So what have the fugitives been up to for weeks 4-6? Let me share with you what they and I have been up too.

Just before they were moved I did one Puppy Culture exercise which was shaping emotional responses with them. This exercise needs to be done before the initial fear response which can happen just before or around 6 weeks of age. For this exercise you were to pick each puppy up and rub the heck out of it and touch it all over trying to get it to become mad and once it does then you shape it’s response by giving it a treat.

I really couldn’t get the response I was suppose to be getting with this exercise. I couldn’t piss them off but I did go ahead and give them a treat to teach them the same concept as this time it was that the vigorous rubbing would stop and they would get a yummy treat to shape a happy response to something that was irritating. Not quite sure if I did this at the wrong time as in age or if they were just so darn used to me handling them it didn’t matter what I was doing to them.

The fugitives were moved to their new weaning pen. This pen is gated so they are in there when sleeping at night and when I am gone during the day. They have their litter boxes in there, their fake grass, beds, water, activity center, toys and crates. There are ez-whelp pads on the floor for accidents.

I continued to introduce something new each day, whether it was a new toy, new experience or new surface they got to check new things out.

When I’m home the fugitives can go in there weaning pen but they can also have the whole basement to play in. They rarely go into the weaning pen when have the opportunity to be out and about.

Guilty had one last meal taken from her this weekend at 4 weeks of age when we moved the puppies to the weaning pen. Guilty will spend time away from them while her milk dries up. If she is with them they will continue to drink and she will keep producing milk. Guilty was staying away from them more and more so it was time to wean.

Since Guilty wasn’t able to spend time with the pups it was time to introduce Grandma Glory to them so they could have their adult dog contact and learn their manners from another dog. Glory did great with them. They did try to nurse on her but quickly figured out they wouldn’t get anything so they just played.

After 4 weeks of age the fugitives privates would get mucky so trimming of the excess hair and cleaning of the area was needed. I would clean them using baby wipes. I would be handing each of them checking their bites, checking their ears, trimming their nails, checking their umbilicus looking for umbilical hernia’s, checking them all out making sure there were no problems arising. This would also constitute the Puppy Culture CER (Conditioned Emotional Response) where you pick up puppy and give it a treat, interrupt puppy from playing and give it a treat, touch all parts of the body and give it a treat so the puppy learns it’s ok to be touched as something good happens.

After 4 weeks of age I allow visitors to start the socialization periods. Puppy buyers that are close come for a visit otherwise it is our friends that come and socialize the puppies, women, men, children all come to visit to get the puppies used to different people.

Other Puppy Culture exercises are the Barrier challenge, feeding puppies outside weaning pen, puppy call, powering up the clicker, box challenge, take a treat, manding and happy CER (conditioned emotional response). These all should be done between 4-5 weeks of age.

The barrier challenge is to give the puppies an obstacle to figure out how to go around to get to something they want. In this instance it was their food. I put up a barrier of the ex pen and put the food on the other side and let the puppies go to the food. Some did this exercise really well others had trouble. It is to get them frustrated and have them think on their own and figure things out so that next time they won’t get frustrated and be able to figure it out.

I would feed them outside the weaning pen and call them to their food to condition them to the puppy recall and get them used to my voice so they would come when called. At this time I also started giving them treats by hand so they would get used to that so I could start getting them used to the clicker for clicker training and for using the clicker with the box challenge.

Another shaping emotional response exercise is the box challenge. Once the puppies are taking treats from you this exercise can be done. You put a box down have a clicker in one had and a treat in the other hand. The object of this is when the puppy shows any response to the box then you click the clicker and give it a treat. It gets the puppy used to a learned response, it touches box, it hears the clicker and gets a treat so it would do it again to get the same response. Most of the puppies were distracted when I did this challenge and would take one treat and then run off.

Different interactive toys were introduced daily.

The puppies did great with all the new toys and challenges. At anytime one puppy shows fear to the toys or challenges you should discontinue startle recovery adn shaping emotional responses exercised for all puppies. The puppies never showed fear during this period up to 6 weeks of age. Once they turned 6 weeks of age more new things were added to their regimen.

One of the exercises for the puppies over 6 weeks of age was the tarp over exercise pen exercise. As you can see the puppies had no troubles with this exercise. They weren’t afraid and were up for investigating and even pee’d on the tarp. Daily individual attention, introducing something new each day and in home socialization continues. At this time I started teaching them to mand.

For manding, I started giving them treats, I would take a treat and hold it in front of nose and pull up to learn how to sit. All the puppies were like gators and jumping up at me once the puppy sat I would give it a treat. They quickly learned after a couple of sessions to sit nicely if they were going to get a treat. They then learned that they have their own voice and they would sit when they were trying to tell me something. When I would leave them run around in the basement and I would come back down stairs to see them they would hear me, come running to the steps and would sit down automatically – mand when they saw me. When I let them in from outside they will mand and when I put them in their weaning pen they will mand.

I found this nice article on the internet that explains manding by Jane Killion from Puppy Culture you can read it here.

It has been a cold, snowy, rainy, windy winter, so the puppies didn’t get outside as soon as I would have liked them to but once it warmed up they took to the outside like confident little soldiers.

They are learning to go potty outside and go on little adventures. At this time Guilty was reintroduced to the litter as she has dried up pretty good. Of course the puppies wanted to suck on her when they saw her and she let them but then she ran around and played with them. The puppies are on a good start to becoming respectable little fugitives that are ready to take on the world with confidence.