harm, and may do considerable good.

I've never seen photographs or video of the process, so here you go. Apologies for the poor video quality -- lighting is poor in our living room, and my video camera batteries were all dead, so we used my regular camera. Cutting off the puppies' heads is a YouTube issue -- they were properly framed in the original. My assistant didn't feel confident panning and zooming, so we put the camera on a tripod. And I wasn't sure that it was properly recording audio, so I didn't narrate what I was doing.

I know, I know -- paint drying. But it is fast-drying paint.

Some important points. No puppy is in any given position for more than five seconds. And you only do this once a day. (We couldn't do a second take yesterday for this video.)

One isn't evaluating puppies during this exercise. Whether puppy sleeps or squirms is of no consequence. This is neurological stimulation -- a little bit of challenge that the puppy would not normally get.

Two things I've noted over the course of five days:

• The puppies are responding much more vigorously to the head-down position, and are squirmier in general.

• The puppies are dramatically relaxing in the belly-up position, a little more each day. I don't know whether that can be attributed to the short stimulation sessions, or if it is due to all the snuggle time they spend in this position, in a lap or tucked under someone's chin. Their epic six days of experience on the part of the planet that is not the inside of their mother is already overriding their programmed reflex to right themselves when tits-up, at least when the touch and smell of a human being is part of the equation. This will stand them in good stead in their lives with people, no matter what jobs they hold.

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* "Early in our observations of newborn puppies, we noticed that they did not seem to learn by experience. A puppy would fall to the edge of the scale platform, fall off, and begin to yelp in distress. When placed in the middle of the platform, it would do the same thing over again ... Some recent experiments (Stanley et al 1963) indicate that the puppy is capable of some degree of slow learning with regard to sucking. A puppy which is given milk after sucking a rubber nipple will eventually begin to suck more often than a puppy which is not so rewarded, and one that is given quinine instead of milk will eventually refuse to suck the nipple at all."

Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog, 1965, pp. 87-88.

** Before he went all woo-woo.