Puppies

Hi everybody, Claire here from Van Isle Labradoodles and we’re with the Blonde Brownies litter of Multigeneration Australian Labradoodles and this is your one week update. These puppies were born on October the 20th and they are Rainbow Litter and last week we talked about their colors. This week we’re going to talk a bit about what they’ve done over the past week, how Spirits managing, and also give you a bit of information on choosing a trainer and a vet. So we hope you enjoy the video. Be sure to like it, subscribe to our channel and put any comments you have below. So let’s get started with the video. First of all, you’ll see today the difference is we have all the puppies, but we have no Spirit.

Spirit is quite content now after one week that she’s okay to be out of the nest and leave the babies for a good 15, 20 minutes now. She knows that they’re doing well and she’s quite secure in the knowledge that they’re warm, comfortable and she knows they’re safe where we have them located. As you may remember from last week, the maternity room has glass doors on it, so when Spirit is in the maternity room she’s able to see out and hear what’s going on in the house, but the rest of the dogs who live in the house they can’t get in and disturb the puppies, so that gives her a large level of security. So she’s right now out in the doodle den with all the other dogs and she’s enjoying a treat.

We give her lots of extra bones right now to enjoy so that she has more calories from the bones and she also has a little bit of relief from her puppies. She also gets lots of calcium from eating the bones too, so that’s an added benefit. So we’re still feeding her extra. She’s at about 300% of her regular diet. She is on a fully raw diet and that consists of beef, lamb, lamb tripe and some chicken and there’s lots of fresh bones and organ meat included in there. And then we do a little bit of extra home cooking for her too. Spirit’s a real fan of the rotisserie chicken, so we make her some whole chicken every week and then we chop it up for her and put it in there to give her a little bit of an extra special added incentive to eat lots.

It’s hard for her to eat as much as she needs to and it’s important she keeps her calories up. So now on top of that, she has lots of dried sardines. Sardines also give her much needed oils and calcium as well. So those are sprinkled throughout her food and she just adores them. The other dogs get a bit jealous that they don’t have as many treats as she does. So now for the puppies this week, they’re still in their neonatal stage. They stay in their neonatal stage until they’re about three weeks old. They really are basically without any senses other than their ability to smell. They still can’t hear anything. And as you watch them here sleeping, you’ll see from time to time that they jerk.

You can see them and it looks like maybe they’re dreaming and they’re running in their dreams, but what that’s really all about is the puppies building muscle. This is nature’s way of having the puppies sort of exercise even while they’re not able to really move about. So now what has happened is their front legs have developed enough strength and coordination that they’re able to crawl fairly well. So if one of the puppies is a considerable distance from Spirit when she comes in and they want to nurse at the milk bar, they’re able now to crawl quite rapidly over to her. They use their noses of course to know that she’s here because they can hear that she’s arrived and they can’t see that she’s arrived, but they can definitely smell when she arrives.

So they all rush over like mad and they all have very well developed voices. Last week in our video I told you that Mr Green collar here was the talker of the group. He and miss Grey collar here, The Black Phantom. It’s funny, they’re the two black ones and they’re the two mouthy ones. That’s changed though, Grey collar girl is now quite quiet, we don’t hear her voice hardly ever. So let’s take a look at Mr. Green collar for this week. Mr Green collar as you’ll remember is our little black boy with the beautiful white chest and the beautiful white paws, oh he’s so cute. He’s a little bit worried I picked him up and there is a good example of his voice. So we’ll put him back, he doesn’t want to have a cuddle right now.

So you can see he’s still quite vocal and he’s quite able to tell us when he doesn’t like something. They’re all going to start moving around now. Next to him is Miss Peach collar. Peach is our little darling, little brown and white girl. She’s quite quiet. She’s pretty much in the middle of the pack. She uses her brain’s quite a bit to find a good spot at the milk bar and she’s doing very well in terms of her weight gain. They’ve all doubled their birth weights pretty much now. Doing fantastic, Spirit’s really doing well with keeping them nice and plump. And then Mr. Blue collar here, Mr Blue is our chocolate fable with the really dark faith. And Mr. Blue collar, he too is pretty easy going.

You can hear him talking a little bit, but he doesn’t do the great big streaks like Mr Red Green collar. Oh, made a liar out of me. He can, but we don’t hear him very often. He’s pretty middle of the pack and pretty easy going. That’s Blue Collar. Then we have Miss Yellow Collar here and Miss Yellow Collar, [inaudible] sweetie pie. She’s very quiet. Oh, she’s got a great big yawn there. She’s very easy going, very quiet, really soft gentle little girl. Never pushy, but she still gets her fair share at the milk bar. Then over here is our little Black Phantom girl we were talking about, Grey collar girl. Grey collar used to be quite the talker whenever she needed something and wanted to get attention paid to her and she’s quieted down quite a bit now. She’s very very interested in being with the other dogs.

