Early Learning in Dogs

The period from birth to three months of age is the most important in a dog’s life. This is the time when it learns about itself, its littermates, and the world around it. It discovers what is fun and what is dangerous. The more a young dog is allowed to investigate its surroundings, the more developed its brain becomes. A happy, alert pup is easier to train.

At seven days: During the first week of its life, the pup is both blind and deaf. It employs heat sensors in its nose to locate its mother.
At fourteen days: After two weeks, the pup’s eyes are open. Using all four legs, it can now just raise itself off the ground. The head can be lifted
At three weeks: The puppy now has the ability to move around in the direction of its choice, although tentatively.
Six weeks: The confident pup is now ready to investigate the world around it. Movement is deliberate and coordinated.

Make sure your pup meets as many people as possible while it is still very young. Ask friends to kneel down to help curb its inclination to jump up. Advise your friends to avoid eye contact, which often provokes an unduly excited response. Reward calm behavior.

Whenever possible, introduce your pup to other species that it is likely to encounter. It is best to do this when the dog is less than 12 weeks old. After that age, greater care must be taken to make sure that neither predatory instincts nor its fear of strange animals is stimulated. Always supervise meetings.

Don’t encourage bad habits -- reinforce only good behavior. You may find some traits, such as pawing for attention, endearing in a pup, but these habits become unacceptable in an adult dog. If you carry a puppy constantly when its young, it will expect the same treatment if it feels insecure as an adult.

Oversee all your puppy’s activities to make sure that frightening situations are kept to a minimum. Fears that are learned at an early age can develop into enduring phobias unless overcome ra
pidly.

In all relationships with dogs, the human must play the part of ’top dog’. Few dogs want to be pack leaders. The vast majority feel secure knowing that there is someone in command.

Are you the leader of your pack?

Alice England
Makingstuffwithlove.etsy.com

October is Guinea Pig Month!

And this week is all about the babes!

Having owned dozens of piggies in my life,I have been through MANY breeding sessions. And there is nothing more fun than baby guinea pigs!

Breeding should take place when the sow is between 4 and 6 months old. Any sow over one year old that has never been bred is in danger of complications. Prepare your young piggie by giving her a little extra vitamin C and calcium found in broccoli. Vitamin K is also important for blood clotting and can be found in carrots. Keep your boar in good shape! Fat boars can be sterile boars!

Sows come into heat every 15 to 17 days and can be bred at any time of year. Their gestation period is 63-72 days. Leave the boar in the cage for a month and then it is best to remove him as a sow can come into heat within a few hours after giving birth. That would be a no no!

When it is time to deliver, the sow will not waste time making a nest or finding any special place. She will just pick a spot and get down to business! As each pup comes out, she will break the sac and clean it up. They usually have 1 to 3 pups, but I have had up to 5 in as litter. Labor lasts 10-30 minutes. Wouldn't that be nice!

Now the fun begins! Pups are born with eyes open and fur! They begin moving right away and within minutes are wandering around the cage. They are quite carefree as the sow does all the work. As long as you are caring properly for the sow, it is unlikely that problems will occur. They will nurse for 4-6 weeks and should be eating solid food quite well by then. Separate the boys from the girls at 4 weeks to prevent unwanted mating!

The more you handle your baby piggies, the friendlier they will be. Skittish, nervous animals are that way due to lack of attention. If you have done your job, you can reach into the cage and scoop up your little buddy with very little scurrying and resistance.

This was just a brief tutor on breeding. It is a good idea to read up on everything to be prepared, but if you have a healthy sow, you will probably not be needed and can just enjoy the fun! In my 30 years of guinea pig ownership, there have only been one or two times things went awry. And one of those was due to a very young sow getting pregnant.

I love having babies around! They are truly one of my most favorite little animals!

Patty

from Catcalls and Dogbarks

PetsJubilee Virtual BBQ Bash

THIS VIRTUAL PETSJUBILEE BBQ BASH

IS DEDICATED TO

SHARI & KEN

Special thanks go to:

• Shari, for making this all possible


• Athena, for her artistic graphics and comedy


• Tammy, for her artistic work with scrapbooking and comedy


• Diana, for story line and coreography


• All the Petsjubilee forum ladies for getting all these pictures together
  
  

Puppy Size~

AngelPups Crew, here again....Another story from our "email" buddy that is just too cute not to share... Enjoy!

