As promised a new thread to stop us hogging the other posters.

It seems obvious that people have had differing experiences of this. I wonder how much is ruled by breed/temp of parents/environment/or just as some have suggested growing up. It would be interesting to know. I do not doubt what Goldmali is saying for a moment, she has plenty of experience with her breeds. My breed is totally different and much more laid back about life. They seem to happily settle within the folds of the family with no obvious difference to a pup which is sold so it would never occur to me to "lend" a pup out  to start with. Just out of interest as you have 2 such different breed Marianne do you feel the need to do this with your smaller breed or your larger more work oriented breed? Barbara obviously like me finds no problems with her breed, a well know more primitive breed. I wonder Marianne do you think it has anything to do with numbers kept? I have a limit of 3/4 dogs as my circumstances mean I do not wish to cope with more so they get a lot of 1-1 time. I know your dogs have excellent time with you and I would not insult you by suggesting you do not spend time with them but do you think it makes any difference at all ? Others have been firm in their views too and it would be interesting to have opinions and facts about temp/type/numbers etc.. to compare. Maybe I will start a new thread so as not to over power this one. I will post and copy to a new one. Lets continue there.
Aileen

For the people who do see a difference in pups that have stayed can they try to explain what differences they are noting that make them want to send pups away for a while? I haven't noticed any problems in pups I have kept but to be fair I have heard that pups should spend at least a few days away from home as puppies.

I'm wondering if the development of the pups' characters is also influenced by how many young ones people keep/run on.
My personal experience (with very different breeds) is that when keeping a single pup, they have found their place amongst the others with no problems at all. Certainly I've never seen any retained immaturity. But as we often advise on here, running on litter mates, (whether intentional or just the way it turned out), can be much more of a challenge training-wise. Perhaps that may partly account for problems people, or their vets, have seen.

But it has never crossed my mind that I should be sending my 'keeper' away for a while. No indeed, I've never had any need to consider it.

Having watched friends of the same breed Merlot and of others I've not noticed any issues with breeders keeping their pup and not loaning it out.
The issue I have seen is when breeders have failed to properly socialise from a young age through to middle puppyhood with other dogs, people etc, those who essentially only walk their dogs with the own and no others and just do ringcraft or basic obedience do often have issues from aggression to nervousness.
These people often don't have the time to get the pups out away from their housemates..

I think numbers and time do come into play tbh, how much I don't know, does it depend on breed, temperament, personality?
Be interesting to read other posts on this.

Actually, thinking about this, there's one strategy I have used to foster self-reliance and coping. I do it as part of my puppy stimulation program (based on Battaglia) starting at 3 days old. I take each pup in turn to another room on its own. The room is cooler. The pup has to stay there for a period of no more than a minute. I read it in a training book written by the monks of New Skete. They believe doing this provokes a mild stress hormone response which 'primes' the immune system to enable the pup to cope with different situations in the future.

The benefits of stimulating puppies according to the principles of the Battaglia program are as follows:

Five benefits have been observed in canines that were exposed to the Bio Sensor stimulation exercises. The benefits noted were:
1. Improved cardio vascular performance (heart rate)
2. Stronger heart beats,
3. Stronger adrenal glands,
4. More tolerance to stress, and
5. Greater resistance to disease.

I also add the isolation exercise descibed above.

Definitely noticed more with the larger breed, but have seen it in the toys as well eg. the bitch I mentioned in the original thread who treats her daughters as pups for ever more.

It's a good point about numbers but again I don't think so (i.e. I don't think it is the case here -can't speak for anyone else of course) as I saw the same from my very first litter compared with siblings, when I had much smaller numbers. (I had 5 dogs when my first litter was born.) This is something I have been talking about for years already, as we've seen it in every litter. Almost a bit of a pet subject of mine as it is something I have discussed with friends so many times. It's something I brought up with my own vet at one point as well (well it came up in conversation) and it was agreed with -my vet have quite a few breeders/exhibitors as clients.

