Ive heard 6-8 weeks but when is the soonest?

The old standard is 49 days or 7 weeks. New research seems to suggest that pups do better when they are left with litter mates as long as 10 to 12 weeks.

I have never liked to see a pup that was removed before the 7 week period. Although it is kind of an arbitrary number, many pups that I have seen removed before that have had socialization issues.

Technically, a pup will survive being removed as soon as they are weaned and able to eat solids on their own.

+1

I have 2 cockers right now, one is 2.5 yrs and the other is 7 months. The older one I got right at 7 weeks. The younger I got at 11 weeks. My very limited experience says that the 10-12 week frame is WAY better for the pup. Rocky is much calmer around people and dogs than Macy, and also adjusted very quickly to life with me. In the future, I will always try for the older pup. Of course, it could just be a difference in personalities, but as Zack said, new studies are now recommending the 10-12 week time frame for a new pup.

We've seen many pups in almost 10 years' time. How much more robust and confident a pup is when allowed more time to mature is something I can attest to. In contrast, I've seen how poorly dogs do when removed at 6 weeks or less. Our 'good mamas' tend to cut pups loose between 7-9 weeks. Our dogs build good bone, muscle and hardiness and I'm sure the strong start they get is a big part of that. If you can hold out, I would. There is no 'second chance' at a first start.

There are a number of variables with this as with anything and I think the time varies among breeds. But for labs and probably most other gun dogs I am a firm believer in the 7 weeks. I have received pups from 6-8 weeks and have not noticed any difference in them. 6 weeks is about the youngest I would want to take a pup, but I don’t think its all positive by keeping a pup with the litter after the 7-8 week period.

I want to get the pup in the house with me and start getting as much time together and socialization with it as I can and build up its confidence with me. When keeping a pup with a litter past 7-8 weeks I think there is a higher risk for a pup to start picking up bad habits and I think you lose out on a lot of that early socialization and trust building with it. My pups are starting to play rough at 6 weeks of age and it continues to increase with age. There is no added benefit by having pups together in an environment where they play so rough there is a risk of injury or the loss of confidence by continuing to get picked on. The other thing is cleanliness of the pups. Unless I personally know the breeder and there facilities very well, I don’t trust them keeping my pup past 7/8 weeks. Again I want them in the house with me as much as possible and getting them potty trained and teaching them to be a clean dog. I have seen pups that people have got from breeders at 10-12 week age and a lot of time they have problems being clean in the crate/kennel. Also it usually takes the pups a lot longer to get going in training program compared to pups that went home at 7 weeks.

Zach – Do you have any articles or websites you can send me to read about the benefits to keeping a pup with the litter 10-12 weeks? I am interested what breeds this is based upon and the reasoning.

Iron Spikes – You stated that your better females cut the pups at 7-9 weeks, do you let your females determine when the pups get weaned? If so what is your thought process behind this?

Thanks,

Jake

Jake,

I do not have a reference at hand for this. I read the information on RTF some time ago and there were some links there. You might do a search over there.

I think that Angie may have been involved in that discussion and may know where to find the links.

ZP

Thanks Zach I will look over there for it.

It does not matter what breed, they are all dogs. There is socializing that takes place within the litter past 7 weeks that you cannot get back. Your dogs has its whole life to socialize with a second species.

That does not make too much sense to me about an older dog having more issues than a younger dog as far as it making a mess in the kennel. The older dog would have more control than the younger dog. That is the first time I have heard anyone saying that the younger pup was cleaner in a crate.

Here is an article for you from a PHD in animal behavior.

http://www.trader.co.nz/versatiledogs/49days.htm

Thanks for the link to the article, it was a good read. I just had time to quickly read it, but have a few comments.

