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Jubilee Puppies
AN
EXAMPLE OF HOW A GREAT BREEDER
MAKES GREAT DOGS! |
Welcome to Dear Jubilee, a weblog (i.e., blog)
chronicling the development of a litter of four puppies during the critical
fifth through tenth weeks of their lives, using the Puppy Head Start Program of
Corally Burmaster, all-breed trainer and Airedale breeder, and the ideas of Pat
Hastings, author and lecturer of Tricks of the Trade.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
We've Graduated!
The puppies are nine weeks old. They have worked on
the Head Start equipment for four weeks, exploring three new configurations a
day, sometimes indoors, sometimes outdoors. All four puppies are confident in
new situations, eager to learn and explore new things, and ready to take on the
world. All will be fun to train, and all will be great companions.
These puppies have now started the next stage of their
journeys. In the next five days, all will go to their new homes: one is going
to Wisconsin, one to San Antonio Texas, one will stay with the breeder in
Holliday TX, and one will stay with us
posted by Jubilee |
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Thursday, January 13, 2005
The puppies have been in the program for just
four weeks. They are very comfortable and very stable on all of the equipment.
In fact, we call this picture: Graduation. posted by Jubilee |
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Now that the pups are eight weeks old, they
are enjoying their green nylon toddler tunnel. On this day, it started raining
heavily while they were outside. The puppies demonstrated their Head Start
training: they all went into the tunnel and waited to be brought in. Not one
got wet!
posted by Jubilee |
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Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Puppies are seven weeks old
The puppies are now seven weeks old. They went for
their temperament testing today (January 5, 2005), and you could see the
results of their head start experience in the results.
All four walked or ran to the stranger who was the
evaluator, climbed in her lap, and covered her face with kisses. All four
demonstrated high prey drives (pouncing on a rag or other item that was dragged
across the floor in front of them, and shaking it or tugging on it).
All four were high on retrieving, running after the
item, picking it up, playing with it, and bringing it back to the examiner. All
four were very high on food drives, working diligently to get the food out of
the examiners closed hand or out from under the upside down food dish.
All four followed the examiner wherever she went. In
short, they each demonstrated on their own without the presence and support of
their littermates that they will be a joy to train and wonderful companions in
their future homes.
It has been raining here in Dallas for the past
four or five days. That means that the outdoor play yard is not available for
them. So we have exercised all of our imagination to keep the indoor play yard
a fun and challenging and continually changing environment for the puppies.
Today, we put together a very complex arrangement of
dog walks, tippy board and cardboard tunnel, and the puppies soon were putting
every part of it to use. Enjoy the pictures.
posted by
Jubilee |
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When they see me with the camera, they stop
playing, perhaps looking for dinner! posted by Jubilee |
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In fact, the puppies found this configuration
to be very stimulating. Some went into the tunnel and laid in wait for their
siblings, darting out at them. Others walked around the three dog walks and
balanced on the tippy board. posted by Jubilee |
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Exploring every niche of an intricate indoor
configuration.
posted by
Jubilee |
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The rains closed the puppies in this week, and
the challenge is to keep the environment changing and interesting. The small
slide can be brought indoors, and they can climb the stairs and go down by
themselves.
posted by
Jubilee |
2:26
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Neisha really enjoys the puppies and is very
gentle with them.
posted by
Jubilee |
2:24
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Configuration outside last Friday, before all
the rain started. Puppy Head Start depends on continually reconfiguring the
same equipment in new ways, giving the puppies new things to explore and new
problems to solve. posted by Jubilee |
2:23
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Wednesday, December 29, 2004
A new configuration is ready for the puppies.
We try to make sure that there are at least three different configurations each
day. As long as the weather permits, these are done outdoors. When the weather
closes in, then we use the indoor play yard, and keep changing it around.
posted by
Jubilee |
1:49
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The grandchildren enjoy the play yard as much as the
puppies!
posted by
Jubilee |
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December 29, 2004
The puppies are now six
weeks old and in the past eight days, we have seen a lot of development. They
are very sturdy on their legs, and they are eager to explore everything. Today,
they had a visit from three more grandchildren: Matt, Josh and Charlie Cameron.
The puppies' biggest accomplishment? As of today, they are able to climb the
stairs to the platform and come down the slide on their own.
posted by
Jubilee |
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Following Green Girl's example, Red Girl
gamely climbed the stairs and went down the slide on her own.posted by Jubilee
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This morning, the puppies were out very early
in the morning, but they were ready to explore.posted by Jubilee |
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Grandchildren Josh, Matt and
Charlie and the puppies are delighted to see each other! posted by
Jubilee |
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Children have an instinctive gentleness: here,
Matt gently rubs the tummy of one of the puppies. posted by Jubilee |
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Charlie gets down on the floor with the
puppies
posted by
Jubilee |
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There is nothing quite like a
grandchild with a puppy.
posted by
Jubilee |
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Green Girl sets the pace, climbing the stairs
and taking turns sliding down the slide with the children.posted by Jubilee |
12:40
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Wait for me, Red Girl seems to say, and climbs
up the stairs after Charley, and .
And down she comes!
If you can do it, so can I, and
Red Girl tries to climb up the slide so she can slide down it.
Another configuration: this time
with what we call the silver tunnel. This tunnel is actually an
air-conditioning duct, soft and squishy and pliable. They have also learned
that pulling on the string of the plastic duck toy makes it go
"Quack-Quack!"
