Mornings includes shift nursing outside the whelping box until it is empty and can be cleaned and changed; I use white vinegar for cleaning.
This is Daisy with the beginning outside-the-box crew from this morning — I add more puppies as the early ones drop off.
Larkspur getting a face wash
Puppies are interacting more with Daisy — it reflects their growing ability to engage in the external environment.
The next two photos are a sequence with Clover interacting with something new in the whelping box.
I have been reading up on all the benefits of an enriched environment. There is almost no good research on puppies and enriched environments — one published article that tried had SIX subjects, which is basically meaningless. As I have said previously, given what they do to rats I am not unhappy about the lack of puppy research.
The rat research, however, continues to be informative.
There is a great deal of evidence about the benefits of an enriched environment for rat pups, including enhanced learning and memory formation (Hullinger, R., O’Riordan, K., & Burger, K., 2015), reduced behaviors associated with aggression (Abou-Ismail, U., Burman, O., Nicol, C., & Mendl, M., 2010), and positive impact on emotional affect and motor skills (Mosaferi, B., Babri, S., Ebrahimi, H., & Mohaddes, G., 2015).
I could go — rat research is quite the thing. Who knew?! Bottom Line — enriched environments matter a lot.
This should prompt the question: What constitutes an enriched environment?
I cannot just show the puppies Sesame Street videos and provide toys from Lovevery, after all.
So I started reading up on what constitutes an “enriched environment” because what I think is enriched doesn’t matter — it has to be enriched from a puppy point of view.
What I have come up with so far is that I need to consider sensory, cognitive, and motor stimulation. I already do this kind of thing — but I am excited to do it even better.
In my Puppy Palace Enriched Environment I will include things to chew (besides littermates), things to climb (in addition to littermates), opportunities to forage/search, things that make unusual sounds, and so on. It will be a Puppy Palooza of Enrichment — thanks to Amazon.
Something that seems important — after reading all about rat life as well as enriched environments for other animals — is novelty. Creating an enriched environment for three week old puppies and then changing nothing about it for the next few weeks actually isn’t enriched enough. Amazon and I are working on this angle as well.
Mallow was all over this morning. Here is a sequence of him trying to take over a top bunk spot on Buttercup.
What I did not — unfortunately — capture was his tumble off the top bunk. He rolled a couple of times and came back — undaunted — but willing to sleep between his siblings.
The morning puppy pile.
Puppies are almost marching around the whelping box, eyes are opening, and early play efforts continue — but mostly they still sleep and eat.
Sage is pleased to report that he has regained the title of Heavyweight Champion of the Whelping Box — he was 41.75 ounces this morning! Clarkia and Clover are close behind and doing what they can to capture the title tomorrow (i.e., eating like wee piggies).
EVENING: PHOTOS FROM THE DAY
Lupine
Mallow
Larkspur
Mallow on top
Mallow falls again!
Clarkia, Buttercup, Paintbrush and Bob
Cute puppies
The puppies had a visitor — Karma
Sage
They lined themselves up just like that!
Daisy and Clarkia
Good Night!
Work Cited
Abou-Ismail, U., Burman, O., Nicol, C., & Mendl, M. (2010). The effects of enhancing cage complexity on the behaviour and welfare of laboratory rats. Behavioural Processes, 85(2), 172-180.
Hullinger, R., O’Riordan, K., & Burger, K. (2015). Environmental enrichment improves learning and memory and long-term potentiation in young adult rats through a mechanism requiring mGluR5 signaling and sustained activation of p70s6k. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory., 125, 126-134.
Mosaferi, B., Babri, S., Ebrahimi, H., & Mohaddes, G. (2015). Enduring effects of post-weaning rearing condition on depressive- and anxiety-like behaviors and motor activity in male rats. Physiology & Behavior, 142, 131-136.