Puppies

Hi everybody. We are here with a tasty treat. Today we have the puppies from the Cinnamon Swirl Litter and this is their six week update. So we’re going to take a look at each of the puppies, give you a little bit of news on what they’re up to. Gave you an update on Hazel and then we’re just going to do a little overview of nutrition for the puppies and what they’re eating. So I have with me the only boy from this litter, and this is Choco. Choco is a chocolate phantom. And he is the puppy that is just a phantom with no white markings on him. This week the puppies have all started going outside and they’ve started going all the way down to the back exploring the full amount of our property. So this little labradoodle fellow is absolutely thinking that that is heaven.

He just is crazy about going outside at full speed, runs out as fast as he can, rolls in the grass and just has the best time. We are putting the Cinnamon Swirl puppies out with the shake it up puppies. So we have all 18 puppies out at once, which is really fun and Choco does really well fitting in with all of the puppies. This little fellow is very gregarious. He is very kissy and he’s just the sweetest, nicest, most balanced puppy in the world. Just a real doll. So that’s our little Choco fellow. Next we have Miss Shirl. There we go Choco. Swirl is one of the beautiful girls and she is the darker chocolate phantom in this litter with the beautiful white markings. So she has this gorgeous white on her nose under her chin. She has a beautiful swirl of white on her neck as well.

This little puppy is the sweetie of the litter. She is the quieter of the three. She is very, very strong with her eye contact. She likes to look to the people to get her cues and to find out what’s going on and she loves to be picked up. Her favorite thing is to be rocked and to have a good snuggle with her head right in your neck. Now, even though she is a very cuddly and affectionate girl, she also thinks outside is a really just the cat’s meow. She has really found herself by going out onto the grass, exploring all the new areas and just having all that space in the back to run. She loves to go at full speed and go and see what’s out there in the great big world for her. So that’s our little Swirl girl, our little sweetie pie.

And next the other puppy in the litter is Cinnamon. Now cinnamon is also a chocolate phantom with lots of white flash as breeders that’s what we refer to the white markings that are on a dog. We call it flash. So she has her four white paws. She has white on her nose, her chin, her head, and then she has this beautiful rough around here. Now Miss Cinnamon, so named for her color is a dilute, which means that’s why she has the lighter chocolate color. Now this puppy, she has the sweetest little face ever and she just looks like a real angel, but she is also a little dynamo. She is full of fun and adventure when she’s outside. She can’t wait to get out there and run like the wind and when she’s out with the shake it up puppies, she’s one of the smallest puppies out there.

It doesn’t bother her at all. She has lots of confidence and she is well able to stand up for herself if somebody starts rolling her over or bossing her around. She doesn’t hesitate to stand up and give them in return yet. “That’s you. I’m talking about you.” She also is super affectionate and cuddly. This little girl is just going to be a dream to take home. She will be the ideal balance of fun and love. That is our little Cinnamon. So that’s all of the puppies for this week and their update. The main thing that has happened with them is that Hazel’s gone back to her guardians, Jeff and Denise. So they are on their own now and they are exploring more of the outdoors. So Hazel went home on Saturday and the puppies, they haven’t really even blinked an eye at having their mom leave them.

It’s amazing how the mums can leave. And within an hour of being back home, they pretty much entirely forgotten that they had puppies and the puppies can have their mom leave. And when they don’t see her, it’s like, oh well big deal, when Hazel and breezy we’re here, or, and it’s the case with any litter and their mom, when the puppies can see their mom, they get very excited and quite agitated as of course. They want their mom to come in and to cuddle them and mostly to feed them. The instinct to nurse is all pervasive. So once their moms are gone and they don’t see their mom every day, it’s like, okay, well that’s fine. And instead they react to seeing either Reynolds or myself because now we represent that scarce resource known as food. So we’re going to talk just a little bit about their food today.

I know you’re all watching all of our other videos and that you’ve watched the other ones on nutrition, on raw food, on dry food, on the treats and bones. So I know you’re pretty familiar with all those things. And for anyone who’s watching this video and hasn’t seen those other ones, we would encourage you to go and look at our other litters and run through the episodes and find the ones on nutrition, raw food, bones, treats, et cetera, and watch those to get a full education on the things that we feel are important in terms of nutrition for your dog. All of our videos right at the top have a little description and there’s a little box that says see more. If you click on that, there’s a timestamp for each video. So you can go to the part that speaks specifically about food and just click on there.