It doesn't take the puppies long to find the
opening to the silver tunnel. They eagerly chew on it, use it for rest breaks,
and eventually go through it.
Not only can the puppies go through the silver
tunnel, they can climb the stairs and go over it via the ramp to the
slide.
The puppies do chain behaviors, going through
the tunnel and out to the tippy board and then up the stairs to the ramp.
As the day progresses, the puppies
use a different configuration, this time with the cardboard tunnel, tippy board
and stairs with a ramp to the slide. Someone did make it to the slide because
the rubber balls that were up there ended up on the ground!
Early morning and the puppies find a new
configuration, using the A-Frame and a ramp to the castle and slide.
Puppies start exploring the new configuration immediately.
Sunday, December 26, 2004
December 26, 2004
Tomorrow will mark seven days of the puppies being in
Corally Burmaster's Puppy Head Start program.
In the past week, they have adapted to a new living
arrangement, spending their days in four areas (their puppy pen for napping and
sleeping; their indoor play yard; their outdoor play yard; and our kitchen and
surrounding areas).
They have grown bigger and stronger, walking, trotting
and bounding sturdily; walking up three steps and then down three steps; trying
to climb the plastic steps to their slide; maneuvering along an 8" dog walk
without falling off; handling unstable surfaces like the teeter totter and
tippy board; and much more.
They drag scatter rugs from
one place to another, try to drag each other, and have no fear of strangers or
of the bigger dogs.
posted by
Jubilee |
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After a long day of learning new things,
meeting new people, and having free range of the kitchen while their people
were cooking and eating, the puppies were only too glad to sack out and go to
sleep. There are three in this picture. Can you find all of them?
We added an overhead swinging toy to the puppies outside
play yard to see how they would react to it. . .
The puppies played hard with the new overhead
swinging toy, grabbing it and running with it under the ramp to the slide.
Wrestling with each other enables
the puppies to learn three things: (1) Teeth hurt, (2) if you get hurt, screech
and the other one will let you go, and (3) if the puppy you are chewing on
screeches, you better let go!
Their indoor play yard contains a half crate
with a cozy fleece mat where the puppies can retire for a nap whenever they
choose
Under the watchful eyes of Neisha (Coldstream
Ovation O'Jubilee), this puppy goes down the slide.
She pranced away with her
tail up and went back to the stairs (which she cannot yet climb) for another
turn. According to Corally Burmaster, equipment like the dog walk and the slide
helps the puppies learn for themselves how to concentrate on what their back
legs are doing.
After three days of freezing temperatures and
their equipment being covered with snow, the sun came out today, and the
puppies returned to their outdoor play yard. They have mastered walking the
full length of their 10-foot dog walk that is just four inches off the
ground.
Hard to see the plastic florescent light cover on the white
tile floor, but the puppies took to this surface as readily as the ones they
already knew. Pat Hastings says that all puppies by seven weeks of age should
have been on seven surfaces.
So far, these puppies, who are two days short of six
weeks old, have been on carpet, newspaper, grass, rice mat, gravel, fiberglass
crate, concrete, tile, wood, grass mat, plastic stairs and slide, two different
grooming table surfaces as well as a dining room table with a very slipper
finigh, and this latest surface.
Nothing stops them or gives
them pause. Just as the puppies in Corally's article, they bounced over this
latest surface as though it had always been there!
Friday, December 24, 2004
Red girl ponders whether she wants to walk across the
snow-covered dog walk; she decides not to, but tomorrow is another day.
Even though it was quite chilly today, the puppies did
enjoy an outing before the sun went down and it got really cold.
Ben joins in, using what we call the Quack-Quack pull toy
to get the attention of one of the puppies.
Puppies and grandchildren are meant for each other. Here
four year old Zack plays with two of the puppies.
Two days and growing. . .
So far, the puppies have taken to all the new
challenges in their environment with curiosity and innovation.
The "tippy board," which is meant to get them used to
moving on an unstable surface has been turned into a miniature merry-go-round,
with one puppy on it, another standing next to it and pushing it to turn.
They have explored tunnels,
learned to walk on low dog walks (only four inches off the floor), show no
reaction to tipping the teeter totter, and even, when it was still warm a day
ago, going down the slide in the outdoor play yard.
They are puppies,
very young puppies, so they spend a lot of their time sleeping and growing.
They eat heartily, sleep, wake up, and want to play. If they have been sleeping
in their puppy pen, they awake and start yammering to go to their play yard. We
know this because when they are yammering, if we open the gate to their puppy
pen, they tumble out and run to the indoor play yard!
The adventure
has just begun.
Same equipment, but a new configuration: the 4X4s become
steps for a ramp.
Sometimes, it is just relaxing to curl up on or under the
equipment and take a nap.
All of the puppies gathered round the metal tunnel, first
chewing on it, but then, following the lead of green girl, not only going
through it, but using it as a place to take a nap.
Red girl is the first to enter the cardboard
tunnel
Five-week-old green girl explores
the ramp to the tunnel while making friends with Neisha.
Within hours of their arrival on
December 21, the puppies had made themselves right at home, playing on the
"tippy board,"
The largest equipment was used for the outside
play yard; the smaller equipment for the indoor play yard.
This is the large equipment that we collected for the Puppy
Head Start program.
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