I filled in TWO more days on my color tracker before the puppies were born. This means that gestation likely happened several days after the mating.
The last tracker! The puppies were born in the night from Sunday to Monday (before midnight.)
Raising a litter of puppies has been A Big Dream that I’ve dreamed for about 3 decades. When other kids knew they wanted to have children or get married one day, I knew I wanted to raise a litter of puppies. Is there anything better than making your biggest dream come true? It feels like the biggest thing I have done for myself.
The other night, I thought about the nature of joy: it’s rarely something that happens to us. The most meaningful joy is the joy we curate for ourselves: both the small joys we turn into habits (for me, nature hikes every weekend; freshly squeezed orange juice from the corner stand in the morning), and the big joys that stay with us (living with dogs; living in Latin America), and the other Big Joys that are probably going to be one-time events: raising a litter of puppies. I wonder if my friends who have had the get married/have kids goal for years/decades and then did it feel the way I feel. These milestone events are the only ones I imagine might come close to what the puppies mean to me because there is nothing else I have dreamed of for so long.
Joy is something to lean into and soak up. I’m going to do so consciously every day for the next 8 weeks. I feel so lucky to be able to do this, and to have people to share it with. Joy is one of these things that definitely gets stronger when shared. As I type this, I sit in Game’s blanket fort, watching her and the puppies, all sound asleep, behind the screen of my laptop and my naked feet. When I look at them, I can’t help but smile. The joy is here with me even when I am the only human in the room. But it’s equally or even more joyful to talk about the beauty of it all with my friends near and far, students and colleagues who’ve been following along with my wild and precious Game adventures.
There is a German saying: “Vorfreude ist die schönste Freude” – “The biggest joy is in the anticipation of joy.” It’s true – we know that the largest dopamine release happens when we anticipate a reinforcer, not when we access the reinforcer. Maybe the same is true about anticipating an event. It would be hard to top the size of my joy in the days leading up to the puppies’ birthday. I knew once they were here, they would be a lot of work as well as a lot of fun. But the anticipation was pure, undiluted joy. Joy like a an ice cold strawberry smoothie with a paper umbrella on the beach of Little Corn Island (if strawberry smoothies were bottomless and stayed cold for eight weeks.)
Day 0 (March 24, 2024)
Wheee! It has happened! I am … tired. And relieved! Game took her time and I started to get worried when her water broke and the contractions didn’t start. I even went Oxytocin hunting all over the city just in case I had to induce labor.
The calm before the storm.
I had made a plan to not worry before Monday, but when the contractions took their time in starting, the only one I didn’t worry about was Game. I thought the fetuses would probably die. I told Charli who was great about saying the right things. Thank you, friend.
Anyways, turns out that Games just take their time! The contractions came – they just didn’t start right away. Once they started, it all went pretty fast. This is the first time I’ve watched a dog give birth. It didn’t look as crazy as human births AT ALL and it seemed WAY less painful (if the human births I’ve seen on TV are any indication.)
Newly hatched! The first one.
This is how newborn puppies sound when they complain:
I’m impressed how fast these puppies, who were just born and haven’t had a chance to eat yet, are moving! They are determined. They are little warriers. I hadn’t realized the life of altricial species starts out with this much adversity! (And maybe it doesn’t with a more experienced mother.) In any case – minutes after being born, puppies are ready to fight their way to their food and call for help!
The first three have made their way to the milk bar!
I also had no idea how much noise unsatisfied puppies can make! The first three raised their little voices big time because Game hadn’t opened the milk bar yet. They were complaining loudly and high-pitched – they did remind me of squeaky toys. Game potentially as well: she had that same facial expression she does when thinking of de-squeaking a toy. I had to hold her back a bit and really hoped she wouldn’t de-squeak them in my sleep. Luckily, once everyone had been born, Game was ready to open the milk bar, and that stopped everyone’s complaints. She no longer looks like she is thinking about biting into them! She’s been taking her job very seriously and only left their side when I called her to go outside, and then she’ll pull back towards the apartment as soon as she is done.
They were born before midnight on March 24, but I’ll start counting weeks/activities from the 25th onwards. That first night, all we did was get born. There’s five of them: 3 boys and 2 girls. One more than expected!
Smell of the night: DEET spray on me (because mosquitos). This is probably not the most delicious smell to welcome you into the world, but what can you do!
Day 1 (March 25, 2024)
Activities: sleeping and eating, being observed by me (they are so soothing! Who needs aquariums!) and being transferred into a little box with a towel when Game has to go out, and then back into the blanket fort.
