Hello, I think that neonatal handling exercises at the proper age when done correctly can be beneficial on development. I don't find there to be a benefit to the future owner being the one doing them, just a human who is knowledgeable in it, such as a great breeder. I would never bring a puppy home before 7 weeks in order for the puppy to bond more with the human. There is so much development and social intelligence that is gained by having the puppy stay with mom and littermates for a minimum of 7 weeks, and the drawbacks of taking a puppy away from mom and littermates too early can have such drastic effects on development, adaptability, temperament development, behavior, and social skills, that it can lead to a puppy no longer qualifying for specialized work where public exposure is necessary. That might not be at all what you are planning on doing, but I just wanted to say that just in case. https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/dog-breeding/breeder-puppy-socialization-early-neurological-stimulation/ If the puppy is staying with mom and the breeder or yourself has the ability to do neonatal exercises with puppies, then check out these resources for more information on how and when to do the exercises. Once pup is past the neonatal age, before they are ready to go home, exposure to a puppy safe yard, obstacles, a crate, gentle human visitors, household appliances and normal home noises (opposed to puppies kept in a kennel facility or away from the family), are also very beneficial. Socialization can then continue with you even more after 8 weeks, with careful trips to public places (where pup is carried anywhere that's not safe disease wise prior to completing their 12 week vaccines. Check out the free PDF E-books Downloads "Before You Get Your Puppy" and "After You Get Your Puppy" for more information of socialization, which can be downloaded at this website. www.lifedogtraining.com/freedownloads Best of luck training, Caitlin Crittenden

Feb. 27, 2023

Hello, In theory it should be. Both types of training utilize similar skills and behaviors in the dog. I would teach whichever one is higher priority first and wait until pup has mastered the scent detection associated with that skills first, before adding in a new scent detection skill. I would also teach a distinctly different alert cue for each thing. For examples, for DAD training, pup actually needs to learn two scent detections most likely, one for high blood sugar and one for low. Teach the most critical one first, wait until pup is good at alerting for that consistently, then add in the other separate alert for the other blood sugar event. I would spend a solid year at least working on just the DAD training, with general public access training and scent training for highs and lows, before adding in additional cancer detection training, if cancer detection is of second priority to you. You want pup to be really good at their primary task before adding in something new. Many service dogs are do learn multiple task alerts. I know one such dog who is a gluten detection dog for celiac, but also trained to alert for anxiety and help with stability and retrievals. It's common to teach multiple tasks, which is what you will be doing, you just have to isolate them enough to avoid confusing the dog. Best of luck training, Caitlin Crittenden

Feb. 13, 2023

Hello, Cancer detection is scent based training in almost all cases. To do such training you will need medical samples to scent detect to. I would see if there is a group or organization in your extended area already doing such work and training and partner with them to do the training. You will need an organization that's already working with a lab or hospital to have access to such scent samples. Once you have access to samples, then you can start pairing scenting with alerting - like telling pup to bark if they smell a cancer sample, putting the "Speak" type cue on verbal command, then phasing out the verbal command once pup begins to associate that smell with being told Speak in order to get a treat. You would then need non-cancerous samples to also practice with to teach pup to differentiate between the cancer sample and healthy sample, only rewarding a correct alert. A lot of the process then is working on reliability so that pup is always detecting correctly and not giving false alerts on other related smells or healthy samples, teaching pup to pick out just that one difference in the samples, then planting the samples on people and teaching pup to alert when they smell the cancerous sample hidden on someone's person, then finally setting up situations where pup doesn't know you are training where they are encouraged and rewarded to detecting a cancerous sample on someone in distracting locations and with various people, so pup learns how to focus on that in different scenarios - depending on how you will be using the training; whether pup will be detecting cancer with people who may have cancer or always just be given a lab sample to detect, I believe its usually done with people who may have cancer in most situations though, so pup would need to be able to handle the distractions that come with that live setting. Best of luck training, Caitlin Crittenden

Sept. 14, 2022