Puppy Love Day

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Check out what I got from Berkeley.

She is not even 4.5 years old.

I am reminded that when kids live an intentional, thoughtful, informed, and enriched life they are able to flourish and excel.

It is not so different for puppies, except they are unlikely to send written Valentine’s Day notes.

I love thinking of ways to enrich my puppies’ lives/environment. It is fun and I know it matters.

Rosebud is part of the puppies’ enrichment activities.

There is a tension — a sweet spot — between not enough stimulation and too much. If we under-enrich, we fail to push towards potential and lose opportunities to hardwire in positive ways. If we overdo it, we cause puppies (and humans) to shut down and risk unfortunate hardwiring in the developing brains.

Sirius and Heze with Miss Piggy 2-14.jpg

Miss Piggy was new today, and the puppies noticed and interacted — very cool. That is Sirius and Heze.

Novelty is important and so you will rarely see the same things with the puppies two days in a row. Because they grow and change so quickly at this age, even a two-day break from something gives it back some novelty.

Raising puppies in this intentional and enriched way doesn’t matter to everyone and that is perfectly fine; there are breeders for people who just want a puppy — or better yet, please rescue a dog or a puppy if early life experience is not critical to you.

My goal is always to place puppies with people who value and appreciate the informed and intentional way we raise puppies because it means those new homes will continue the efforts when they assume responsibility for the puppy’s life and welfare.