How to Raise the Perfect Dog by César Millán

a dog. If a dog has a long ear or a long tail, those places are vulnerable to attack. So originally, the ears and tail were taken care of strictly for practical reasons.”
    During the same session, Brooke has the vet remove the puppies’ dewclaws. A dewclaw is something like a human thumb in its placement, but it grows a bit higher up on the paw than the rest of the toenails on that paw and never comes in contact with the ground. It’s a vestigial structure that is now nonfunctional or has some function only in some breeds—the sheep-herding Great Pyrenees, for instance, have double dewclaws on their back paws that were thought helpful for stability when herding sheep on rocky mountaintops. The majority of dogs have dewclaws only on their front paws. Dewclaws can hang loose, get caught, or cause minor or, rarely, serious irritations to the foot of a dog, particularly a terrier that is bred to dig. “Dewclaws on schnauzers are nothing but problems. It’s always the nail that they catch. So taking them out right away is something that we just do as part of the course,” says Brooke.
    However, vets say that many dogs do just fine without having their dewclaws removed. When we think about removing something like a dewclaw on a puppy, we have to put it in the context of the fact that we have genetically engineered dogs away from their original design. Some features of the original design no longer function within the body of the new breed. Procedures like removing a dewclaw are the direct consequence of our having rearranged Mother Nature in the first place.
    The most important thing to understand about your puppy’s first two weeks on the planet is that he is experiencing the world completely differently from the way a human baby would experience it. He knows three things—scent, touch, and energy. His mother is a scent, a warm body that provides comfort and food, but she is also a source of calm-assertive energy. She is gentle but definitely firm and assertive when she pushes a puppy away if she doesn’t want to nurse, or picks him up and moves him to where she wants him to be, or turns him over to clean him and stimulate his digestive system. She does not treat her litter as if they were breakable, and she does not “feel bad” if she needs to tell them in the language of touch and energy, “No, you are nursing a little too hard right now, back off.” Your puppy’s first experiences in life were filled with very clear rules, boundaries, and limitations.

    The Transitional Period: Weeks Two to Three
    Between twelve and fourteen days, the puppies enter what is known as the transitional period, which lasts another week or so. Compared to human babies, their transition from infant to toddler occurs at lightning speed. The puppies will start standing on their wobbly little legs, jostling for position, and even begin to play dominance games with their siblings. They are more deliberate in their activities. And the bitch becomes noticeably firmer in her discipline and corrections. There is absolutely no time in the puppy’s early development that his mother is not modeling leadership and enforcing distinct rules, boundaries, and limitations.
    This is also the phase that begins and ends with the puppy’s acquiring his final two senses. According to Brooke’s chart, Angel was born on October 18 and first opened his eyes on November 1. The landmark end of this stage in the puppy’s life occurs when he opens his ears—for Angel, that day was November 8, twenty-one days after his birth. A conscientious breeder will continue handling the puppies the way she did during the neonatal phase, and will also begin exposing them to different sights and sounds. For Brooke, this is the time when she allows outsiders—including future or prospective owners—to come to see the dogs. “I have ironclad rules about when people come down to visit the puppies. No shoes, and they always have to sanitize their hands. But I want my