Posted by T. on 8/31/2006, 10:54 am, in reply to "14 weeks (more)" There is another fear period ( a few others really)...learning or highly impressionable period around 16 weeks; these fear periods are flexible, because dogs are individual. It could just be that Monkey is in a very sensitive phase right now - and (sounds like) he is also a sensitive pup and also didn't maybe get as much socializing/coping skills early on - all these factors are adding up to what you are seeing right now. I say CHILL OUT. He is a tiny pup and he will have to give in and rely on his new people. Loss of appetite may lose him an ounce or two, but I really doubt he will starve himself to death (really!) If the new owner wants to keep him and continue to try, I think that is a good idea. She should avoid reinforcing his shy behaviors, and just ignore him; should he peek his head out of the crate, reward his confidence with kind words and gentle tones. Clearly at this point harsh tones should be avoided, any accidents he has/potty in the wrong spot should NOT be corrected in any way but ignored (until he knows he is home and part of the pack and confident and himself again.) "He is a pup with love and attention and food you would think he would be reassured enough to try and play ect. He was my 100 mile an hour pup - My 1,000 licks per second pup!!" This relates to the temperament stuff I first posted about. You may want to utilize puppy aptitude testing in your litters http://www.volhard.com/puppy/pat.htm . What is involved is this; you test the pups at 49-51 days - no sooner, as they do not have adult brain waves, and no later - because they will then be in the fear period and reactions will be off. You need a person who has never met the pups before do the testing. YOu need (and this is critical and important or the test results will be skewed) a foreign place to test the pups, ie take them by car to the puppy testers home. You leave the litter in the car and take the pups one by one to the tester - so the pup being tested can't hear or see his littermates. Pups get confidence from being in a pack - when you seperate the pup and he must rely on just himself, his true nature is revealed. What you see in the test results will help dictate what kind of training and socializing each pup should get, as well as what sort of home that pup would do best in. I suspect Monkey boy would have tested alot like one of my pups I called the Aloof Duke/Duke of Earl. He was super sweet - but so aloof that I would call him shy. I never thought I would sell him - who wants a shy pup that doesn't like a busy environment? Well, I found the perfect family for him - the kids liked him because they felt sorry for him because they thought he was sad; the parents had experience with shy temperaments and for some reason preferred them to the bouncy outgoing drive you crazy temperaments ( Because of the temperaments in that litter I was careful to breed to an outgoing stud the next time around - I really do not like the super aloof types, and I felt that the Duke really was a shy dog -and shy temperaments are not acceptable in my book; I won't breed them and strive to avoid producing them. Anyway, give this lady a chance -for sure take him back and refund her money if she changes her mind in the next two weeks. And after this carefully evaluate your breeding pair and how you go about socializing your litters, cause these sorts of headaches just aren't worth it, eh?
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The one that most folks know about is the one at 8 weeks; the 8 week fear period is why books advise to not ship or place a pup during the 8th week, but to wait if at all possible until the following week, as traumatic experiences and scares during the 8th week can affect **some** pups for life. 
) They lived in a rural area so no busy environment - and they planned to hunt him, so alot of one on one time in the woods. He had a start like Monkey did - didn't scream, but you could see the whites of his eyes when they took him to the car. He didn't want to eat the first few days, but hunger won out - and he quickly found this his new family had good food to feed him and loving arms. I had to bug them to not baby him too much, as a spoiled shy dog seems to quickly become a fear biting bully.
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