The article is based upon research that was conducted in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. Dogs have evolved a lot in 50+ years. Go watch an Open series at retriever field trial and compare that to a field trial 50 years ago, you can’t even compare the two. A lot of that can be credited to better training techniques but it is also due to the evolution of the dogs. I can see this in the litters of pups I have by the number of days it takes for them to open their eyes and start walking. The amount of time for these milestones has decreased over the 10+ years I have been breeding. My litters are continuing to have better and better field trial pedigrees so this may have a lot to do with it compared to a litter of pups from two common parents. I read Wolters Gun Dog book a number of years ago but I believe he discussed watching for milestones in the litter to tell when they are ready to go home. I assume he got this information from the research discussed in the article but the article did not touch on this at all. I would be interested to read what the research concluded about watching for milestones in the litter. Because like I stated before the amount of rough housing that occurs with my litters between weeks 6-7 is enough that I am concerned a pup could become injured.

The period of most interest to a prospective puppy buyer is III, the socialization period. This was also the period concentrated on most by the Bar Harbor group. Their findings demonstrated that socialization with dogs, mother and litter mates, begins at three weeks, peaks at seven weeks but continues for up to several months longer.

This research states that the socialization period peaks at 7 weeks but then continues on for several months longer. Is it really worth it to have the pup stay for extra time after their socialization period has peaked?

The first of these is that the ideal time to produce a close social relationship between puppy and master occurs between six and eight weeks of age. This is the optimal time to remove it from litter and make it into a house pet. Done earlier the pup hasn't enough opportunity to form social relationships with other dogs, but would be very attached to people. At the other extreme, if exposure to people is delayed to twelve or more weeks of age the pup will have good relationship with dogs but will be timid and have no confidence with people. A strong relationship with people is important for pet dogs and for working dogs such as guide dogs, and for some hunting dogs where they work under close direction. This might apply to say field trial retrievers. For those dogs that do not require such a strong dog-human relationship, such as the hounds and field trial pointing breeds, exposure at the six to eight week period is not so essential.

This research describes how it’s important for working retrievers to have a strong relationship with people. This research supports my comment that I want the pup in the house with me and building that bond.

The article states there are two benefits to keeping the pup until 10 weeks of age. One being the added socialization with its litter mates, and the second being you can have a better idea what the dog will look like when it is full grown at 10 weeks. I could care less about knowing what the dog is going to look like when full grown because I am focusing on performance opposed to looks.

In regards to my statement about the age depends on the breeds, I believe toy breeds and other smaller dogs the standard time to take the pup is usually about 12 weeks opposed to 7 weeks.

My statement about pups being kept in the litter longer are usually not as clean does not have anything to do with the pup not being able to hold it. But that the dog doesn’t know or care to hold it. Most breeders don’t have the space and/or facilities to keep a litter of larger pups past 7-8 weeks. So the pups are getting bigger, eating and drinking more and therefore relieving themselves more but are kept in the same size kennel or area they were a couple of weeks before. Now the pups are getting use to being in close proximity with feces and urine which then relates to them not being clean in the crate or kennel when you bring them home. I don’t know if you have ever had a pup that was raised in a concrete kennel and then one that was raised on grass most of the time. There is a night and day difference between the two when you start house breaking them. From my experience it will take about twice as long to house break a pup that was raised in a kennel with a concrete floor compared to one that had access to grass the majority of time.

Jake

Jake, my thought process is very simple and time-tested. "Mama knows best." I say that tongue-in-cheek, but at the same time, there is sincerity. A mama dog instinctively knows what her pups need (or at least the GOOD mamas do.) Why not let nature take it's course? In all our years of existence here on planet earth, surely mother nature has proven she knows what she is doing! Every time I've fought it, whether with dogs, horses, sheep, goats or other animals we raise, I've regretted that interference in one way or another.

I don't see anything earth-shattering that happens in a 7-10 or even 15 day period that can't be recouped over the course of a dog's life. I used to think there were 'magic' dates, but the pups have proven to me time and again that there are merely optimum moments, but rarely 'win or lose' ones. In other words, a pup isn't lost forever or permantently set back if it sticks with mama longer. And I will go so far as to say that some pups have shown that, just like human kids, they need that extra time and it can actually benefit them.

