# Handreared and behavioural problem?



## bella2013 (Aug 29, 2013)

I'm sure some of you are aware that I am hand rearing 3 pups, they will be two weeks tomorrow 

Now my question is to people who have or have hand reared pups, Do hand reared show any specific behavioural problems that pups who have been with mum don't show? 

Main reason is I am considering keeping one but don't want to jump in the deep end and find I cant cope with a certain behavioural problem due to them being hand reared. 

If anyone has any advice or experience I would love to hear it. 

Also Tess is sulking and I think it might be because the pups aren't here, anyone had that before?


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## Guest (Oct 4, 2014)

A lot depends on the skill of the person doing the hand rearing. 

If you have a safe, stable adult dog with good dog skills, I would make sure the pups get a lot of time to hang out with that dog (and other safe adults).

IIRC bite inhibition is the biggest thing. The dams nipples have nerve endings, a bottle nipple does not. That makes a big difference in the eventual development of that dogs bite inhibition. 
Definitely playing with litter mates helps, and playing with stable adults helps. (Worse would be a hand-raised singleton pup.)

We had a pup we hand raised from probably 4 weeks, he was always a weird little dog (great dog, we enjoyed him a lot, but a lot of weird little quirks). I dont know how much of that was due to his start in life or how much of that was inherent genetics affecting his temperament.


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## ClaireandDaisy (Jul 4, 2010)

I had a hand reared GSD. No problems with her at all. She was a sweetheart.


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## Rafa (Jun 18, 2012)

I once handreared six Cavalier pups. The bitch belonged to a lady who was admitted to hospital unexpectedly, so she had to come to me to have her pups.

From the minute they were born, she wanted nothing to do with them and was snarling at them.

I reared them to 9 weeks old and they all went to new homes locally, so I was able to follow their progress.

They all made happy, healthy little dogs with no behavioural problems.


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## Smalldogs (Sep 11, 2012)

Our Frankie was hand-reared because his mother rejected the pups after a caesarean. His breeder hand-raised Frankie and his sister. She went to a lot of trouble reintroducing the pups to their mother and the other dog in the home after they were weaned, and he is a credit to her. He is a wonderful dog, we adore him, but he is also completely weird, with more quirky behaviours than any dog I've ever met.


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## BoredomBusters (Dec 8, 2011)

Mothers will also teach inhibitions about messing in the den by pushing them out of the bed to toilet in another area once they are weaning which is when she stops eating their mess usually, as well as tolerating separation and frustration by leaving them (in sight, then out of sight but within hearing range, then completely gone).


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## GingerRogers (Sep 13, 2012)

I realised just how much they learn from the mothers and siblings when I visited a friend whose dog has two pups recently. My littleun was taken from her mother at 5 weeks (not by me!!) and seeing these two at 6 weeks I could see how much she missed out on in thats short space

I would think if you do enough research to find out the sorts of things the mother would do and the sort of behaviors they will learn from her and each other then to some degree the extent of any issues is largely in your hands ?? Nothing is certain of course.


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## ClaireLouise (Oct 11, 2009)

Our akita was hand reared and we have had no problems at all.


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## loukodi (Oct 27, 2010)

Kodi was hand reared, he has a few funny quirks (like balling up his blankets and sucking them like a dummy) but im not sure if they would be from hand rearing


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## Jamesgoeswalkies (May 8, 2014)

bella2013 said:


> Do hand reared show any specific behavioural problems that pups who have been with mum don't show?


Firstly, I would say that as far as I know there are no set (behavioural) problems that hand reared puppies always have. However as others have said, mothers are busy little creatures who do a lot more than just feed and clean their offspring and a *good *mother has a massive influence on their offspring most especially from 4-5 weeks of age when nursing has stopped.

I have observed this closely a number of times and am still fascinated 

As has already been mentioned the teaching of bite inhibition begins at this age and littermates are good at teaching this but mum is the real teacher (there is a lot of 'rough play' with mum in the last few weeks and she uses her mouth with them, but never bites and they have to reciprocate) and so this would be an area I would keep an eye on.

And yes, toileting which puppies should begin to do away from the bedding from about three weeks (as soon as they can see and totter) is helped by mum as she ceases to clean it up. Their timing is instinctive.

Mum is very tough at leaving them, too ...which teaches resiliance (and the ability to tolerate separation as Bordombusters says). From being 24/7 in the early stages mum picks and chooses when to feed them as they mature and of course once she feels they need to cease feeding she will move on to growling (and even snapping) at them if they try to drink. She will also only tolerate pushy or silly behaviour for a while before reprimanding her puppies (Lip curl / snap) and this is said to aid early self control (as well as teaching early canine communication).

But in many cases so long as we know what we are doing these problems can be worked on.

It is of course vital to have plenty of canine role models on hand to ensure they understand that they are dogs and not humans 

J


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## bella2013 (Aug 29, 2013)

Thanks everyone that has been really helpful :thumbup:. 
I have a female JRT and my friend who is sharing mummy duty has two labs, male and female and we are going to be mixing them with these three. 
They all have different but good social skills, i.e. Tess will roll on her back, Dee will lip curl and air snap when had enough(she has had pups before and going to be watching her closely) and Paddy is a big clown and plays nicely and has good social skills.
Our main concern was bite inhibition as we know mum is the main teacher in this, is there anything else we can do help teach bite inhibition except letting sibling play?
we've been told to start with frustration tolerance at about three weeks, any tips on this would be great too? 
Hopefully we'll raise nice sound puppies :thumbup: (we're just chuffed all 14 are thriving atm)


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