I have a litter of early foxhounds and some are exhibiting behaviour I have never seen before...has anyone any thoughts?
At 3 weeks they started growling when cuddled. This has continued now for 3 weeks! They are handled daily and are well used to it, and until  3 weeks old were normal affectionate whelps. They do not seem to actually mind being picked up & fussed, ie they dont struggle or try to escape...they just sit & snarl!!
Now I am torn 2 ways......do we presume its just  something they have discovered they can do but dont really know the meaning of it and therefore we just ignore til they grow out of it? As they seem happy to be on our laps, I worry that they will see themselves being rewarded for growling if they are ignored & we continue cuddling them.
Or,
On the other hand do I push them away & ignore them when they do it? In which case they may learn its not acceptable.....on the otherhand if they really do not want to be cuddled they may learn that growling ends the cuddles = good result! :)

Any thoughts?

I've had puppies that "talked"under their breath but never growled. Are they actually snarling by drawing back their their lips & showing their teeth ?

Most unusual if they are

It is very interesting that all of them are doing this - can you remember if it was an individual thing, but at the same time (3 weeks), or did one start first? How many are in the litter and was the birth OK?

Have they ever been held unsupervised by anyone else,  and is the bitch happy to be handled? :)

Lindsay
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Are they actually snarling ie baring their teeth/raising lips, or is it just a noise.   Some dogs/puppies just 'talk', notably Rottweillers but presumably it can affect other breeds.

Wendy

Generally speaking it's best to find out what causes the behaviour but not show the dog that growling "works", so one would concentrate on showing that being held is really pleasant; I would probably start using classical conditioning for this, BUT, I would want to know why they were acting like this first before i went ahead. It really is peculiar.

Is it possible the handling bit has been sort of overdone at all? :) Some stress has been proved good/necessary  for puppies and their development, but it's possible to over socialise that it can work the other way too.

Lindsay
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That was my thought, as my breeed are notorious talkers and I oft4en have pups growling happily to themselves :D  They seem to think it very clever to chortle growl and do baby barks.

In answer to hopefully all queries in one go...there are 8 pup...they get handled by myself, the kennelman and his wife and their daughter. The whelping was straight forward, the bitch is an old experienced dam & both her & the stallion have great temps, love being handled & have produced good temp whelps before.
The growling turns to angry snarl...it started in 1 more mature male pup & now all the lemons are doing it but not the tans

Hi Sam, what was mum like with them? I reared a litter for someone else a few years back. The dam fed and cleaned them but seemed confused by the whole business of motherhood and made no attempt to discippline them at all. By 3 weeks they were doing real damage to each other and drawing blood from mum. There behaviour to me was just what you describe though they bit hard as well as snarling. In despair I sent the (very relieved) dam home and gave them to an experienced old granny bitch of my own. Within 48 hours they were behaving like a perfectly normal litter.

I have a 4 year old adult male elkhound who growls when cuddled....always ahs and I guess he always will.It seems to be his way of 'talking'
Archer

I spoke to one lady who has bred Japanese spitz and BCs. She said that she has found that some of the pups bred seemed to be more flinchy around the 3-4 week mark and would sometimes growl with it. In her experience, they grew out of it especially when being weaned and they start to associate the owner with food. She held the pups on her lap then and fed them. She said she noticed it far more with the Japanese Spitz than with the Bcs; makes me wonder if it is something to do with slightly more independent breeds who are (in a sense genetically) not so used to pet handling.

Strange that the  previous pups have been fine though. If anything that just adds to the puzzle. It doesn't sound to me as if they are just talking although i agree it did sound like a possibility to start with, but not from the way you have described the pups behaviour in your most recent post Sam.

Is there anything that is different from when she produced the good tempered pups to the most recent ones? Anything at all could be a clue in some way; eg were the others just handled by one person, or less often or more often; or in a different way or are they taken very suddenly from one environmentto another eg warm to cold? Is someone smelling strongly of perfume or pipe smoke or anything like that? ;)

Does anyone react when the pups growl/snarl?

How many lemons are there in the litter out of interest? :)

Lindsay
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If the lemons are doing it and not the tans that would indicate a genetic tendency.  I take it there is not the possibility of two different sires?

Wendy

That's an interesting point Wendy!

Lindsay
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I was also thinking, it's hard to tell without actually being there but if it's not a handling issue (which it probably isn't if nothing has changed from previous times) it may just be that the lemon pups are that bit more sensitive than the tan, and this could occur differently each time, so that it would not necessarily follow that all previous lemon pups were sensitive etc.

A trainer/breeder i spoke to has told me she has seen similar tendencies in sable GSD pups but not in other colours; also we have the suggestion (often refuted I know) in horse circles that (for example) chestnuts can be more feisty/fiery/flighty etc.

I would suggest in the absence of any more knowledge just feeding and gentling the pups on laps so that they become conditioned to humans being the fount of good things, which in turn should disappear the strange behaviour.

Lindsay
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