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TRAINING PUPPIES
(PHOTO:Tapua Wiri and his best mate) DISCLAIMER The information stated in this section apply only to dogs owned or bred by TAPUA KENNELS. We do not assume nor expect any individual dog owner, breeder, show person or dog trainer to agree with or accept our agendas regarding the care, training, breeding or nutrition of Labrador Retrievers nor any other breed.Preparing Puppies For a Purposeful Life.
When you buy a puppy from Tapua Kennels your puppy has already begun conditioning to learn. From birth your pup is given the optimum in learning environments. We use the American method of Early Neurological Stimulation of Puppies, which has been tried and tested with US Army sniffer dogs. This method of early neurological stimulation developed by Dr Battaglia in the USA gives your puppy every opportunity to adapt to changes and to be resiliant to the stressors of socialization, noise, people, vehicles, issolation with ease. The early stimulation also makes them more trainable as service, obedience or hunting dogs. For this reason we prefer our puppies to go to homes that have a clear role for the pup or into service training. We recommend any breeder or experienced trainer inform themselves of this method. We have learnt from experience that the pups are much more alert and open to learn from a young age. We are thrilled with the results. _________________________
The Neurological Stimulous Program Details Dr Carmen Battaglia PhD These techniqies are to be applyied between day 3 and 16 of life ONLY
1 Tactile stimulation: between toes Holding puppy in one hand, the handle gently stimulates (tickles) the pup between the toes on any one foot using a Q-tip. It is not necessary to see the pup is feeling the tickle.
2 Hold head erect: Using both hands, the pup is held perpendicular to the ground, (straight up) so that its head is directly above its tail. This is an upwards position.
3 Head pointed down: Holding the pup firmly with both hands the head is reversed and is pointing downwards so that it is pointing towards the ground.
4 Supine position: Hold th pup so that its back is resting in the palm of both hands with its muzzle facing the ceiling. The pup whilst on iots back is allowed to sleep or struggle
5 Thermal position: Using a damp towel that has been cooled in a refigerator for aleast 5 minutes. Place the pup on the towel, feet down. Do not restrain it from moving ________________________
These five excercises will produce neurological stimulation, none of which natuarally occur during life. Experience shows that sometimes pups will resist these excercises, others will appear unconcerned. In either case a caution is offered to those who plan to use them. Over stimulation of the neurological system can lead to detrimental results. These excercises impact on the neurological system by kicking it into action earlier than normally expected. The result being an increased capacity that later will help to make a difference in performance.
Benefits of Stimulation Five benefits have been observed in canines that were exposed to the Bio Sensor stimulation excercises.
In the aspects of learning, stimulated pups were found to be more active and were more exploratory than their unstimulated litter-mates over which they were dominant in competative situatons. Secondary effects were also noted regarding test performance. In simple problem solving tests the non stimulated pups became extreemely aroused, whined a great deal and made many errors. Their litter-mates were less disturbed or upset by test conditions and when comparisons were made the littermates were more calm in the test environment, made fewer errors and gave only occassional stress.