It will take you directly to that part of the video. You can watch it, it’s shorter and you can learn what you need to learn about the nutrition aspects that we speak of. So today we’re just going to go over a few of the highlights for the dog’s nutrition. Now the main thing is all of our puppies are weaned to raw food. Your puppy will come to you and never have tasted a piece of kibble. Well, other than as a treat here and there, but they will not have had any meals of any kibble. And sometimes people wonder, well why do we do that? There’s a large number of reasons, but overall, the main reason for doing that is it is healthier for your dog. First of all, your dog is going to have beautiful teeth for a lifetime. You never need to brush your dog’s teeth.

They’re not going to need to go to the dentist. They’re not going to develop gum disease. You won’t find that ugly tartar buildup on their teeth if they’re eating a good quality raw diet and having lots of nice fresh bones. Those are both natures toothbrushes. And the other thing is with kibble, because of how it is made and how dogs are not able to actually break the kibble down properly in their mouths, it converts into sugar in their mouth, which attaches to their gums and their teeth and forms plaque and tartar and causes decay, bad breath, abscesses and all sorts of things that you see in older dogs who are a kibble fit. Whereas if dogs eat the diet that they are intended to eat, which is an all-natural one, which is raw food and bones and organs, their teeth are great.

They stay in that shape right up until the day they die, which makes it easier for your dog to stay in prime condition because if they’re able to still eat properly when they’re older than they are going to be a healthier dog or as if you see one of the older dogs who’s eaten kibble, who’ve lost some of their teeth because they’ve gone rotten or their jaws have gum disease, not their jaws, sorry, their gums have gum disease, then they’re not able to eat a regular diet anymore because they have pain in their mouths or they’re missing their teeth.

Usually it’s their canines that they’re missing. So just take all of that into consideration when you are considering what we are saying about eating a raw diet. It’s not just for today as puppies, it’s intended to be for their entire lives to keep them in the best possible health that we can. Now, of course, it’s important to use a good quality raw product. So we give you recommendations on various brands. And we give you also some of the brand that we start our puppies off with. The one that we start off with we don’t suggest that you necessarily feed that to your dog for life if you wish to, that’s fine. But mostly the puppies prefer when they get a little older to move to a bit of a coarser grind. The crudo that we feed them as babies is a very fine grind intentionally, so it’s easier for the puppies to manipulate.

So that’s part of the reason for feeding them raw food. It’s the underlying reason. There’s nothing to say though, that some dogs are not going to do better on kibble. Some dogs just can’t handle eating a raw diet for whatever reason. And certainly if you ever have one of our puppies and you have any concerns about feeding your dog raw food, then we want you to get in touch with us and have a conversation with us so we can work out what is appropriate for your dog. Now some people feel a little squeamish or uncomfortable handling raw dog food. Some people have concerns about, well how do I keep my home safe, my kitchen safe? What about my kids? What about myself? What are the health risks? Are their health risks? How long can we keep it out? And things like that. So raw dog food is exactly the same as raw meat in your kitchen that you prepare for your family.

All of the same things that you do to keep yourself safe when you’re preparing those foods is exactly what you do for raw dog food. Raw dog food is all human grade food and it is all inspected just like yours is. Now there are things included in raw dog food that is not in a human diet as we do not eat as many organ meats and we don’t eat our meet with the bones in it and things like that. And there’s more skin and different types of fats that go into the dog’s food that are sold commercially for people to eat. So that’s the primary difference. But in terms of health and safety, it’s every bit the same as if you’re working with chicken or ground beef or any type of animal protein in your kitchen. So what we suggest you do is have a cutting board that you’re going to prepare your dog’s food on that’s just for your dog and have one knife that’s just for your dog to be able to cut off the chunk off of the block or the tube, whatever it is that you’re feeding your raw dog, and just keep that for your dog.

And then all you need to do is, wash that in hot soapy water and that’s all you need to do. And then wash your hands afterward. That’s it. There’s nothing magical about it. There’s nothing dangerous. There’s nothing worrisome. In fact, dogs who eat raw food do not have bacteria in their mouths from the raw food. They may have bacteria in their mouths from licking themselves in other locations or licking something on the ground, but they will never have bacteria in their mouths from what they eat. Whereas a dog who eats kibble always has bacteria in their mouth. You are more likely to get bacteria from a kibble fed dog than you ever are from a raw fed dog. Certainly not from the food. You’re not going to get any bacteria. Now, people often worry about salmonella and oh my goodness, what are we going to do about salmonella and what about our kids?

And what if the dog licks us? Well our dogs lick us hundreds of times a day? We have way more dogs than you do at home. So for instance, right now we have the 18 puppies. We have our own four dogs, our adult dogs. We have two puppies we’re keeping for breeders in Europe. So they stay here with us for a longer period of time. And we have one of our guardian dogs with us as she is in season, so she’s here to make some puppies for us. So we have all those dogs and they’re all eating raw food and they’re constantly licking us. You can see from just in the beginning of this video, I have my mouth on the dog’s mouths all the times their tongues are in my mouth all the time. They lick my nose, my eyes, everywhere.