She gets some great comfort from being in there with everyone and getting all snuggled up, she’s a real cuddler. And then, oh, you can see yellow collar here. She’s decided to plunk herself on top of Black collar boy. We’ll take this Black collar boy up next. He’s still the biggest in the litter and he’s our beautiful, handsome Black and White party. He’s the most independent out of all of the puppies. He doesn’t mind if he’s off by himself as he frequently is. He’s very very well able to find himself the prime spot at the milk bar, but he doesn’t mind if he’s not in the number one position. He’s quite happy to be anywhere at the milk bar and he’s also very happy to be lying off by himself and doesn’t feel the need to be in the group as much as some of the other ones do, particularly Grey collar girl. She’s a real group girl, a groupie. Put him over there.

And then here we have Mr Brown collar. Mr Brown collar is very quiet boy. He’s the chocolate sable. He’s very very very quiet. You hardly even know that he’s in the litter, no complaining, no fussing. If he’s not at the best spot, he just goes, “Okay, you can have my place.” And he goes on and finds his own place, so he’s a very retiring guy at this point. Keep in mind that all these explanations and descriptions I’m giving you of their personalities right now, those are likely to change every week. These puppies are changing rapidly and don’t forget in the eight weeks we have them, they’re ready to go home to you so it’s a lot of change in eight weeks. And this is Miss Purple collar girl, our solid little chocolate girl. She can be a bit of a squawker sometimes, but she mostly enjoys being with the group.

She loves to be extra warm and you usually find her underneath somebody. She’s a very sweet and happy little girl. So that’s pretty much all the puppies have done this week in terms of development. Next week we’re going to have a big change and we’ll have some open eyes if not all of the eyes open, so that’s always a big event. So now what I want to talk to you about is choosing a vet and choosing a trainer. It may seem early to start doing that, but it takes a while to get the right one especially the right vet. So the first thing I want you to do is get some recommendations from friends and family members who live near you. Ask them who they’ve enjoyed as a vet and why. What was that they liked about that particular vet? A great resource for all of you is to go on the Van Isle Doodle Owners Facebook page.

That’s our private group for Van Isle Doodle puppy owners and ask them for recommendations. Tell people where you live, what area you’re in, and they’ll be happy to help you out. And the other thing I suggest that you do is get a list of questions ready and then make an appointment with the vet and pay for that appointment. Go in and ask for a consultation. You can get a good idea, a good starting point for vets if you go on their websites and you can get a feel for the sort of clinic that they run, how they approach things. So if holistic medicine is important to you, for instance, look for a vet that makes mention of natural ways of dealing with things. If you’re more of a traditional type person, then that won’t be as important to you. But if it is something that matters to you, then have that as one of your questions, ask them what their protocol is.

So if you come in and you have a dog that has an ear infection, is the first course line of defense for them going to be an antibiotic or are they going to suggest something else? Are they going to give you recommendations in the future for how to avoid getting ear infections in your dog? So that’s one thing that you’re going to want to consider. The other thing that matters to me in particular is what’s their emergency policy? Is it those vets that are on call, is there a number that you call? Is it a dispatch center? Is it a shared emergency or do they make you go to the emergency clinic? I’m not a big fan of emergency clinics. Of course they have a very important role, but if you can have your own vet or a vet within your own clinic available after hours if you have an emergency, to me that’s just better.

They already know your dog, you know them, everybody’s comfortable with one another. Some clinics aren’t set up to be able to have dogs as emergencies, so they don’t have overnight care available. It doesn’t mean that it’s not a good vet, it’s just something you need to be aware of. The other thing you want to ask the vet is how familiar are they with labradoodles? See if they know the difference between a multigeneration labradoodle and an early Gen, if they know the difference between an Australian labradoodle and a labradoodle. These are all things that you’ve learned. You’ve learned those from your meetings with me already and you want your vet to know those things. Again, if they don’t and they’re open to hearing about it from you and being taught, great. But if they are not really particularly interested in labradoodles overall, that might not be your best choice.

