Episode 3 - Is Puppy Culture for Rescue Litters?

Today’s question comes from a person who’s thinking about taking in rescue litters.

She’s thinking that a good early start could help rescue puppies, but she’s wondering if she’ll be able to use Puppy Culture. She’s worried that, because the dams are stressed, she might not be able to do some of the protocols.

What should she do? Are there any special considerations for doing Puppy Culture with a rescue litter?

​​Listen wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe so you never miss an episode!

---

​​Referenced Courses and Titles

BUY NOW

ENROLL TODAY

BUY NOW

TRANSCRIPT

I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist, and this is a Puppy Culture Potluck podcast.

So today's question is a common one that we get about doing Puppy Culture with rescue or foster litters. And I'll read you the question and it goes like this.

Is it feasible to do Puppy Culture with fosters or strays? I'll retire in a couple of years, and I'm thinking that intervening early on with litters and not having them spend their first 8 to 12 weeks in a shelter may be as important to decrease the return rate as anything.

However, it seems that a lot of Puppy Culture program goes into whelping prep and some of these mamas may be too stressed to allow some of the handling. If it's doable, I'll search and find a local Puppy Culture breeder and mentor under them first.

So first, let me just directly answer your question, which is yes, absolutely. We have a thriving community of puppy raisers who are working with rescues and using Puppy Culture.

And if you just get on the Puppy Culture discussion group and raise your hand and say, “Hey, I'm thinking of doing this”, you will have an embarrassment of riches, of just information, experience, support on that group. And you are correct. You can make an amazing difference by intervening early, just like any other puppy. They're just puppies.

So now I'd like to address her specific concern. And what she said was some of these mamas may be too stressed to allow some of the handling. So when it comes to handling, there's two separate issues. There's the handling of the dam and then there's the handling of the puppies. And I'm going to address them both. As far as the handling of the dam, in Puppy Culture we do talk about, you know, stroking the dam, even feeling the puppies through her belly and how that has been shown in some human studies to actually have an effect on the infants.

But the overriding rule is not to stress the dam. Right. So we always say if she doesn't like being touched, which I mean, some dams just don't like to be touched, then don't do it. So potentially, if you have a rescue mother that doesn't trust you and doesn't want you to touch her, I mean, not touching her, it's not like, you know, so you can't do that thing.

But it's it's not like it's a big material part of Puppy Culture that you're going to miss. And I will also add two things to that. Number one, at least from what I have seen peripherally in the Puppy Culture discussion group, most of these rescue dams are surprisingly trusting in their foster rescue. You know, people, raisers. It's kind of amazing.

It's almost like they know that that you're there to help them. I have not done it myself personally, but from what I've seen, you know, it's pretty amazing. So I don't I think any concern that you would have about the dam not wanting to be touched, it may not really be more of a concern for you as a rescue person than a breeder because some bitches just don't want to be touched.

I mean, it's a personal thing. I don't like to be touched particularly. So, I was not a rescue. So, so that that that was not a big concern to me. I also want to say that it's a core tenet of Puppy Culture that no one ever with any litter gets an equal opportunity to do the same thing as they ever do with any other litter, meaning to say that the whole thing of being a really masterful puppy raiser is pivoting and adjusting to the circumstances.

So again, this is part of it. This is a core part of our program. Your dam likes to be touched. Absolutely. You're going to get in that box. You're going to stroke her belly. You're going to even feel those puppies as they're moving around. She doesn't want to be touched. You are going to give her every space and comfort to make her, you know, bring her cortisol down and keep her comfortable.

So it's not about, you know, on day three, you twiddle your thumb three times or you touch her here and then magically this happens. No, it's about reading the circumstances. And as a rescue person, number one, I think that maybe your circumstances with the dam are not going to be as different as you think they are. And number two, it's normal. I mean, that's what everybody goes through. This is part of the process.

Now, the other area of handling is handling the puppies. And some dams don't want you to touch puppies in the first two weeks of life. I mean, it's not at all unusual for dams to have to be dragged away from their litter in the first 14 days, even just to, you know, pee.

So, absolutely that can be an issue. But again, I don't really think it's an issue any more for rescue dams than for other, you know, some breeds. I mean I think my friends that race German shepherds are the dams are pretty much “Hey you know hold my beer I have this, I'll see you in two weeks”. Now, the one difference is obviously when you have a history with your dam from birth, I mean, you kind of maybe can lean off a little bit to say, yeah, no, we're going to come in now and touch those puppies and you're going to let us where you might not do that with a rescue mother.

But the those protocols that we do very early, which are the neurological protocols, is either early neurological stimulation or simulated maternal stimulation. It's the very least the very least of anything you're going to do in Puppy Culture. By the time the puppies are three weeks old, you know, even the most protective dams are spending time away from the puppies and you can start doing some kind of socialization and handling of the puppies.

So I, I understand the concern, but I don't think that that's a major factor, as a rescue puppy raiser. I don't I don't think that that early part of handling of the dam and the puppies is of particular concern for you. You have to read the circumstances and pivot on what you see just like anybody else. But I don't think that you're going to find that your experience as a rescue foster raiser, is that different than that of a breeder.

But one thing that definitely as a rescue raiser, puppy raiser, you're going to face that is quite different than what your average breeder is going to face are physically compromised dam and puppies, okay, so worm load. In our Newborn to New Home course, which is a breeder puppy raiser course, we interviewed three breeders Suzanne Shelton and Rebecca Pinkston that breed German Shepherds and Magda Chiarella that breeds Norwich.

