Adventure box

In early March my daughter and I attended a seminar on "Transformational Dog Breeding" with Dr. Gayle Watkins. While the focus of this seminar was on genetics, the goals of a breeding program, and puppy evaluations, she had a sample of an "Adventure Box" that she created to help stimulate puppies and give them new experiences and ways to interact in their very early days, after their eyes are open but before they develop fear.

The plans are available on her website for a small fee, or if you're not handy you can buy the boxes pre-made. But it's not too hard to build (espeically with a dad like mine!!). So last Saturday we went out and bought the supplies at Home Depot and the Dollar Store, and spent a couple days cutting, drilling and stringing.

The "box" is an open frame of PVC piping from which a multitude of items can be strung, either loosely or securely from top to bottom. Gayle recommends using items of different sizes, shapes, textures and colours, so the pups can experience all kinds of different sensations.

Once they are able to walk - at 3 to 3.5 weeks of age - you introduce them to the box at first singly and then all together. They learn to walk past and through the strung items, getting to sense different textures against their skin, getting bumped and squished (a bit!), hearing different noises as the objects bump each other, and having lots of different objects to paw at and chew.

This is a means of exposing the puppies to positive stress. The goal is to help them learn to handle stress in a good way, to learn not to freak out when unfamiliar objects touch them all over, to get used to new situations and react without fear to new sensations and environments. Overall, this is geared to creating adaptable, resilient, courageous and curious puppies that will be excellent family companions!

We are using the Adventure Box for the first time with Phoenix's puppies. We will be introducing it to them starting next week and will be watching to see how they react and learn to interact with all these fun toys!!