I do take socialisation very seriously and always work hard at it but I know of at least 3 litters of mine where my own pup was socialised a LOT more than one that went elsewhere, and yet the one that didn't stay here found it a lot easier to cope with every day things than what mine did. (Here I am only judging by new owners that I know really well and that keep in FREQUENT touch i.e. every week, always, and whose dogs I met in person many times after selling them as pups, so that I could see the difference for myself.)

Aileen,
I don't really like my Toys to be too Toyish.
For that reason I treat them very robustly, give then a very varied life, a large set of experiences and try to seldom set them up to fail.
Over a largish sample of similarly-bred puppies, I tried  sending one from a litter to a totally different environment with a hugely experienced and trusted friend.
The city streets, pub lunches and other friends play dates have been joyously received.
I repeated ...
In one case I kept the other sibling here and swapped after a month or so.
I have noticed a difference with these pups (who had good family temperaments in any case),they are more robust, charismatic and have quite turned into party animals :-) I've discovered they LOVE children, I never knew! We don't have any come here...but they go into ecstasy when they see one.....they meet loads now.

I see your point Tooolz but is that completely down to having a change of home temporarily or to something that you could yourself influence by making a point of taking your "Keepers" out specifically to meet these challenges more? We also do not have children but I make a point of asking my daughters and grandchildren to stay for a few day while pups are about 5/6 weeks so they get to see them and I also walk past the schools with pups I keep to make sure they see children. The only thing I have some problems with are stock as we live in a town and although my pups see cows/sheep etc.. not on a regular enough basis to become "Immune" to them. We live in a rural town so it is just 10 mins to the open countryside but as  I am mindful of frightening farmers stock we just walk by and look but do not get close. However I feel that if I could let my pups spend time each day in closer contact they would be much improved, no doubt things would be different if I had a friend with a farm I could visit each day but unfortunately I do not. "Lending" a pup out may not change this but environment would. My point being that it is the variety and type of socialization and home environment that makes the difference not the parting from litter mates and Mother at 8 weeks.
Aileen

Sorry can't agree with taking pups away from the mother at 3 days old.
Firstly the pups are hers NOT YOURS.
Secondly it is quite  likely to freak the bitch out if you take her babies away. Why cause the bitch who has just delivered undue stress by stealing HER babies. This could cause her to become anxious and stop feeding them.

When my bitch delivered she did not want her pups even taken away and put on a heat mat while she was delivering, not at all aggressive, but she made it quite clear that she wanted her babies in with her.
  I decided we would do it her way. Plenty of absorbent pads in the whelping box, she gathered her pups together putting her front & back leg round them, and just popped the next one out.
She was quite happy for me to sit in the whelping box with her to check the puppies and I put the scales in with us and weighed them.
Mums should be allowed to nurse their pups how they want in the first few days, they need looking after and care and to know you are there, but not to be constantly disturbed and have their puppies taken away from them.
An anxious mother will cause her pups to also feel anxious, there is plenty of time when everything is more settled to do anything more intrusive.
In answer to the  original  question, I think as long as the puppy has plenty of time away from the rest of the dogs then their shouldn't be a problem.
All mine have gone to ringcraft and obedience separately and because they can not do as much exercise as the adults and need to be lead trained they  have also been walked separately.
You need to  do all the things with a home grown puppy that you would with one bought in. Take them to busy places, a ride on a bus, walk past the local school and generally as many positive experiences as possible.
With my last litter I could tell at 6 weeks old who was the most outgoing, the kamikaze pup who would climb up and try to throw themselves out of the pen. The quieter one who was always last to come forward etc. I think each pup is born with their own little personality and that is the skill of a good breeder to know which pups need more encouragement and also placing each puppy in the best and most suitable home to aid their future development.

> Sorry can't agree with taking pups away from the mother at 3 days old. <br />Firstly the pups are hers NOT YOURS.<br />Secondly it is quite  likely to freak the bitch out if you take her babies away. Why cause the bitch who has just delivered undue stress by stealing HER babies. This could cause her to become anxious and stop feeding them.

Of course we all have to be responsive to our own bitches and their needs. I wouldn't do it if I thought it was causing them stress. But I have done it, several times, with no problem. I know it's tempting to be anthropomorphic with our dogs, but it's not always helpful.

