PAGE UPDATED 10 September 2006

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Rearing our puppies

Our brood bitches are excellent mothers. They give plenty of milk (because of their genes and the good food we give them!) and even regurgitate their food for their pups. That's why our pups tend to be big for their age. We feed as much natural food as possible. Our dogs get well cooked mielie pap ("corn porridge" or "grits") or brown rice, raw meat, ox liver and tripe, bone shavings (the stuff that falls through the butcher's saw when he cuts meat), fat, eggs, raw vegetables - (carrots and sweet potato are good de-wormers and green leaves are important for vit.K which helps absorb minerals, absolutely any veggies and fruit can be given except potato and onion) -  garlic, brewer's yeast, vit C, kelp, and yoghurt. In addition they have dry dog cubes available all day. They also get bones at least twice a week for the calcium and to keep their teeth clean. Even our bitches with big litters look rounded and beautiful and don't lose any weight or condition at any stage. (People saying that it's normal for bitches to lose condition - even to get thin - are just not feeding good enough food. )

All our pups are born in our house and stay there for the first three weeks. It gets very crowded sometimes! but at least that prevents puppies from getting squashed by their mothers. It's also a good start for the pups to have close contact with us. They are very aware of their surroundings from birth. For example, we often put each of the pups on a teat so that no-one misses out on a meal, and already in their first few days they learn to recognize our smell and come to our hands for food. Between 2 and 3 weeks they start leaving their 'nest' to go to the toilet on newspaper. When they move out of our house they go into thatched-roofed houses with grass and sand runs outside and blankets and newspaper inside. From about 4 weeks we give them toys to play with and have play sessions with them.

When we train them they can do fetching and sit and down and stand on command at 6 weeks, find hidden toys at 7 weeks, and do tracking by 8 weeks. Teaching them is really easy and takes less than 5 minutes a day. (See puppy training.) We deworm our pups from 2 weeks of age and continue every second week until they're 12 weeks. They are vaccinated at 5,  8 and 12 weeks. To protect them from distemper between 9 and 12 weeks, which ordinary vaccines don't, we give them a measles and distemper vaccine.

                                        

We have a few Olderhill German Shepherd Puppies for sale at the moment (September 2006)

Here they are in chronological order.

 
1) 6 boys and 5 girls born 2nd August 2006. Mother is Faerie (top two photos) and father Rex (below).
 
2) 7 boys and 1 girl born 25th August 2006. Mother Potter (photo to come) and father Lomo.
 
 
Here are photos of one of our Canadian Wolf cross Olderhill puppies. He's a Luna and Zac bi-colour son. When Draco was 11 weeks he went to Lorry Park Zoo in Johannesburg to keep Chaos, the lion, company. They're nearly the same age (Chaos just pips Draco). These photos were taken when they were introduced to each other and as you can see they hit it off straight away.
     
 
 
Here they are again at 7 months. If Chaos tries to pounce on people, Draco stops him.
  
        
 
 

links to other topics on site: - homepage; - trained dogs for sale; - puppy training; - nutrition; - our Canadian Wolf x Olderhills; - photo gallery; - medical matters; - Press Coverage; - our kennel: Cornfields; - contact us & links to other sites



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