Day 44 A.M. & P.M.

Mary-Ann Sontag July 9, 2020

Our day is starting extra early and so the main post/pics for today will happen later — but here are some sleepy puppies getting ready for yet another busy morning…

Please have a wonderful day!

Also, Galen thinks he fixed the comments so that they are easier for people to post as a Guest — in case anyone wants to try and report :)

EVENING: PHOTOS FROM THE DAY

Thank you for testing the Comments— it works! So fun to have comments again!

Eden was here again this morning before she headed back home (North Carolina) and so there were more puppy evaluations — this is Larkspur…

Suzanne also stopped by and there was some draft practice and a walk in the Lupines…

It was lovely and cool in the morning…

We switched from the splash pad to a sprinkler today — that was fun.

The evaluations help inform puppy placement but six weeks is still a bit early for everything to be finalized. Rather, it is a snapshot — and we will keep watching and learning about who and what each Wildflower is meant to become.

When it gets warm, we migrate inside but because of Covid, we only do visits in the outside area. Therefore, visiting hours are done once it warms up — usually by 12 or 1. You have to be a Morning Person to visit the Wildflowers :)

The inside area is in the living room — this is Larkspur again…

Clarkia — the slide was a big hit all of a sudden…

Paintbrush…

Good Night, Friends!

Day 43 A.M. & P.M.

Mary-Ann Sontag July 8, 2020

The Wildflowers will not be vaccinated for anything before they leave for their new homes.

Am I an Anti-Vaxxer? Absolutely Not!

They won’t be vaccinated because a vaccine would not work and it would create a 2 - 3 weeks window of risk for the puppies.

Let me explain.

A single vaccination is all that is needed to provide protection to a puppy. We typically do a series simply because we are not certain when the vaccination will “work” — and that is because puppies arrive with their mother’s antibodies, which both protect puppies from the disease(s) but also “block” the vaccination.

We checked Daisy’s antibodies before the puppies were born using the Canine Nomograph. The results showed that the earliest the puppies would respond to a Distemper vaccine is nine weeks and the soonest they will respond to a Parvo vaccine is 15 weeks.

A vaccination at eight weeks, therefore, would would be ineffective because of high levels of maternal antibodies.

But starting at about nine weeks, the puppies won’t have maternal antibodies against Distemper and the window of disease risk is wide open.

If we vaccinated at eight weeks, the puppy would not have a second vaccination — one that would work for Distemper — until 11 or 12 weeks. Therefore, from about nine weeks until 11 - 12 weeks, the puppy would be unprotected from Distemper.

A typical vaccination schedule is 8, 12, and 16 weeks. If such a schedule were utilized with the Wildflowers, the first one would be useless and represent an unnecessary vaccine burden, the second one would be effective against Distemper but useless for Parvo, and the third one should protect for Parvo and would be unnecessary for Distemper.

Extra or unnecessary vaccinations are not a good plan — we should minimize as we can. That will be a conversation for another day — the Wildflowers have a busy day of visiting and we need to get started.

EVENING: Photos from the day and VIDEO (click the word video).

This is the Wildflowers’ outside play area…

How many visitors do you see?

Sit-down nursing is now a thing…

Paintbrush and Mallow…

Lupine…

Eden Jonas is here and we spent the day evaluating puppies and visiting — Suzanne joined us for some of the time. The stacking practice paid off — this is Paintbrush…

Good Night, Friends!

Day 42 A.M. & P.M.

Mary-Ann Sontag July 7, 2020

As I consider sending the Wildflowers to new homes, I feel the need to revisit the importance of avoiding adverse experiences.

I have been so careful to support and encourage the puppies’ expanding developmental capabilities, giving them ample and different opportunities to support mastery while avoiding situations that could send them into a fight-flight-freeze response, which floods the developing brain with stress hormones (to say it simply).

This is not just a time of learning — this is a time in which the puppy brain is being wired, so to speak, for the rest of their lives — good and bad. I am doing my part to set the puppy brains on a good circuit — new homes will need to take over with the same care and thought.

What does this mean?

New puppies should not be unduly stressed — and stress is in the eye of the beholder, as I have said before.

You may know the big dog is friendly but the puppy might not. You know the new house is safe but the puppy may be feeling, “what the actual heck is going on and where is my family!?” You know the crowd of new people who want to meet the puppy are loving and kind — the puppy may see them as a scary stampede with no maternal protection in sight.

When a puppy is concerned or stressed, you will likely see either an attempt to run/hide or the puppy will shut down/freeze. Both mean the puppy was put in a situation that was too much, too soon.

The solution is not to try and convince the puppy everything is fine — the solution is to make the situation fine from the perspective of the puppy.

Put the big dog behind a gate and let the puppy decide how much to interact. Close off the house except one room, and let the puppy gain confidence in one space with a buster cube or stuffed kong before adding more. Have the new people sit on the floor and let the puppy decide to visit (and get a tiny treat when she makes that choice).

In other words: Puppy Steps.

One cannot force or bribe confidence — it develops from mastering developmentally appropriate experiences. Positive experiences help the puppy understand it is wonderful to try new things — scary experiences teach them to be hesitant and nervous when confronted with novel.

This means we should offer the puppy new situations and environments but remain keenly attuned to the puppy’s reactions. A puppy who is accepting and fine with a new thing explores it — he does not suddenly lie down/shut down or try to get away from it.

This is all important stuff — not only are we constantly teaching the puppy but we are actively creating long-term neurological changes in the brain. Yes, the puppies will have inherited temperament tendencies but it is not Nature vs. Nurture — it is Nature AND Nurture.

Bottom Line: New homes need to avoid letting their excitement over their new family member cause massive flooding of novel experiences for a puppy.

Further, the humans need to fine tune their assessment skills so as to recognize when a puppy has been pushed beyond their current developmental capabilities and/or comfort level.