Have a look at the super puppy program. It works for us, and lots of other breeders too.

I don't think Dorcas is being anthropomorphic about the stress the bitch would be under if you remove pups of 3 days old and take them to another room - for however short a time.

My own bitches would not tolerate this.   They trust me to handle the pups, to check them ect. But there would be blue murder if I walked away with one of their pups at 3 days old, not that I would take advantage of the trust my bitches have in me anyway.

Changing the bedding ?   Bitch needs to be in the garden for a wee while this is done or she will insist on keeping the old bedding and all is done very quickly.

Having read the link you suggested I see nothing to recommend the programme at all.   Much has been made of disparate studies which have no bearing on the subsequent recommendation of stimulation of puppies.  The Kellog study with the monkey and chimps relied on almost total deprivation of any stimulation or contact with another being, contrasted with baby monkeys/chimps which were given a wire 'mother' with a towelling cover, which they were allowed to access when they were deliberately  frightened.  I fail to see what relevance it has to a well bred and cared for litter with a maternal bitch who cares for them as their species demands.

Interesting point I read on that link...

"and that too much stress can retard development. The results show that early stimulation exercises can have positive results but must be used with caution."

Do you think your average dog breeder can gauge, what is ostensibly a science experiment ,accurately enough?

In any case who needs it? My little mothers could have written the book on puppy rearing.

Thanks Dill you pretty well summed up what I was thinking. Very often people get hung up on all sorts of studies which in fact don't prove a thing.
Mother nature knows best, and why disturb and upset a mother and a her three day old litter unnecessarily. I like you just nip in and change the bedding when mum goes for a tinkle.
It always upsets me when I see all these pictures of pups on facebook, some only hours old all taken from lots of different angles. Nothing wrong with taking a quick snap of the mum and her litter, but all this posing of pups that are still in the nest I feel is too much and no wonder you hear that mums have stopped feeding, especially when some have people visiting far too early IMO.
My girl trusted me and was very happy for me to handle her puppies as I sat in the whelping box with her, but like Dill said we should never betray that trust.

Five benefits have been observed in canines that were exposed to the Bio Sensor stimulation exercises. The benefits noted were:
1. Improved cardio vascular performance (heart rate)
2. Stronger heart beats,
3. Stronger adrenal glands,
4. More tolerance to stress, and
5. Greater resistance to disease.

It's interesting Esme, it may have some substance, but for me the pros do not outweigh the cons.........

Firstly, I personally would never stress my bitch like that or do anything to provoke her wishing to leave the litter to come and find the pup I had taken, causing stress to a pup I don't like either. All my adult pups to date have grown up to be strong/healthy and with great temperaments, so I don't see the point in it and what it could ever do to improve that, regardless of my feelings of stress to a dam and pup.

Nature and instinct does not dictate that a dam (and many other  mammals) would leave her pups from 3 days old, to be alone and feel stress, kicking in these supposed factors, in fact many mammals will go without food or water for days and sacrifice their own health to stay with their pups, so it makes no sense to me that a human should decide it knows better than an inbuilt instinct from the species itself.

Dogs are not like birds who obviously leave to find food, mammals are built to nurture even against their own well-being.

I am a bit lost here (and not being a breeder, much of it may go over my head) but please could someone link me to the original thread? I've done a search to no prevail.

> Dogs are not like birds who obviously leave to find food, mammals are built to nurture even against their own well-being.

Not all of them... rabbits nurse their young only once or twice a day for 10-15 minutes. The babies are in a 'safe' burrow excavated for that purpose, and if the dam smells or scents any predator has been around she will cut all ties and just leave them to die. Her milk is far richer than most small mammals, as it would have to be to only feed them so infrequently, and as a prey animal she cannot take the risk that a predator could come upon her and kill her while she is nursing. They are not the most maternal of animals, at least not until they young are fully furred and mobile and able to look after themselves in some ways. Hence the often quoted advice never to interfere with baby rabbits in the nest. I have had many girls who trusted me and didn't mind me looking, but I never took liberties, and even with no intervention at all, some mothers will abandon them. I've not many actively kill them, more often just sever their tie and allow them to perish. But other small animals such as hamsters WILL deliberately kill their young - and eat them, to remove the litter's traces -  if they are stressed enough.

