Pictures received from her new family.

Last Saturday Venture went home with her new family. She is adjusting to her new humans & other animals just fine. She's happy and growing wonderful. Today she went to a meet and greet with her new vet, and she is 1.6lbs heavier then last week Friday.
I am really happy that she's doing so well. Jessie & I miss her enormously and we are trying to get back in the old routine. I do think Jessie is a little depressed though.

I have been reading up on canine grieve and mourning. Research shows that dogs form emotional bonds which may include companion animals in their household, and hence removing that companion can be expected to cause behavioral changes which overlap with what we normally interpret as grieve and mourning.

These negative behavior changes are: increased attention seeking, playing less, level of activity reduced, sleeping more, fearfulness increased, eating less and vocalisation might increase. Especially when dogs have a strong emotional bond, playing together, grooming each other, sleeping together, etc, these changes occur

While Jessie doesn't show all behavior changes, she clings more at me, sleeps more and especially the first couple of days was less active. She is clearly grieving the loss of Venture. Their bond was very strong. Venture being the only pup and Jessie taking very good care of her. Even on the last day she had Venture drink with her for a couple of minutes.
It wil take time for her to be herself again, on average dogs grieve between 2 and 6 months, but hopefully for Jessies sake it will be less than that. Important is to give her more love, cuddles, massages and playtime.

I've never given it a lot of thought what the emotional consequences are when a mama and puppy are separated. My bad, I guess. But having only one puppy it definitely makes sense. So if we ever have another singleton litter, only one pup to care for, we will keep him or her. Unless the mama doesn't care for her puppy like Jessie did for Venture. We don't want to put our dogs through such emotional distress again.

In the meanwhile we miss you Venture and we can't wait to see you again🧡🧡🧡

Happy birthday to you Mojo!
Already six years ago,
Puppy number one,
Puppy with the black collar🖤,
You came into this world


Brave
Independent
Resilient
That you are
Happy
Doing the things you love
Always in for fun
You are the best Mojo!


We love you sweetie🥰❤️

And happy birthday to your brothers and sisters too: Raaf, Rami, Julius, Rowan, Kira, Bailey and Forrest.

The same is for potty training. Being able to release themselves gives a very good feeling. They don't care if they do it on the kitchen floor, on your 200 year old carpet or outside. As long as it is immediately, they will pee and poo whenever and wherever they can. The good feeling (release) is reinforced over and over again. And because 6 weeks old puppies have a very small bladder, and their muscles but also their brain are not fully developed yet, they will not be able to hold their business for a long period of time. That takes practice and time.

Important is to show your dog that unwanted behavior is getting them nowhere by ignoring that behavior. By not reinforcing that behavior. And praising, rewarding wanted behavior, by reinforcing the behavior, by showing them this behavior only leads to good things, like food, praise, company, release, freedom, etc, etc.