The U.S. military did studies on raising puppies, and they found that doing certain exercises with puppies during the time of rapid neurological growth, between the puppies third and sixteenth day of life would increase the pups performance in later life. They created a program called the Bio Sensor program consisting of 5 exercises to be done once a day with the pups. They found that not only were puppies able to cope more with stressful situations, and problem solve better than other puppies, but that they were actually physically healthier with higher cardiovascular performance, stronger immune systems, adrenal glands and heart beats.
The exercises should only be repeated once a day, as the point is to add mild stress. More than once, and it could be overwhelming and could have the reverse effect on the puppies.
Natural handling should also be a big part of rearing puppies, and these exercises are not a replacement for that!
These exercises should be followed up by environmental enrichment, and socialization as the puppies grow.
Thanks to Dr. Carmen Battaglia who published an article on this subject, many breeders have started implementing early Neurological stimulation in their breeding programs.
Google: Early Neurological Stimulation and Dr. Carmen Battaglia to find his article on the Internet, which explains the exercises in greater detail.
THIS IS VIDEO IS NOT MEANT TO PROMOTE BREEDING DOGS IN ANY WAY!
Thanks to Diva for letting us film and work with her puppies! You can see more of Diva and her pups on Omar's youtube channel- alomaro
These puppies were 16 days old in the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G31N_gmUkE0
Emily, that was an awesome video. I totally have read about ENS and find it very interesting! How awesome that you get to work with those puppies! They are very cute by the way! I have another video that I will send you on this same subject! Keep up the great work! Pam
5* and a fav. The Mal puppies were so cute! I have heard of this program, although the name I am familar with is the Super Dog Program. I first heard about this from Mary Ray. Every reputable breeder should be using this program as well as an extensive socialization program.
Ashley & Kaine
Yay, I am so glad you did a video on Early Neurological Stimulation! More breeders should do it! I’ve seen the difference in several litters already. Kudos!
Great vid Emily!
I have already seen this method a couple of times (articles, books) but I only know of one breeder doing it.
It’s sad, most breeders (especially in my country) do very poorly in the socialization and enviromenthal enrichment part. As so, the owners must expose their pups to several risks in order the promove(?) the socialization that wasn’t done.
This video is already in my Favorites, I’ll do my best to change things around here. 🙂
This is a great program, thank you for sharing, Emily.
I’ve helped with a few service dog litters who get this, and am working with a young litter right now – clicker training starts tomorrow!
I can see these exercises really making a big dif. with a liter that only had one pup, or with breeds that have small litters. As the pups were feeding I saw many of the puppies getting squished into similar positions. (mom licking one of the pups when in the “supine position”). But I am a firm believer that you can create amazing dogs through conditioning and reinforcement, so a breeder that is an awesome trainer, might make the dogs look better than they really are genetically.
my two dogs are examples of that- in the wrong hands my BC might be dangerous and my chihuahua would be the typical fearful chihuahua (she only began socialization at 5 months)
Awesome job getting this info out!
I was just reading about this while checking a bc breeder web-site, apparently they do this with their newborns. It is so terrific to see it in practice. Thanks for making this Em, had to favor it.
agreed, so many beautiful breeds with so many wonderful qualities. . .
Oh, how adorable! It’s great to see a video of this, I’ve only ever read about it.
Personally, I have a Malinois puppy craving!
Another nice job of relaying good research and training. Thx for sharing!
I saw a doccie on rearing and training guide dogs in the US and they use this method as well on all their puppies. I found it fascinating! The sad thing for most people is that we have little access to our puppy before we take it home. Wouldn’t it be great if all breeders did this?
I had never heard of this method. Very interesting and makes a lot of sense to get even more out of the dogs all of their true potential!!
Do you have by any chance any following up on the pups? How are they doing?
I did these exercises with a rescue litter of standard poodles. We also held the puppies frequently and talked to them and showed them lots of affection. When the puppies went to poodle rescue at the age of almost 5 months, I was told that they were the smartest, nicest and most well-adjusted puppies they had ever seen. This REALLY does work!
Thank you so much for sharing! I appreciate that you do not promote breeding in the vid description — there is an unfortunate glut of breeders in this world and so many that care little for the well-being of the dogs.
I am a breeder of Doberman Pinschers. I tried this with my recent litter and found them to be calmer and more alert pups.
Interesting… I would like to see their experimental protocol. Hopefully they were controlling against puppies that were handled for equal amounts of time, but didn’t have these particular exercises done. I’ve seen another study where they showed that reduced stress later in life was not caused by the handling, but rather by the fact that the mother groomed her offspring more after they were handled, and it was actually the increased attention from the mother that made the difference.
Another great video, thank you. A friend has just got a new puppy and I know the breeder did this with all of them. She also did plenty of good socialisation and the pup is exceptionally self-confident.