And yes we try to remember to always wash our hands, but we don’t, let’s be honest, Reynold and I often are handling the puppies and then go and do something and then forget to wash our hands. We do always remember after we handle their food and before we prepare our own food or eat food with our hands, we wash our hands then, but throughout the day we often are forgetting to wash our hands. So now I’ve made the video and I may go and do something and I’ll forget to wash my hands immediately. And we’re both quite healthy and we’re still here. So about 35% of all dogs are carrying salmonella in their bodies. This is sort of an average estimate. Salmonella doesn’t generally affect dogs. When dogs eat a raw food diet, their stomachs days at the correct PH balance. Dogs naturally have a really acidic cast iron gut, and that’s because they’re scavengers.

So that allows them to eat things that normally certainly we couldn’t eat or process without being really ill. So they can eat things that are what we would term rotten. They can eat garbage, they can eat just everything and be able to process it without a problem. And that’s because their PH level is so high in their stomach, it’s so acidic that they are able to break things down really easily and handle all of these extra bacteria. Whereas if they’re on a kibble diet, that artificially lowers their Ph to a very low level. This leaves them susceptible to a variety of different infections. You will find dogs on kibble get way more ear infections if they’re female, they get a lot of vaginal infections. Both genders get UTI. You’ll find dogs who lick their paws and sometimes incessantly lick them to the point where they wear the fur off and they get infections on their feet and so forth.

So that’s all part of the overriding reason for keeping your dog on a raw food diet. Raw fed dogs almost never get worms and it is also a great deterrent for fleas and ticks. Raw fed dogs don’t appeal to fleas and ticks as kibble dogs do. And that’s because there’s sugar and other things in kibble and that is what attracts the fleas, mosquitoes, even, the ticks, any sort of bugs. So when your dog is attracting them, they’re also near you, which you don’t want, so it helps you as well. But you don’t need to worry about the salmonella. Generally when you see recalls for dog food per salmonella, it’s kibble. Kibble often has salmonella in it and that’s because the kid was in the bag and the fat goes rancid in the bag. Kibble is designed to have a shelf life of two and three years.

So it’s sitting on the shelf forever and ever until it gets purchased. And oftentimes as soon as you open the bag and the air comes in, all of the fats and oils and the kibble become rancid really quickly. And that’s generally where salmonella problems come. Salmonella also comes from the plants where the kibble is process. And it’s not to say it’s not impossible to happen with the raw, but it’s very seldom that it happens with the raw. So that’s just a little tidbit of information there because a lot of people go, “Oh, about Salmonella and how are we ever going to keep our kitchen clean and oh, what about kids? And what about the dog’s tongue?” So relax, you don’t need to worry. And I’m pretty sure going forward we’ll find that there are more and more and more raw fed dogs as people realize the overriding health benefits for your dog.

So that’s just some tips and tricks on working with raw food. Now if you happen to be a Vegan or a vegetarian or a pescatarian and just fine working with meat, something that’s not appealing, there’s a couple of ways to handle that. First of all, get yourselves some surgical gloves. They’re really inexpensive. You can find them anywhere. That way you don’t have to touch it. Some people just have an aversion to it. If you’re a woman and you happen to have longer fingernails, or if you have gel finger tips it’s not nice to have that getting underneath your nails. So if you wear the gloves, problem solved, they’re inexpensive, you wear them and you throw them away, then you don’t have to actually touch it if that gives you the heebie jeebies the other thing, the dogs prefer to eat their raw food AC, although that’s counterintuitive to what we think they would like and how we would like our meals, dogs do prefer their food to be slightly frozen.

So you can take the food out [inaudible 00:18:12] partially that way there’s not a smell, there’s not blood or anything else. You can cut it up with your knife, with your gloves on. Put it into individual ziplocs or however you wish to store it. And then it’s easy. Just take it out of the Ziploc or out of your, plastic container into the dish. There you go. Super easy. And that’s one other thing you do want to wash daily is your dog’s dish again in hot soapy water. And we have a dish wong that we use just for the dog so that we’re not using that to clean their dishes and our own dishes. We have a separate one for the dogs, but it’s important that you do clean their dish every day. Same with their water dish.

You want to wash their water dish with hot soapy water every day as well. Bacteria can build up in the water just from what it’s getting out of the [inaudible 00:19:01]. So that’s a couple of ways to make handling the raw a little less gruesome if those things puts you off. The other thing you can do is you can buy raw food that’s already formed in a shape. Sometimes it comes in patty, but in individual servings and they’re wrapped and all you have to do is take the wrapper off and put it out for your dog so you really aren’t touching anything. No need for a knife, no need for a chopping block, nothing at all. And if you really have a problem with raw meat you can get dehydrated raw food. Primal is the brand that we recommend and it just comes in a little cube.

