Bionic puppies!

Breeders spend a lot of time choosing the perfect parents for their puppies but many ignore the intense period of learning that follows birth.  Our research leads us to believe that about 35% of skills and traits are acquired solely from genetics, and the rest come from early life learning.  One of our major goals when we started the Puppy Project here at Dark Moon Farm and Kennels was to explore different ways of stimulating and teaching puppies starting at birth.  We want to teach them to seek learning, overcome disappointment, and solve problems.  We are starting with information from Dr Carmen L. Battaglia, who has an excellent website that tells more about his program:  breedingbetterdogs

The puppies have been getting a lot of handling as we feed them every 6 hours, so adding the a minute or two of developmental exercises from the "bionic puppy program"  isn't much of a problem.  Here are Patch and Uno doing the "head pointed down" exercise.  This teaches them to be aware of their own body and develop the nervous system in different ways as well as teaching them to trust their handler.

plus, they look like little bats.  spotted bats! 

 This pup has a really big mouth.  He wants to swallow my finger while we are feeding, and he isn't averse to a little chin sucking either.

 Patch decided to dive in to the milk jar when he got too close to it.  He can't quite figure out how to drink that way yet, but he is working on it.