Puppy Size

This is one of the neatest stories you will ever hear. You will know precisely what this little girl is talking about at the end (you'll want to share this one with your loved ones and special friends)!

'Danielle keeps repeating it over and over again. We've been back to this animal shelter at least five times. It has been weeks now since we started all of this,' the mother told the volunteer.

'What is it she keeps asking for?' the volunteer asked.
'Puppy size!' replied the mother.

'Well, we have plenty of puppies, if that's what she's looking for..' 'I know..... We have seen most of them, ' the mom said in frustration...

Just then Danielle came walking into the office
'Well, did you find one?' asked her mom.

'No, not this time,' Danielle said with sadness in her voice. 'Can we come back on the weekend?'

The two women looked at each other, shook their heads and laughed
'You never know when we will get more dogs. Unfortunately, there's always a supply,' the volunteer said.

Danielle took her mother by the hand and headed to the door. 'Don't worry, I'll find one this weekend,' she said.

Over the next few days both Mom and Dad had long conversations with her. They both felt she was being too particular. 'It's this weekend or we're not looking any more,' Dad finally said in frustration.

'We don't want to hear anything more about puppy size, either,' Mom added.

Sure enough, they were the first ones in the shelter on Saturday morning . By now Danielle knew her way around, so she ran right for the section that housed the smaller dogs.

Tired of the routine, mom sat in the small waiting room at the end of the first row of cages. There was an observation window so you could see the animals during times when visitors weren't permitted.

Danielle walked slowly from cage to cage, kneeling periodically to take a closer look.. One by one the dogs were brought out and she held each one.
One by one she said, 'Sorry, but you're not the one.'

It was the last cage on this last day in search of the perfect pup. The volunteer opened the cage door and the child carefully picked up the dog and held it closely. This time she took a little longer.

'Mom, that's it! I found the right puppy! He's the one! I know it!' She screamed with joy. 'It's the puppy size!'

'But it's the same size as all the other puppies you held over the last few weeks,' Mom said.

'No not size... The sighs. When I held him in my arms, he sighed,' she said. 'Don't you remember? When I asked you one day what love is, you told me love depends on the sighs of your heart. The more you love, the bigger the sigh!'

The two women looked at each other for a moment. Mom didn't know whether to laugh or cry. As she stooped down to hug the child, she did a little of both.

'Mom, every time you hold me, I sigh. When you and Daddy come home from work and hug each other, you both sigh. I knew I would find the right puppy if it sighed when I held it in my arms,' she said. Then, holding the puppy up close to her face, she said, 'Mom, he loves me. I heard the sighs of his heart!'


Close your eyes for a moment and think about the love that
makes you sigh. It's not only found in the arms of our loved ones, but in the caress of a sunset, the kiss of the moonlight and the gentle brush of cool air on a hot day…
They are the sighs of God. Take the time to stop and listen; you will be surprised at what you hear. 'Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.'


We hope your life is filled with Sighs!!!

Ask The Petsjubilee Pets: Frito Feet Part 2

Warning: The advice and comments in the Ask The Petsjubilee Pets posts are for fun only and not meant in any way to represent real advice. Since the pets are the ones responding to the questions, the humans shall and forever remain blameless for whatever the animals post.

Well, we got e-mail this week. Woohoo! But, first things first. Last week my wienie friend asked this question:

To Sasha And Any Other Critter Out There:
Why do my paws smell like corn chips? Also, why does my mommy likes to smell them? She puts her nose right on my little paws and sniffs and sniffs. Seriously, it is not the same thing as sniffing butts and you knows human noses aren't cold or wet like ours so it feels so gross when they put their warm noses on our sensitive tootsies. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
From:
Frito Feet

