It’s been a big week for the puppies! Life is getting more
and more interesting and varied for them. Last Wednesday they had their first
major car ride all the way to the vet’s office, where they were prodded and
poked. Nobody complained very much about the poke, and did very well with all
the handling by strangers.
Then on Monday we did the puppy temperament evaluation. This
was a new process for us and I had been eagerly anticipating it, hoping it
would prove a useful tool in matching puppies to families and identifying
possible issues a puppy might encounter in a certain situation, and conversely
that the family might encounter with a certain puppy.
To date we have relied on general, unstructure observations
of how the puppies react in various situations, how adventurous they are when
taken to the school classroom, the vet, or outside in the fields, how ready
they are to explore when they first emerge from the puppy corner and venture
into the rest of the house, and so on. While these observations have been
helpful, they are fairly vague and generally based on seeing the pups with us
and as members of a pack. Furthermore, while we do notice differences among
puppies, it has been hard to exactly frame them and put them into words that
might be helpful to a family in making a selection. One still ends up using
general terms like playful, cuddly, adventurous, and so on.
Having now gone through the evaluation process once, I can
say that I wish we had been doing it all along as it provodes a framework and a
vocabulary to, first, identify clearly the different personality
characteristics of each pup individually and, second, to identify possible ways
of handling the various personalities and the types of situations in which the
pups will thrive and where they might have more difficulties.
The format of the test is this: one member of the evaluation
team interacts with the puppy while the second takes notes. Each puppy is
evaluated individually, in a strange setting by a person it has never met before.
These factors in and of themselves are stressors that provide a context to
identify how a puppy reacts to new environments and the things it looks to for
comfort and security. Each element of the test is designed to evaluate a
specific characteristic – patience, biddability, courage, confidence, pain
tolerance, sight and sound reactions, and so on. It also identifies what the
puppy is more focused on – what readily catches and holds its attention – such as
food, people, other dogs, objects, etc. Then there is the motivational element:
does it seek to be rewarded with food, contact with people, touch, praise,
play, other dogs? Put all of these together and you get an idea of what makes
this specific dog tick, how it might react in certain situations, what can be
done to motivate it to do what you want, and so on.
It was
fascinating to watch the six pups go through the test. Each is indeed distinct.
The three females, in particular, were all so different. First we put Gold Girl
through her paces. She was a little “wild child” – very active, investigating
everything, playing with the objects, eager to explore, not particularly
attentive to the person doing the evaluation, but very attentive to the new and
strange things all around her. She hardly stopped moving, and didn’t care too
much about new noises and sights.
Next came
Chocolate Phantom girl. She was almost the exact opposite of the first! She
pretty much shut down in the face of all these new things, trying to find a safe,
secure spot to hide. The instant we brought another, older dog into the room,
however, she was a different puppy – active, playful, happy. She was also very motivated
by food, coming out of her scaredy-dog mode somewhat for treats. She will be a
good snuggler, but she’ll want a bit of time to get used to new people and
places.
Black
Phantom Girl (Katniss), was third to be tested. She was pretty much right in
the middle of the other two – balanced, happy, active but not wild, alert but
not startle-prone, courageous and confident but still attentive to people. She
is the one we will be placing in a Guardian Home as a breeding prospect puppy –
her type of balanced temperament is exactly what we aim to produce and
reproduce!
The males
also showed distinctions, though they didn’t range across the scale the way the
females did. Caramel Boy is quite vocal, courageous though somewhat lacking in
confidence, thoughtfull but a bit insecure. Gold Boy is probably the most
people-oriencted of them all and seeks to orient himself by his humans. Mocha
Phantom Boy (Cumin) again is quite balanced – smart, courageous, not overly
reactive but very attuned to his environment. He is the one we will be placing
in A Guardian Home (still needed!) as a prospective stud.
Over the
next few days, the families who have reserved puppies will be making their selection.
Once this has happened, I will post more details on each and highlight the two pups
still in need of homes. Sorry I didn’t
take any pictures during the evaluation process – I was too busy just
observing!
