The Naturalist Observes

I've been trying to observe the advances in behavior in the pups. I started noticing during the first week that they already had a startle reaction when areas near the eyes or the top of the head were touched suddenly. This is consistent with some neurological development of self protective zones around the head. As their motor skills develop, I have noticed the gradual perfection of skills as clumsiness and inaccuracies turn into proficiency. I have created a bedding environment of quilts, sheets and bath towels that I and Circe turn into little hills and valleys to negotiate. The pups have a softly cushioned opportunity to gain steadiness and sure footedness. But as they begin to interact, it's easy to see that they must perfect their ablity carry out the behaviors they set about. A pup may focus on another pup very keenly (and this always from a short distance as they can't see very far at this age), then bow up and do their very best puppy roar, and launch forward at the other pup....but fall over instead of hitting the mark. With practice they become much more fluent in their aim and then have to perfect what they do when they make contact. Yesterday I caught a pup (still toothless) practising various different knawing techniques on his brother's front leg as the brother slept.
Today I decided to open one of those tiny baby food glass jars...strained chicken...and see how the pups would cope. They were instantly attracted to the food but had difficulties with accurately aiming to get their mouth in the opening of the jar to lick the food. Much effort was spent experimenting around the rim of the little jar and the outside of the rim. There was considerable trial and error about getting the nose into the jar to lick the food. By the second opportunity, some learning seemed to have taken place as the attempts were far more directed, efficient and eager.