Special events
Game clearly has strong feelings about protecting them: at noon, someone walked up the stairs ahead of us (towards my apartment door, which they have to pass to get to theirs) and Game tried to grab their pants! Turns out she’s a mama bear dog!
Touch
I handled everyone once, touching all four paws, the tail and the ears.
The senses
I’m trying to imagine what their sensual experience is like: they can sense temperature and smell, but they can’t hear or see. Their first day smelled of coffee, chocolate, nail polish (the puppy collars I got are a bit large, so I painted their back nails. Girl “blue” sneezed!), puppy goat milk formula.
Specialty foods
I got formula and a bottle and tried to bottle feed everyone when I handled them. The first human-directed thing I’d like them to learn is to also drink from a bottle. That way, I can have visitors feed them and create positive associations between different people and food before the puppies are socially responsive/interested. Bottle feeding is harder than I expected though; I only got one of them to try and drink a little. I’ll have to do some research before trying again. I didn’t insist today.
Who are the puppies?
We have a bright pink (nailpolish) boy, a bright green boy and an unmarked boy as well as a blue girl and an unmarked girl. Everyone has a white chest mark. Green boy’s mark is the smallest.
Pics and videos
I could look at them all day!
Watching them nurse is SO soothing (which is why this video ended up being so long and I didn’t even notice.)
Last thought of the day
I just re-watched a video of the puppies crawling in search of the milk bar from yesterday and the one from today. WOW. I believe they are already bigger – and they are most definitely faster and more coordinated! It hasn’t even been 24 hours!
Day 2 (March 26, 2024)
Activities
The plan was to not have visitors the first two days. However, it’s my friend Charli’s last day in town, so the pups got to meet their first human (other than me) one day sooner than planned – and their first two dogs, Hilo and Nemo!
Today’s visitor protocol
- Move Game to car crate.
- Charli sees me handle every puppy and copies it after watching them.
- Charli brings Hilo.
- I hold each puppy while Hilo, on leash, sniffs/licks them for a few seconds.
- Hilo goes back in the car and Nemo comes up.
- I hold each puppy while Nemo, on leash, sniffs/licks them for a few seconds.
- We put Nemo back in the car and Charli and I come back up together with Game, giving Game a chance to recognize Charli and say hi on neutral territory.
At least for the first week, I won’t have Game around when the puppies have visitors. We followed my plan today. The puppies were sleepy when Charli got here. They took being handled and sniffed ´in sleepy stride. I don’t know how much of a difference ultra-early tiny amounts of socialization make, but I’ll keep doing them for sure! We may take tomorrow off because we didn’t take day 2 off, but I plan on continuing to socialize on Thursday.
My goal is one new person and one new dog every day, starting on day 3, with repeats being permitted over the weeks. This is obviously not going to work out because that is A LOT of people and dogs – but I aim for it. As of today, we are ahead of schedule: the puppies “met” two new dogs and one new human!
Game was a little aroused when coming back in and smelling Charli, Nemo and Hilo on the puppies, but quickly settled down again. I’m happy to say that it doesn’t seem to have been a particularly stressful experience for her. Part of this may be that Charli, Nemo and Hilo are all friends of hers who she is happy to see. Some snapshots:
Charli is the first person other than me to ever hold them!
Every puppy also got about 5 seconds of being sniffed by and smelling first Hilo and then Nemo. I’m not going for duration here – I’m going for a few seconds of quality time with a wide range of people and dogs.
Handling/touch
They got stroked and ears, paws and tail got handled by Charli and me.
The senses
The smells of Charli, Hilo, Nemo and Game’s kibble were all new.
Pics and videos
More cuteness!
… and a walk through Game’s blanket fort to show you our set-up! Game says, “Why are you holding a camera in my face? We’re not even training!”
Last thought of the day
Today was Game’s last day on Panacur (fenbendazole): I’ve been giving it at a low dose (25mg/kg) from day 40 past mating until day 2 – today – post whelping. I used the opportunity to deworm Chai today as well.
It really did the trick: the puppies look healthy and don’t have the potbelly appearance puppies get when they have worms. I just realized that this is the first time in years that I’ve seen puppies without the worm potbelly: all the freeroaming puppies I’ve been around had worms. [Which is not that big a deal for the dogs; a healthy organism can carry a decent wormload. But I very much don’t want any in my house, with dogs sleeping in my bed and licking my face! Intestinal parasites are one of very few things I find disgusting.]
Day 3 (March 27, 2024)
Activities
Today, we had the quiet day I had planned for yesterday (first two days.) Chai got to go to the park and play with Kiba, and Game and the pups got to sleep, snuggle and eat all day.
