How to raise a singleton?

Being the only puppy has its pros and cons. Let start with the pros: you get all mamas attention, and humans attention, all mamas milk is there for you to drink and you don't have annoying littermates that bump into you all time, climb over your head and want to steal your place at the milk bar. You don't have to share, how awesome is that?

But on the other hand you don't have your litter mates to keep you warm, to keep you company when you're not feeling 100% and you have nobody your size to play with or even fight with. That doesn't seem to be any fun?

From the puppies point of view the cons and pros might balance against each other. However, from the human point of view the pros and cons can have negative effects on the puppies welfare, physical and behavioral.
Physical: getting too big while paws are not there yet to carry all that weight (swimmer), under developed muscles because of little crawling. Behavioral there are a lot more consequences, like lack of bite inhibition, trouble coping with frustration, sensitivity to touch, and difficulties in social situations which can by anything.

​Because this is all new to me too I don't have all the answers on how I am going to approach this all. So I decided to take it one week at a time and depending on the development of the pup and her needs, I'll decide on what I can do to prevent any physical & behavioral problems.

For week 1 I am doing a couple of things normally her litter mates do, like pushing with plush bears paws on her side when she is drinking, change her to another nipple when she is drinking and make her crawl over towels and toys to her mama so she uses her muscles frequently.

I also separate her regularly from mom so she doesn't have continuous access to the milk bar, have heating pads and gas stove on 24/7. On day 3 we started with ENS and ESI and I give her daily massages and stroke and carry her.

It's seems like a lot but it's not really. Also Jessie helps by getting up during a drink moment which leaves the pup without her milk. Also Jessie cleans the pup many times a day and not always very gentle. This helps the pup cope with frustration and that things are not always going her way.

I will try to put some pictures and film up with all the things Jessie & I do. In the daily update I'll tell more about the progress, if any. In another blog I will give updates on my approach, like how to prevent excessive biting.