Dear Frito Feet,
I have often wondered what the humans fascination is with our paws anyways. Seriously, you knows the good smelling stuff is what we roll on in the backyard. But, just for you I did some research on-line and you know those human science geeks think that the corn chip smell comes from bacteria and yeast. Really!! Apparently, these little no see-ums like to multiply and let some "gasses" loose in damp, warm, dark places like cute, furry little paws or the inside of ears. Most of the time all you get is the lovely smell of corn chips, but sometimes it can lead to nasty skin infections. YUCK!!
So you know how some of us dogs don't like to get our paws wet. This is actually a good thing. Cause the wetter the paws the more these corn chip smelling gas producers like to reproduce.
So my advice is keep your paws clean and dry as pawsible and of course sleep all stretched out in the middle of the big bed so the air gets to them. Cause, you know once the corn chip smell goes away so does the pesty paw huffing human. No worries though, I hears the humans cook more bacon when they can't get their frito feet fix.
Your friend in fur,
SassySashadoxie

Next, week we will answer this one:

Dear Sasha,
I am overcome with grief. When I was a babe, my mom used to let me run and play all the time in the living room. It was so fun! I zoomed around the sofa, behind the computer table then across the wide expanse to another sofa. I would jump straight up in the air and then zoom some more. Oh...those were the days! As I'm sure you understand, there are times when one must relieve themselves. So I carefully chose a spot out of the way, unnoticeable to anyone and peed and pooed there. It became MY bathroom, if you will. Well, one day when my mom was trying to look for me to put me away, she happened upon my bathroom. It was not cool. She shouted my name and told me I was a bad boy. She said I could no longer race around except in the kitchen on this cold, slippery linoleum junk. YUCK! To make matters worse, she lets my sister run around still! The other sister is so fat she just sits there, so it's easy to see if she if went potty. But, of course, she doesn't because she's a girl and girls are perfect.....blah, blah,blah. Is there any way I can convince my mom to let me have my old racing route back?
Pooped out Piggie in Ohio

Please, e-mail your questions for Ask The Petsjubilee Pets to SassySashadoxie@yahoo.com. Also, please put APP in the subject of the letter so I don't have to open up e-mails about money requests to Nigeria. Apparently, SPAM e-mails even come to wiener dogs.

Saturday Pet Blog Hop 10/9/10

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR DIANA,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU :)

from your PJ Sisters

Welcome Pet Blog Hoppers!

Give us a follow and we'll return the favor.

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Poopscoop: football, change, dogs, and forgiveness????

The past few weeks, I have posted some not so nice things about the Eagles QB Micheal Vick. Like what they could do to him on the sidelines after a bad play, similar to what he did to his dogs. I have been thinking a lot about this. First, I broke my first rule which is not to wish harm on another. In doing so, although I of course did not act upon those thoughts, did wishing that make me almost as bad as him? That brings me to the concept of forgiveness. It is one I have always had a hard time understanding. Does the offending person have to ask for it? What does it really mean to forgive? I was told it mean not wishing bad to come to the person in question. Then I was thinking, is it up to me to forgive, or for the Guy upstairs? My husband and I were watching a game and I told him " All i want to hear is that he is sorry and can't believe what he did to those dogs" My husband, equally horrified by the events in Georgia, told me Vick had apologized and when I looked into the 60 Minutes interview (which I never bothered to watch since I was so disgusted) I found he said the exact things I wanted to hear. Not that that makes it OK by any stretch of the imagination mind you.This past weekend i saw another interview in which Vick said his life had been a lie, he was wearing a mask and Leavenworth was the best thing to happen to him. He spoke about how his life is changed now- for the better. He said he was brought up in dogfighting from the age of 8. My question is can a person change? I have seen it happen. Are some things unforgivable ? Is it my business to forgive him? Could i forgive anyway?I had an idea to write to him and ask him to visit our home and meet our dogs in person. Not only would they be a great judge of his character, but he could see how we treat them as family , how Joe has a heart condition and gets meds and is a FRIEND. I would like to see the interaction and look into his eyes and see if there has been change. No press or anything, just private. What he did bothers me so much that I think that is the reason I need to know.It is said all things happen for a reason and perhaps he will become a tool of change for children that are being brought up in the situation he was. Ok, what I need now are your thoughts and opinions.

Lorin
Doodypops