I tried to offer a bottle again, but all of them said NO, just like yesterday. Maybe the hole I made is too small, or maybe formula just doesn’t taste good if you get more than enough milk from your Game. I tried it myself today and it really doesn’t taste particularly interesting. It’s very bland; if I had to describe the flavor, I would call it “artificial” – in the way that you say, “artificial cherry flavor” – only that the formula tastes only artificial, no flavor. It’s not “bad” (better than artificial cherry flavor for sure), but I’d probably only drink it if I was very hungry and there was nothing else.
Handling/touch
No introductions, nothing exciting – but here’s the handling I practice every day with every pup! Once they are a little older, I’ll include mouth/teeth as well. I ask puppy visitors to do the same handling exercises with every puppy to normalize what is normal in an adult dog’s life: getting their paws touched for nail trims, their ears checked … Less than 2 minutes per puppy – and maybe it’ll make a little difference in their future handling sensitivity.
Smell(s) of the day
Detergent, chocolate.
Pics and videos
Day 4 (March 28, 2024)
Activities
The little ones went to the hair salon next door today. It was a 5-10 minute trip total, counting from the moment I picked up the puppies and the moment I set them back down again with Game. The hair salon is only a few doors down from my house. On the walk, the puppies probably felt the shifting temperatures (the cool hallway of my building, the heat in the street, the in-between temperature in the hair salon.) They must have smelled all the hair salon smells, too.
Of the three hair salon folks, every puppy got held and petted gently by one of them. I didn’t give them instructions of how to handle them except from being gentle – for now, the handling protocol is for people coming over.
Every puppy also got to sniff and got sniffed by Camila and Dana, the two hair salon pugs. Camila and Dana were not particularly impressed. Here’s a snapshot:
“What’s he doing on my couch?”
Game did really well staying home and wasn’t at all upset when I handed the puppies back to her. Her response was much calmer than when Charli, Nemo and Hilo came over on day #2.
Speaking of activities – you may remember that I mentioned Puppy Culture explains “activated sleep” (I don’t know if this is a scientific term or one Jane Killion made up) being due to the puppies’ need to work their muscles so they gain strength. After observing the puppies for a few days, I actually doubt that this is why they move in their sleep – they probably (I guess, and I have no sources to verify this) just move a little when they dream, like we humans do. The reason I don’t think this is their workout routine is that I’ve seen how much they push and pull themselves: they go to find the milk bar, they move towards Game and each other when they are cold and away from each other when they are warm, pulling themselves over the ground. They fight for the best spots at the milk bar. They try and move over Game’s paws or over each other when they are in each others’ way. This must be a much more intense workout than moving paws in the air (no resistance) in their sleep – and they do it all day long when they aren’t sleeping!
I also can’t believe how big they are getting. How can they already be visibly bigger than on their first day?! It’s wild!
Handling/touch
Every puppy got held and petted by one new person at the hair salon next door. While I didn’t ask them to do my handling protocol, they got to hold on to the puppies for a little longer.
Like every evening, I handled everyone’s tail, paws and ears and stroked them. Green boy has BIG paws and seemed annoyed about the fact that he didn’t find a milk bar in my t-shirt. Overall, during the very first handling session, the puppies seemed a little squiggly and uncomfortable. Yesterday, they relaxed into my hands. Today, they started showing exploratory behavior of my hands and t-shirt.
In yesterday’s handling video, you’ll see a startle response when I touch one of the ears. While puppies don’t have a fear response yet, they can startle! They also do have opinions: for example, when Game steps on one of them, they will squeal in protest.
Smell(s) of the day
Bepanthen, out-in-the-street smells, hair salon smells, 3 new people (one new person per puppy), two new dogs: Camila and Dana, the two 8 and 12 year old hair salon pugs.
Pics and videos
The cuteness! And perfect little puppy paws!
The paw in the picture on the right looks as if I had already clipped nails, but I have not – I don’t know why; it just looks that way in this picture. However, this got me thinking that maybe it’s a good time to start. If they have inherited Game’s incredibly fast growing nails, why not go through all four paws once a week, doing one paw a day, and keeping this up until I place them! I might start on Sunday, when we won’t meet any outside folks or have other adventures.
Last thought of the day
We may be able to meet our goal of 5 different dogs and 5 different people per puppy even though it is Semana Santa! I’m impressed! So far, we have 4 dogs (Hilo, Nemo, Dana, Camila) and 2 people per puppy (Charli and one hair salon person each.) If things go as planned, tomorrow, Alan and Kiba will be visiting, giving us another new dog and new human, and on Saturday, Pabla will come over. In terms of dogs, we’ll have checked all 5 boxes. In terms of humans, I’d like to find one more person who can visit or who we can visit nearby on Sunday. If Alan and Kiba can’t make it tomorrow, I’ll use Chai as dog #5 instead. Believe it or not, but she hasn’t yet met the puppies – I kept her as a backup.