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NUTRITION All TAPUA puppies are raised on premium preservative free dry dog biscuits, we currently use the all Australian BOOMER WORKING DOG for our adult dogs and BOOMER PUPPY feed. There are a number of excellent dog food products I reccommend that the protien content is <25%. In addition our dogs are fed raw beef, chicken neck, brisket bones, eggs and fish. The fresh minced meat have garlic, multivitamins, brewers yeast and apple-cider vinigar add. In winter in particular I feed a stew which will have pasta, home grown organic vegies and meat in it. No cooked or tinned foods are fed to our dogs. Some people prefer to feed their dogs totally naturally and eliminate dry biscuit from their diet all together, whilst we do feed raw as much as possible I have elected to retain some dry feed. Royal Canin is manufactured by Mars in Bathurst and is preservative free dry or wet feed we highly recommend. We encourage our buyers to maintain optimum weight for the Labradors in particular to aid in the prevention of HD & Elbow Displaysia
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SOME PRINCIPALS WE FOLLOW WHEN CONDITIONING PUPS All dogs respond particularly well to motivational training, there are a miriad of 'how to train by motivational methods' books around. I strongly recommend 'Don't Shoot The Dog' by Karen Pryor. If you are really into understanding how dogs tick read Bruce Fogel's Dog's Mind, they have both been around for years and are an excellent read. The principals we follow are based on over 20 years of experience. We do not gaurantee that any given pup will fulfill its intended purpose however certain behaviours can be reinforced and enhanced from a very young age and that make future targetted training more likely to succeed. Behaviours such as search, track & find, fetch, sit, stand, drop, stay, come are easily reinforced with positive methods. The cute and appealing human/dog relationship behaviours such as shake hands, touch with the nose, crawl, roll over, sit up reinforce a positive human/dog bond and form a small part of the play/reward reinforcement, along with food and tugga-war. It is the quality of the relationship between the dog and handler that produce the best of results. Dogs are not robots and they respond to leadership and praise. Not surprisingly Labs are very food oriented however we transfer our reinforcers away from food as soon as possible to voice, play with a ball or tug-a-war. Most pups are like a sponge between 6 & 16 weeks of age. Conditioned competantly, they retain much of what they learn as they get older. _____________________________________________________________________________ SOCIALISATION
The socialisation period (between 6 & 16 weeks) in a puppies developement is considered most important and critical for the puppy. It is critical for establishment of social relationships - this time bridges both the time spent with the breeder and the new owner. If a breeder utilises this time well puppies adjust and engage in their social environment with people and other animal is a possitive way. If issolated from stimulation or presented with negative and fear inducing experiences these experiences can have can have long lasting effects. In principle what has been learnt can be unlearnt however thist take time, committment and skill on the part of the handler. TAPUA pups experience Early Neurological Stimulation between days 3 & 16 however the cuddles, hugs and environmental stimulation throughout thier time here. Pups experience the normal household noises and distactions of a busy life and all are introduced in a possitive way. From birth pups hear clocks dinging, TV's and phones going, lights going on and off at different times of the day and night, the radio, vacuum cleaner and the general noise and distraction of daily life. Because Pete and I are both shift workers the constant coming and going as well as the activity of our other dogs contribute to a stimulating and normal household life. Whelped inside we follow a pregressive process of noise and stimulation, sound tapes are played for fire crackers, thunder, children playing and traffic noise. The litter which are planned for police or military service have tapes with gun fire, machine guns, helecopters and planes. Our pups progress outside by 5/6 weeks, if the weather is good, pups will be outside during the day is a puppy day yard - Kindy II and at night in a smaller enclosure Kindy I. Kindy 1 is near the house and they sleep and rest in this earea there isa tunnel and a walkway over the tunnel and they are hhave a large kennel where they sleep together. Kindy II is set up to stimilate more interatction they have numerous places to hide and play and we use the childrens activity centres to hide items and enourage the pups to seek the toys or food. The dam is not removed from the pups however as we introduce food pups tend to naturally see us as the primary sourse of food - concurrently the dam is drying her milk and while the pups though still interacting with mum learn the necessary behavioural boundaries and and signals from their mum which needs to continue until they leave at 8 weeks. From approximately 5/6 weeks till they leave our pups learn to interact with our adult dogs during brief and supervised walks around our 1acre property. After pups are vaccinate their contact with strangers are increase. Following vaccinations we deliberately take our litter to TAFE where the animal studies under supervission handle and interact with the pups. This is saturation socialisation which the pups benefit greatly from and it is a pleasurable experience for everyone. By the time you get your 8 week old you pups has had as many broad and normalising expreiences which they are well expereinced in - all these experiences help you pup adapt to their new life with you. _________________________________________ NOTHING IN LIFE IS FREE I love this program and base all my general training on NILIF. Written by Deb McKean in 1999 it it sound science and sound behavioural management. I highly recommend this program for any dog owner at any level of competancy.
Pauline Gill & Peter Levett Woodstock, NSW, Australia Phone : PH:(02) 6345 0027 MB: 0429399341 Email : tapua@bigpond.com |