It looks like, compressed alfalfa and the dog’s quite like it. It’s not as good for them, but still it’s good. And you can either rehydrate it with water or goat’s milk or you can just feed it to them in its format that it comes in. So those are some ways to help you when you are dealing with raw and you find it unpleasant to do so the little dehydrated things are also great for when you’re traveling because it can be really hard to travel with the raw dog food. so it’s great to just take us some of those. And you can’t take that across the border as well if you’re traveling into the US and it’s easy to pack in your suitcase if you’re flying with your dog. The bags are very compact and they are very concentrated so you don’t feed your dog a large quantity.

But the one thing that is really essential that you add to your raw food diet is bones. Your dog does need to have fresh bones. Fresh bones should comprise one third of your dog’s diet. It’s really important that they have the calcium, they have the phosphorus and the other minerals that are in the bones. They can be any kind of bone. A dog can eat any bone whatsoever as long as it’s raw, but never a cooked bone. You hear sometimes people saying, “Oh geez, I’ve heard about dogs that have eaten bones and they’ve gotten them stuck in their stomachs and had to go to the vet or they’d been stuck in their throat or this, that, or the other thing.” So again, if you have a cable fed dog and they have that lower PH level, they’re not able to break the bone up in their stomachs and it can cause a problem definitely.

If you have a raw fed dog, they have that good PH level and they can take a good generous hunk of bone and they will break that down naturally. And there’ll be no problem for your dog. You won’t get stuck in their throat because they have the nice, strong, healthy teeth. So they’re able to crush the ball more effectively and they don’t get quite as big chunks that are going into their system. And again, as long as you aren’t feeding cooked bones, you’re not going to get sharp points. Now, if your dog has a bone and you see there’s a little bit left and it is pointed, pick it up and throw it away. Don’t let them have the same bone for more than four days. The bone is going to get dried out and it will start to splinter, even if it’s raw.

So you want to make sure you throw them out and rotate them every four days. If you have a marrow bone, you want to make sure that it’s large enough that they don’t have just a little ring left because they could get their jaw stuck on the ring and have the bone stuck in their jaw. That’s not a good thing or a very pleasant thing. So you want to have a good, decent size bone and everywhere you can buy raw food will also sell raw bones. You can get them from your butcher, you can have him custom cut them for you or you can even get them out of the grocery store. We buy ours at the same location that we buy our raw dog food from as they have the ones that are ideal and they have already cut them into the right size for the dogs.

So that’s some tips on feeding your dog with raw food. You can feed your dog all sorts of fruits and vegetables for treats when you’re doing training. Don’t feel shy at all about using dehydrated treats such as the ones we have from puppy love for training purposes or in a KONG. But you can also mix that up with little bits of kibble. You can easily buy a small bag of the nutrient subzero kibble and you can put that into their KONG. And you can also have that when you go to training class, kibble represents a low value treat and it’s really important when you’re trading to have a low value and a high value. And you’ll learn that when you go to your classes, when you use each one of those. And the kibble also is not as high or low in calorie or as rich as the dehydrated liver treats are.

So you wouldn’t want to feed your dog like a pound of liver treats, obviously. But with the kibble, you don’t need to worry so much about it and whether it’s a causing any harm to your dogs in terms of being too rich. So that’s some tips on nutrition today. And what we really want to stress is if for any reason you’re uncomfortable about feeding raw or you have any questions or concerns about the health, the safety, is it balanced? If you go on, your vet says, “Oh, I don’t think raw food is the way to go. We really don’t like raw food.” Come and talk to us. Ask us a question here below these videos. Email us if you’re one of our families or post on the Facebook group if you want. We’re all here to support you and to provide you with as much information as we possibly can.

Most of us don’t get training in nutrition, so raw dog food is something they’re not familiar with and sometimes that’s why they tend to be a little bit hesitant about it. Also, they worry that you’re not buying a commercially prepared product that’s properly balanced so we can help you address your vets concerns and we’re certainly more than happy to address any worries that you may have and work together to find a solution if you’re having any problems with feeding your dog raw food. So we hope this video was helpful. We hope you enjoyed seeing all the puppies. Hazel is happily back at home. She’s all relaxed and just settled right back in as if she had never left. And the puppies are doing great without, or not worried at all. And everybody’s just doing fabulously. So we hope you give us a thumbs up if you found this video helpful and we look forward to seeing you again with your week seven update for your Australian labradoodle puppies from [inaudible 00:25:23] labradoodle