We probably won’t meet our socialization goals every week, and as the puppies develop, I may change and adapt their socialization goals. But we’re off to a strong start!
Day 5 (March 29, 2024)
Handling/touch
+ Every puppy got held and petted by Diego at Blom Café (a few doors down in the other direction) and petted by one of their customers while I held them. It’s fascinating how the puppies are now becoming more aware and active. For example, two of them turned their heads away from the customer and towards me – the familiar smell!
One of them stretched their head out of the crate to sniff in all the directions in the coffee place.
+ I handled everyone with our daily protocol: stroking, paws, tail, ears, stroking.
The senses
Street smells, coffee shop smells, rawhide smell. Walking through the street for about 2 minutes each way to the café around the corner. Yesterday, I covered their little crate when carrying them. Today, I opened it so they could feel the sun and the shade and the wind on the 4 minutes we were walking outside.
Pics and videos
Diego was one of my socialization helpers today. They invited us to come back tomorrow, and as much and as often as we’d like in the future so we can rope customers into helping too!
I haven’t heard from Alan and Kiba yet – their mom isn’t doing well and it’s hard to get away. I suspect I may end up using Chai as this week’s dog #5. That’s okay – with Pabla coming over tomorrow, I’ll meet my people goal. Hopefully, Alan’s mom will be better next week and they’ll get to hang out with the puppies and bring Kiba along!
Last thought of the day: health
I know it is common to worry about the health of puppies. Hygiene usually gets prioritized: wash your hands. Make sure your visitors wash theirs and take their shoes off. Don’t take the puppies outside before X. Only have them around dogs you know for sure are healthy, vaccinated and don’t have parasites.
While I take my shoes off (I’m Austrian and that’s what we do), I’m not worried about the rest. I feel so strongly about the importance of socialization and learning that the world you (the puppy) are going to live in is normal that I could not make the choice to shield them from it because it may contain pathogens. I believe in this so strongly that even if someone got sick or even died, I would not treat the others differently. It’s not that I’m naive – I’ve just seen SO much behavioral fallout, especially in pointy-eared breeds, due to a lack of socialization that the risk of undersocializing appears disproportionally bigger to me than any health risks. I want the puppies to grow into adults who are able to live full lives. To go places. To do sports. To be out and about, off leash, without being a danger to human or canine strangers or visitors to your house. I want to set them up to be all of this with ease rather than requiring years of work and thousands of dollars spent on behavior consultations or Prozac. I want them to have lives that are rich and interesting, not lives that have to mostly be confined by leashes, long lines, muzzles and crates.
It is fascinating to me to watch myself project on these dogs: I am such a freedom seeker that it actually seems to me (without having to think about it twice) that a dog only has a truly good life if they have all these freedoms in it: freedom to hang out with you and your friends; freedom to hike off leash; freedom to play dog sports; freedom to socialize. Clearly, this is about me, not about them. I don’t know what life a dog would consider worthwhile because they can’t tell me. I only know what kind of life I myself appreciate, and I want to set my puppies up for a canine version of my own ideal life.
Day 6 (March 30, 2024)
Unfortunately, the low barrier fell over and landed on green boy’s head after my friends left. Pobrecito! Luckily, he seems okay.
Handling/touch
The puppies were held and snuggled by Pabla and Rosalba who visited at night. This was the longest they have been out of the blanket fort so far – every puppy was out for about 15 minutes, half of which they spent in Rosalba’s arms and half of which in Pabla’s arms.
Pink boy and Rosalba, hammock mode.
I didn’t ask them to do the handling protocol because two visitors on a day puts us over the 5 new people of the week as well as over the one new person per day goal. I’d rather they feel comfortable and relaxed around new folks than they get pestered too much with my protocol.
Last thought of the day: SO much socializing!