And then I spoke and we talked about our top three concerns when we have a neonate that's crying or you know, what we worry about the most. And for none of us was it worm load? I mean, that's just not something that's really on our radars because our dams have all been on continuous, worm preventative for, for generations.

So although we worm our puppies, that's not an issue. You know, these rescues, especially if you're doing rescues down in the south, you're dealing with heartworm, positive dams, you're dealing with puppies that have worm loads that are just really profound and can even cause blockages as as the worms are dying off. So your worming protocols are going to have to be a lot more aggressive and, you know, you're going to be dealing with this and again, you're going to be pivoting on some stuff because if you have puppies that are compromised are going through a bad period and you may have to delay some of the protocols.

But again, you know, even within the norm between breeds, it has been demonstrated that there is at least a 16 day difference in developmental periods between breeds, average in breeds. So, you know, the fact that you maybe have to put off a protocol a little while because the puppy has a medical issue or deal with that, it you know, it doesn't change the program.

I mean, this is the program accommodates that and teaches you how to accommodate that. And again, the discussion group on Facebook, if you get on there, you have a built in support system and you say, okay, I've got, you know, this dam coming in. She's heartworm positive the puppies this you're going to have ten people on there giving you advice about how to navigate those waters.

So again, I just want to emphasize to sum it up, that, the real meat of Puppy Culture begins really after the puppies are starting to be weaned with the communication trinity. That's when you're doing powering up the clicker, getting them operant with the box and teaching manding. Then you're getting into the whole training, the anti-resource guarding protocols, the socialization, all that stuff is, doesn't involve the dam really much at all.

Okay. So any concern that you would have that Puppy Culture is really more of a whelping breeding kind of program? No, Puppy Culture itself is puppy raising viewed through a behavioral lens. Now, if you wanted more of that husbandry kind of stuff, how to keep the whelping box clean, what kind of pad to use that kind of stuff, we do have a breeder course, which again, as a as a puppy raiser would be applicable to you. But Puppy Culture itself is, you know, it's a narrow focus of behavioral soundness of puppies. So very easy to use with a rescue litter.

So now I'm just going to summarize a couple of comments that were made in response to this post, and one of them was from Candace Gourley, who is just such a generous resource she does rescue for Great Pyrenees and Golden Retriever Rescue, and she actually whelps litters herself for the most part.

And she says, let me read her words. “The puppies will always and I am using that definitive word, always intentionally have a heavy worm load and will therefore be compromised”.

So that's what I said. You're going to have to deal with that. But she does give a short answer and says;

“Jane is always very clear that the binder”... meaning to say the Puppy Culture workbook ... “is an outline and the milestones are just milestones, not tied to a specific days of age. Instead, you slow down, you take care of distressed puppies. You do not introduce novel things and get them clear of worms. It takes around three days, maybe a little longer if they have had something like coccidia, then you go right back to Puppy Culture, generally exposing them, watching their reactions.”

Now there's also an issue of timing when you're working with rescue puppies in that you don't always have the luxury of whelping the litter yourself.

So sometimes you're getting puppies that have been in the shelter for a while and may have missed some stuff and or, you know, older puppies like 16 weeks and older when they're past their critical socialization period. And Candace also addressed that. And she says, “Just so you know, I have another 50 or so puppies that were not whelped here but were dumped or ended up in a shelter.”

She goes on to say that she's been able to use Puppy Culture with great success with them and she's been able to take, and now these are her words “Shut down, frightened little babies who huddle on the corner as far away from you as they can, to puppies that crawl all over you and are as securely attached as those that are born here.”

So even if you're not whelping the puppies and you're picking them up out of the shelter, Candace is testifying, you can still make a huge difference. But she does say, “for a few, yes, I have gotten them a little too late”. So, 16 weeks old after the close of the critical socialization period, however, she says there have been some long term consequences.

But but she's been able to help mitigate the barrenness of even those puppies pasts. So even if you're dealing with puppies that are a little bit older, absolutely, Puppy Culture will make a huge difference in the lives of those puppies. And speaking of older puppies, I have never whelped a litter for rescue. But at one point in my life I was extremely involved in bull terrier rescue.

In fact, I organized the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut Area Bull Terrier Rescue. I had a lot of foster dogs coming in here and this was before Puppy Culture came out. And what I do in Puppy Culture is actually the same paces I would put any rescue dog through, right? So I'd start up with the communication trinity and then I do the anti resource guarding.

I mean, I'd go right down the list. So even if you're getting the puppies older, don't be put off or discouraged by that. You can make a difference. So if you are out there and listening to this and thinking maybe I want to do Puppy Culture with rescue groups, maybe that's the way I want to make a contribution to the world.

Go for it. Get on the Puppy Culture discussion group on Facebook. Raise your hand and that group is going to be there to help you get started. And I'm just going to put a footnote on this and say that this is one of the things that I am most proud of with Puppy Culture is the community that has sprung up around it.

There's cross-pollination between all kinds of groups who traditionally would either run in their own circles or even in some cases, be somewhat antagonistic to each other, or at least not really understand each other very well. But as we like to say, at Puppy Culture, we have a narrow focus and a big tent, meaning to say the focus is raising behaviorally sound puppies and the tent includes dog trainers, dog breeders, show dog breeders, livestock guardian dog breeders, puppy owners, rescue groups, all of these people coming together and forming a brain trust that is just magical.

So if you listened to this and you were on the fence about taking in a foster litter, I hope we help just push you over the side to doing it. It's a lot of fun. It's one of the greatest things you'll ever do.

Well, that's it for this time. Thanks for listening. Bye bye.