Just to add, the only time in nature that a dam would remove a pup at 3 days old from it's siblings to be in a cooler environment, stressed and alone is if it were 'faulty' it is natures way of ousting the weak and allowing it to die away from the thriving pups. In effect that is what is happening a weak pup would die, doing this to a fit and healthy pup no doubt will kick in it's instinct for survival but it is totally uncalled for as the pup is thriving.

If nature dictated that doing this to pups made them more likely to survive it would do it, as mother nature never does this to healthy young you can't argue with that, she knows best.......

Parrysite it is under the thread: Personality of retained pup from a litter. :-)

>The Kellog study with the monkey and chimps relied on almost total deprivation of any stimulation or contact with another >being, contrasted with baby monkeys/chimps which were given a wire 'mother' with a towelling cover, which they were allowed >to access when they were deliberately frightened

My apologies, tablet keyboard playing up and posted before I had finished writing.   

The study I was referring to was by Harlow in the late 50s, not Kellog - who, in 1930, took in an 8 month chimp and reared it with his 10 moth baby in order to study the differences in development between primates.     Though I fail to see what relevance either study has to rearing pups in 2013

During the 1970s when the 'super dog program' was supposedly being used, dogs bred for the military were kept in kennels and basically given no socialisation or handling as a matter of course - pretty much as happens in puppy farms today, therefore any stimulation or handling would have had a perceivable and beneficial effect as can be seen when comparing the way a puppy farmed puppy behaves, against a puppy from a breeder who socialises and handles the pups as most breeders here would :-)

I've heard the Bio Sensor protocol, spoken about by quite a few behaviourists at seminars, it would seem quite a few are in favour of it.

> Firstly the pups are hers NOT YOURS.
> Secondly it is quite likely to freak the bitch out if you take her babies away.

I won't copy all dorcas' post, but just catching up after hols.

Excellent, excellent post.  Couldn't agree more.

Just wanted to point out that Early Neurological Stimulation, or under it's other names Bio Sensor Program, Super Puppy/Dog Program and probably a whole whost of other names, does not advocate isolation from Mum at 3 days old.

The exercises can be performed whilst Mum is in the room, or on a wee break. Nor are the exercises scientific experiment, the programme is far beyond the days of 'experimentation'. The 'average' breeder can perform ENS safely ... providing they can count :-)

Anyways, just wanted to clear up as some people seem to have got the wrong idea, ENS is about stimulation and not isolation!

Isolation seems to have been suggested by the Monks of New Skete? Hmm, don't they also like dominance?!

Thanks Carrington, shall have a read as this all sounds very interesting, and is a new thing that I've never even heard of!

> Isolation seems to have been suggested by the Monks of New Skete? Hmm, don't they also like dominance?!

Monks turned puppy farmers, from what I gather. I'm guessing they weren't Buddhists ;)

I probably wouldn't have said that ;-) but yes, that's my understanding too :-(

Slightly off topic but related.

My first 'proper' dog was a much wanted and longed for GR.  I was in my early 20's and still living at home but she was going to be mine!  My parents visited the litter with me on a few occasions and when the day came to collect Poppy, there was another girl still available.  Lo and behold by the time that we had got home and had a cup of tea mum had decided that she was ready for another dog after lossing our Irish Setter.  Poppy spent her first night home with her litter sister Holly!

We did do all of the right things apart from having siblings!  Both were socialised and had time spent with each of us separately, and we attending training together.  Poppy was a real extrovert and such fun, whereas Holly was very laid back and seemed at times to lack confidence.  Sadly we lost Poppy very early at just over 3, and thinking of her still brings a tear to my eye as she was such a special girl. 

After we lost Poppy, Holly character completely changed.  She came out of Poppy's shadow and just seemed to shine out and have a better enjoyment of life.