Is it possible that I’m overdoing the socializing? Of course. And of course every social experience is a stressor. I’d rather over-socialize than under-socialize a Malinois though. I already know what undersocialized Mals can look like. I have yet to meet an over-socialized one. I suspect it can only be better. Not better than “just the right amount of socializing,” but I’m consciously erring on the side of “too much.” Maybe the stress of meeting people will do more harm than good – but I’m willing to take that risk. I would regret socializing my puppies too little. I will not regret socializing them too much or too early, even if it turns out to have less than ideal effects. To offset the stress, I’ll do substantially less in all the other aspects that many people who breed dogs do: ENS, training, surfaces etc – I’ll wrap a lot of this into my socialization or not worry about it at all. You may read this and think it is great, or you may read this and think it is a terrible idea. The thing is: there is no research that actually tells us when and how much puppies should socialize in an ideal world. I have made up my mind, and I’ll do it my way. Enjoy if you’re a fan, and don’t torture yourself by following along if it upsets you. I’ll close comments on this post to help you keep unsolicited opinions to yourselves.
I’m also realizing that I’ll end up with more than just one person a day if I keep up all the dog socialization I plan for: Charli just moved, and everyone else I’m thinking of for the next few weeks is a one-dog household, but not all of them are one-person households. Some of the folks who want to visit the puppies are even no-dog households.
On days I can’t get my desired amount of dogs by means of dog friends, I’ll seek out public places … and there, too, are likely going to be more people than dogs. It would be different if I wasn’t in the city but in a place with a higher density of free-roamers, but even within the city, the higher-free-roamer-density places are quite a drive from my house.
Day 7 (March 31, 2024)
Activities
I took the puppies on their first car ride today. Just two minutes in their snuggle crate, up and down my street. Maybe this will make it less likely for them to be carsick in the future. I wasn’t planning on already doing a car ride this week, but then thought they would benefit from going on one before I actually took them somewhere in the car. By the time we go somewhere, the car won’t be new anymore. I might need to drive for a few minutes on some days to meet my dog goals in week 2.
Handling/touch
Everybody got their very first nails trimmed: the very tips of the nails on their right back paws. I started while they were sleeping. Everyone did well; the only one who protested a bit was unmarked boy. The two girls were exceptionally chill.
From now on, I’ll be doing one paw on a different day and hope to get to every paw on a weekly basis. My hope is that this way, by the time the pups move out, they will have a head start on tolerating nail trims. I used human nail clippers today. For the next paw, I might use the dremel so they get used to both.
I also did my usual handling protocol and added touching lips today. Going forward, it is: stroke, paws, tail, ears, lips, stroke.
Senses
The puppies got to feel the movement of the car today, and the slightly air-conditioned car air. They also got to smell and get smelled by, and pink boy and unmarked girl even got their faces licked by, Chai. I haven’t introduced her to the puppies yet – she’s been my backup dog for week one. With her, we’ve met the goal of 5 new dogs in week one! With Pabla and Rosalba last night, the puppies also met 6 new people.
They also got to smell the diluted bleach I used to clean the puzzle mats underneath blue girl’s diarrhea spots.
Chai was ahead of the game this morning: she sleeps in the luxury kennel (aka bathroom). I’m currently camping out and sleeping with Game and the puppies in the blanket fort. When I woke up this morning, Chai had opened the bathroom door from the inside (the first time she has figured this out!), removed the barrier to the whelping suite and was lying at a bit of a distance from Game and the puppies, observing us.
Now that Chai has met the puppies, I’ll let her snuffle them – and vice versa – every day for a few seconds.
Pics and videos
It’s warm and everyone is feeling sleepy!
Notes
Blue girl has diarrhea today, so she got a little extra handling when I helped Game clean her butt. I hope it’ll go away soon and not infect the others.
Green boy is extra hungry today. He’s not been leaving the bar even when falling asleep. He’s also a big boy – he and pink boy are the biggest. His appetite takes after Game’s!
Week 1 conclusion
I can’t believe it’s already been a week! That means there are only seven more to go … this week flew by SO crazy fast!
I’ve been experimenting with another manual color-coded tracking system. This will probably look a little different every week, depending on what I’m trying out.
Here is sheet 1 at the end of week 1 (the only thing missing is the check mark next to “handling” in the notes section and a second yellow dot for Sunday.) Sharing them here in case someone finds inspiration for their own tracking system!
And below the new week, starting tomorrow. The reason that there’s only 6 green “new human” dots rather than 7 is that there was one more human than I had planned for this week. However, I suspect that I’ll go at least up to 7 next week anyways if I come anywhere close to the puppies meeting1 7 new dogs! But … we’ll see! I’m not making a concrete plan for tomorrow, but will starting Tuesday.
- When I say “meet” a dog, I mean being snuffled by and getting to sniff a new dog for 3-10 seconds. When I say “meet” a new human, I mean being held by them from 30 seconds to, at the very most, 15 minutes (if we are in my house.) Or being handled by them to normalize husbandry procedures, which takes a little less than 2 minutes. ↩︎