I don't believe there is a 'one size fits all' method for the optimum dog. They are unique and individual creatures. The BEST thing to do? If you have the luxury, tailor each pup's developmental training in accordance with that pup's developmental progress and capability. We do have that luxury at our kennels, as we are set up to keep pups thru the Jump Start Academy - to 4 months of age. During that time, they do everything a purchased pup would do, but with us, so they have the opportunity to build all the proper attachments. Later, the 'human attachment' transfers to the new owner - and our pups have done so successfully and consistently over the years.

x2. Good point!

Thanks for the response. What is the earliest you let your pups go home to their new owners? At what point do you start supplementing the pup’s food?

I am completely done weaning at 6 weeks with my pups. However my female’s tits are usually so raw from the pups teeth at that time she doesn’t want to feed any longer anyways.

Do you not have any issues with your females not drying up and/or mastitis by her nursing that long?

Jake

Jake, our program is set up to keep pups until they graduate from the Jump Start Academy. We imprint pups at birth and we use those early weeks to condition pups for future training. I think we have only ever sold a handful, if that, as small pups - and folks request pick-up on 'day 49.' Even pups that have left this early seem to have benefitted from the imprinting and early conditioning, however. New owners report strong attachment to humans/desire to please, excellent responsiveness to whistle and lack of gun shyness.

We begin supplementing pup's food at 3-4 weeks because feeding time is used to imprint pups to humans as pack leaders and to condition pups to whistle commands and gunfire from a very early age. We raise dairy goats and their milk is great for pups - non-allergenic, very nutritious and easy to digest. We soak the puppy chow in fresh goats milk until it is a mash. This gives mama a break - maybe why we don't run into lack of milk, mastitis or soreness very often. We use bag balm on the teats when we see hints of problems arising.

I'm a firm believer in not releasing puppies until the 10 - 12 week mark. Its not just what they learn from Mom, but from their siblings. 5-10 weeks is when the siblings teach each other important things like bite inhibition.

Most breeders I know introduce outside food at about 3 weeks, starting with a mush, very much like baby cereal, and working up to hard food. Also, by this time, you can tell which dogs will be show/tracking/pet quality. My breed is bloodhounds.

x2 - Labrador Retrievers. Not to mention you can tell temperament/drive/pack order. In our program, this is a strong indicator for training strategy. Low pack pups require more encouragement/confidence building, top-pack pups require more discipline/obedience, mid-pack pups turn out to be the best performers as they readily follow the alpha, but are not overly submissive/fearful/dependent.

Ironspikes has way more experience in this matter than I do so I would listen to him! But here is my 2 cents

I only have 2 experiences. First got a beagle a few years ago when he was about 3 months old. People say you are the person that conditions your dog to be scared or gun shy and I agree with that to an extent because this pup was scared of people and loud noises from the time I put him in the truck to take him home. Maybe the people who were raising him conditioned it in him I don't know but I believe that staying with a litter to long could be a good thing or a very bad thing, unless you trust the breeder to not let the shy ones continue to be shy and scared and not let the dominant ones continue to dominate the pack like IronSpikes said then I would wait 10-12 weeks.

My other experience is my pup Suede. Took her away from her litter at exactly 49 days old. She has been one of the best dogs I have ever been around. Great around other dogs and great around new people. She has loads of drive and wants to please me more than anything. These maybe coincidences but I will definitely take my next pup away at 49 days old.

Good points, Austin. And like Jake said, a lot of breeders aren't set up facility-wise to keep pups for 12 weeks, let alone prepared training-wise. We intentionally use the time with our pups to imprint and condition them to build a foundation for work in the field. This isn't something that 'just happens' by default.

Think of it this way:
EVERYDAY THE PUPS ARE LEARNING SOMETHING... whether good, by intention or 'bad', by default. So either pup is moving in a positive or a negative direction, based on what that breeder allows to happen in the kennels. If that time is not being used to build a gundog foundation, that is time lost, or worse - time that is destructive to the future dog.

8 weeks period