Kythe Kennels Socialization of Puppies!

When our puppies are 3 days old, they go through a series of stimulation techniques to cause their bodies to become super stimulated. We put them in stressful situations every day for 18 days to stimulate their nervous system, their blood flow, and their digestive system. They are also subjected to situations which make them want to squirm away. We began doing this many years ago because we read that the German dog teams used to have dogs that would go through a field where bombs were going off and bullets were flying. However, the American dogs did not. Since the American solders wanted this type of depend abillity in their dogs, they finally discovered the reason. That reason was that the dogs had stimulation as puppies that was extreme (not painful but which was intended to develop their nervous system strength). We thought it sounded like something we wanted to try. So we did.

What we found was that our puppies were calmer, less likely to panic, and less nervous. Since this was our observation, we decided that it was something which we should do with each litter. You benefit from our discovery and our work because we cannot tell which puppy we will keep at birth, so we work all puppies in this technique. It has proven to us that it works. We no longer have the original article on this process, but if you search on the internet, you may find it. If you do, please share your source with us.

We believe strongly that puppies need to have regular contact with people. Nathan, who is three years old, loves to play with the puppies. He goes out every day and helps mom work with the puppies.

Puppies are out running the property which consists of a flat area about 20 x 60, two hill sides, and a kennel area. The puppies are free to get on top of roofing (left over from roofing the house -- but safe). They can get around logs, on top of wood, on sandy surfaces, on rock, on grass, wood chips, and on dirt. They often go and play in the grass and run with their litter mates around the whole area.

Additionally, the have access to many different toys such as tarps (which they hide under), dog crates (which they get in and out of), logs to climb on, sticks to carry around and to fight over with their litter mates, buckets to crawl in to, tall grass to hide in (and scare everyone) and many other natural substances that are safe for them to be in and be on.

We believe that puppies need stimulation in their growing up years so we provide for them the opportunities to learn about new things. We also believe that they need to be able to be with people, and we provide that people play 30 minutes to two hours each day, and occasionally we are with the more than that.

By the time the puppies are 8 weeks old, they will follow people because Nathan runs and play with them. They will come to a person. They trust people because we are always gentle with them. They wag their tails when they are petted. They will stack (stand on all four feet squarely), and they will allow most any part of their body to be handled because we play with the constantly.



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