Many vets are actually purebred show dog breeders and some of them have an aversion to hybrids such as labradoodles. Those are the kinds of ones I’d say you might want to avoid. Then the other thing you want to ask them is their familiarity with ESN. ESN is early spay neuter or pediatric spay and neuter. Your puppies are all going to be spayed and neutered before they go home to you, so you want to vet who knows what that is, understands it and is at least not opposed to it. Some vets have strong opinions and don’t favorite generally because they aren’t aware of what is involved and you can tell them that your puppy is not going to be over 40 pounds and that usually puts their mind at ease. The only time there’s any concern is if you’re dealing with a large breed and a dog who’s going to mature to over 60 pounds.

And then the other thing that we like to ask vets is what about titer testing? Part of your health warranty with Van Isle Doodles is going to be that you titer test your dog as opposed to giving them boosters. There’s a lot of reasons for that and we’ll go into that in another video session. But ask your vet, do you do titer testing? Are you in favor of titer testing? That’s something that I would really find important for that I was going to be working with. Most vets do do it now, but you just want to double check for that. And the other final thing I would question them on his raw food. Your puppies are going to be lean to raw food and our recommendation is for you to follow with that. All our dogs are fed raw food and again, that’ll be the subject of another video. But get the best opinion on that. You don’t really want to deal with one who’s entirely against raw food, titers, labradoodles, ESN, and everything that your puppy’s going to be in and have.

So it’s a good starting point those questions, and of course they’ll have their own. Now, the other thing you need to get lined up is a trainer. Part of your purchase contract and your health warranty requires that you take your puppy to puppy socialization classes and to training right away. So you’re going to want to get signed up for those trainers that are well regarded and have good puppy programs are usually booked quite far in advance. The best puppy classes that we can recommend for you is Communicate Nine operating out near Brentwood Bay, that’s Darcy. You can contact me if you want her information. Other than that, again, go on the Facebook owners page. Ask them, who did you have as your trainer? I live in Vancouver, I live in North Van, I live in Burnaby, Squamish, wherever you’re located, ask the people that are in that area for recommendations. That’s usually your best bet of all.

Darcy from Communicate Nine is in Victoria, so not handy if you happen to be living in Pemberton or Whistler or somewhere that’s not on the island here or if you’re in Port Hardy or Campbell river. But ask again on the owner’s page we have puppies already pretty much everywhere and also ask your friends. If you’ve seen a dog that you think is very well trained and well socialized, ask them, where did you go when your dog was a puppy? Those are usually your best sources of information. Then again, check the website, look at the feel, see if it appeals to you or not, if it’s the type of training that you think you would enjoy doing. It’s really important that you work well with the trainer. Now, something to keep in mind is labradoodles are very what we call soft breed. Their temperaments are gentle and easy going and that’s why everybody loves them so much.

So you need to find a trainer who recognizes that and knows that that’s how you work with these dogs. You also want to ask them if they use luring. Luring is when we train with a treat. If you’ve read the books that I’ve recommended to you, Ian Dunbar, Sophia Yen, Yolo found out quite a bit about luring already. And the other method is called shaping and that’s a newer approach I guess you would say where you wait for the puppy to do the behavior you were asking them to learn and then reward them. So if you want them to sit, you would encourage a situation where they will sit, but you don’t use a treat to lure them into the sit. Then when they sit, you give them the treat. Whereas luring, you use the treat to encourage them even more to do the behavior that you’re looking for. I like to do a combination of both myself, but if I had to choose a trainer, I would choose one that does luring as opposed to shaping.

And you also want to check to make sure that your trainer is certified. Anybody can say they’re a dog trainer was no certification whatsoever. Now, if you live near us there are all the ways into Victorian and IMO, Taylor who works for us has positive results and she is a wonderful puppy trainer. She’s happy to travel and again, you can ask me and I will forward you her contact information. So those are your two things to start working on for this week. It’s good to have these things set up. Also, remember you are picking your puppy up on December 27th. It is during the holidays and a busy period. Your health warranty does require you take your puppy in for a wellness exam within three days of getting your puppy. So I would suggest making the appointment fairly soon. Do your vet interviews soon, pick your vet and then get your appointment in there so you don’t run into problems over the holiday season.

So again, here’s another little glimpse at the kids. You can see Mr Green color is just, as I said, he’s still talk in a way and move in away and being a bit of a fuss budget. Again, don’t beat him with a brush of thinking, oh, he’s going to be a difficult puppy. He’ll probably end up being the easiest going and quietest one of the bunch since he started off this way, but they’re all doing great. As I said, they’ve all almost doubled their birth weights. They’re strong, very content and Spirit is just being a fabulous mom to her babies. She gets that from her mama Bijou who was always our best mommy. So we hope you enjoyed the video and seeing all of the puppies and if you have any questions be sure to post them below and happy to answer them all. And we hope you’ll subscribe to our channel. Thanks so much and we’ll see you next week with our next update.