Puppy Development

Let’s discuss “puppy development” so that you’ll have a deeper understanding of your growing puppy’s needs. For the most part, behavioral scientists and researchers agree that the five standard stages of dog development are as follows:

Despite being so cute, newborn puppies don’t do much more than eat, sleep, pee and poop. They don’t enjoy social interactions at this stage and are completely dependent upon their moms for food and care (including keeping clean). While their senses of touch and taste are present at birth, neonatal puppies have limited movement and are capable of only a slow crawl.

At this point, the puppies move from just eating and sleeping to becoming more aware of their surroundings as their eyes and ears open — so now the fun starts. They begin interacting with their mother as well as their littermates.

Their senses of hearing and smell are developing, and their baby teeth start emerging. During this stage, puppies begin to walk, bark and wag their tails. By the end of this period, puppies are able to eliminate without their mother’s stimulation.

Now puppies begin more complicated interactions, and they begin learning the social rules of dog society.  This critical period is also called the “fear stage,” as puppies may sometimes seem to be afraid of everything. This is not a separate stage of development but a component of the Socialization Stage.

But this period of development is so crucial to the development of social skills and to the dog’s understanding of key socialization elements that it merits its own mention. It is within this developmental stage that a dog’s potential as a companion animal is either fostered and nurtured or impeded and even destroyed.

It is also within this stage that at least 50 percent (nurture vs. nature) of the dog’s eventual temperament is developed. This stage is also a period of rapid learning.

The puppies are now autonomous but are still learning about the social complexities of their society. At this stage, varying amounts of latitude are given for socially immature dogs that display inappropriate social behaviors, and behaviors are corrected by their society.

From four to six weeks, puppies continue to be influenced by their mother and littermates. They learn to play, gaining needed social skills from litter mates, such as inhibited biting (biting to play, not to hurt). The puppies also learn the ins and outs of group structure and ranking within the group. Puppies become much more vocal during this period, with the appearance of play barking and growling.

At this point, if mom is aggressive or fearful of people, the puppies may be affected by her attitude. To socialize your puppies to humans, have a variety of people interacting with them — young (with supervision) and old, male and female. During the socialization period, it’s also very important to expose your puppy to other normal experiences, such as car rides, crate training, vacuum cleaners, ringing doorbells, and a variety of objects and sounds. Also, handling of the feet and body parts is a good thing for a puppy to experience at an early age.

These are fully autonomous dogs that are required to know the rules of their society and operate within the parameters of these rules. Dogs that challenge the rules or don’t conform to the rules may be physically forced out of the group.

During this period, puppies grow rapidly and you may notice daily changes. Even though puppies are very energetic, don’t exercise your puppy too much, since he can overdo it. Among themselves, puppies begin to use ranking in their group structure — that is, they start testing where they fit in. Puppies may experience another fear phase that lasts about a month.

Like most adolescents, puppies are very rambunctious, so continue the process of training and socializing your dog during this phase.

Socialization and training are necessary if you want your puppy to be comfortable and act acceptably in public places such as dog parks and beaches or anywhere else where she will meet new dogs and new people.

Early Separation

Common dog Behaviors & Problems Attributed To Early Separation

Here is a short list of common problems (physical, emotional, and social) exhibited by puppies and then later by mature dogs, who have been removed from their family units before or around 8 weeks of age.

Puppies tend to go through a fear period at 8 weeks of age (an awareness of the world around them that can cause anxiety). Puppies who leave their canine families too early will show immediate behavior problems. They will be fearful of many things and show a lack of confidence. They can also be slow to bond with people — or will attach so strongly to their new owners that they will panic when left alone.

The ability to soothe himself, to relax when left alone, is missing with most of these puppies. And they are quite likely to develop severe separation anxiety or minimally, they will hate being alone. They are anxious and never seem to be content. They whine, cry, and bark a lot. Many times they seem inconsolable even when given human attention.

These puppies are the dogs that will continue to cry through the night long after the normal adaptation period has passed. They become easily frustrated, and they often resort to physical destruction of their environment as an outlet for their anxiety and frustration.

Additionally, puppies who have been prematurely separated from their moms and litters so often lack the confidence to handle new situations, people, and aren’t able to have proper social interactions with other dogs because of crippling fears and phobias. Even when you take these dogs to obedience classes and give them socialization opportunities, these are the dogs that will become fear-aggressive and have an increased chance of becoming a fear-biter.

Often through constant management, these issues can be lessened but rarely are the issues completely eliminated. They do not necessarily see this behavior as being an offensive attack. In their minds they are defending themselves. Their fear is so great that they preemptively launch an attack of one bite and then they retreat, hoping to drive off the other dog (or person). They melt down and are easily overwhelmed by anything new in their environment. These dogs are uncomfortable and just want to be left alone.

Because these dogs have gaps in understanding how to read and model appropriate dog “body language,” they are often the cause of dogfights. They lack the knowledge behind giving and receiving the normal calming signals used by normally socialized dogs.

Interestingly, mother dogs who did not get the benefit of being taught calming signals by their own mothers will not be able to pass this knowledge on to their own puppies — creating yet another generation of dogs who have poor communication skills.

As their bladders and bowels are still immature, trying to insist on regulating prematurely separated puppies is often frustrating and unsuccessful for both humans and dogs. Once these puppies get in the habit of eliminating in the house, it becomes much harder to get through the message of “only pee and poop outside.”

Owners place newspapers and pee pads to help contain the mess but are only helping to teach and reinforce the message that elimination indoors is permissible. Remember, dogs cannot generalize. Rules for them fall into one of two categories: ALWAYS or NEVER. If they are allowed to pee and poop sometimes, they interpret that to mean always. Bringing your puppy home after the critical 8-week threshold makes effective housebreaking not only easier, it makes it possible.

Puppyhood is a time when every aspect of the dog is developing, including the immune system. Antibodies are the part of that immune system that protect against disease. Immediately after birth, puppies receive antibodies from their mothers’ milk.

But these maternal antibodies gradually degrade and disappear entirely by about 10 weeks of age. For a more durable resistance to disease, we need the puppy’s immune system to generate its own antibodies. That is the purpose of a vaccine. Vaccines stimulate the puppy’s immune system to create antibodies that will typically last for years.

While maternal antibodies initially protect the puppy from disease, they also prevent the vaccines from having their full effect. So to minimize gaps in protection, we need to continue vaccinating the puppy while the maternal antibodies fade away. That is why puppies start on a vaccination schedule for contagious illnesses like parvo, distemper, and bordatella, to name a few, by 6 weeks of age and require a series of boosters until they are 14 week old.

The younger the puppy, the greater the chance they will contract an illness if exposed to it. Remember we mentioned earlier that a prematurely separated puppy will likely exhibit anxiety? Well, it has been proven that anxiety weakens the immune system, which will compound the likelihood that illness will occur. This is another reason why keeping the puppy with his mother and siblings is crucial. In that case, the puppy will receive optimal socialization, and her exposure to illness will be greatly reduced.