Seedling Litter is Six Days Old

Today, the Seedling Litter is six days old. It also was day 1 of early scent introduction. The puppies were exposed to the AKC's birch scent.

In the first few weeks of life puppies have a powerful sense of smell. They can also imprint on scents, like their mother. Puppies who are exposed to new scents at an early age show and increased ability for doing scent work. We take advantage of this and introduce a new scent every day. We record if they have a positive, neutral, or negative reaction. If it is positive, we let them smell it longer. If it is negative or neutral, we remove the scent after 5 or so seconds.

The benefits of this program go beyond scent work. The puppies become aware of their noses, and become more confident. The scents we introduce are not as important. Puppies who go through this dramatically increase their scent ability later in life. This helps dogs who later go on to be tracking dogs, therapy dogs, and do scent work.