Getting our puppies off to a good start and on the right paw, raising them in our home, being well socialised in our family environment, exposed to the noises of a normal home together with our commitment and dedication and many sleepless nights in the early days from all of us gives them a wonderful start to their life.  Our puppies are regularly handed as we continue to do Early Neurological Stimulation (ENS) on all our pups, stimulating the neurological system which improves the growth and development of the pup’s immune system, cardiovascular system, and stress tolerance. 
We also strive to toilet train and crate train, part of their daily routine is to provide enrichment and interactive toys when they are at this physical capability level. When we have the warmer weather, we can expose them to the swimming pool and sprinkler.

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Newborn

The first 48 hours we are intensively monitoring and nursing to eliminate risk factors and ensuring their adequate intake of colostrum within the first 12 hours, each puppy is clearly identified with a coloured collar and making our daily weigh ins at ease.  Puppies eat and sleep around the clock during the first 2 weeks.  They are born blind, their eyelids are closed. They are also born deaf, with their ear canal closed, they start to squint and open their eyes to the world of light at about 10 days, they are capable of detecting some colours within the blue and yellow range of the light spectrum.

Their hearing starts to develop at around 10-14 days when we can see them starting to respond to noises, their hearing is about 4 x better than humans. They have around 18 muscles in their ears that can tilt, rotate, raise and lower. Upright ears tend to have superior hearing compared to dogs with floppy ears. At 21-35 days after birth their teeth will start to erupt.

Puppies cannot regulate their own body temperature when they are born, which in the first week is 35°-36°, it is maintained by their mothers warmth, and snuggling up with other litter mates and heat mats we provide. They are unable to shiver, a mechanism for producing extra body heat. If their body temperature drops below 34° they loose their digestion ability and if their temperature drops below 32° they loose their sucking reflex, when they are hypothermic they cannot digest anymore. Their environmental temperature and humidity is critical.

By the second week their temperature is 36°-38° and at 3 weeks their body temperature is 38°-39° equal to an adult, and they can now maintain their own.

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When puppies are born their pelvis is made up of 4 bones which are not fully developed as yet, they continue to develop during the first 3 months of life and fuse together at about 12 weeks of age. Healthy newborn puppies have good muscle tone, feeling firm and plump and wiggle vigorously when handled.

When newborn puppies are sleeping there is continuous twitching, jerking, stretching etc this is important for the development of their neuromuscular system, they show this activated sleep for about 75% of their sleeping hours.

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Early Neurological Stimulation

Some methods discovered have produced long lasting effects using ways of stimulation to improve their natural abilities and early life time by being responsive to a type of stimuli, without causing too much stress or being too intense.

Showing stimulation and interaction during early development, pups where more able to cope, adjust and later adapt into various environments and households as adults. The U.S Military in their canine program developed this method and still uses as a guide to what works to improve the performance of dogs, becoming known now to us as the "Super Dog" program. Between days 3-16 is the first window of time due to the period of rapid neurological growth and development giving them a superior advantage. It utilises 5 exercises once per day for 3-4 seconds on each pup.

1. Tactical stimulation (between toes) 2. Head held erect 3. Head pointed down 4. Supine position (laying on their back, face upwards) 5. Thermal stimulation (laying tummy down) on a damp cool cloth.