dogsnhorses wrote:
^ Cute scenario, and true!

This is also where novice/clueless breeders panic and take the pups away from mom because she's "started being mean to them."

Um, yeah.....
I think what scares people is that the mom's correction can seem excessive - the bitch can be snarling like she's going to kill, meanwhile the pup is squealing likes he's about to die.   I figure if the bitch has shown to be a good mother, I would trust her instincts on how & when to correct her pups.   Sure to us the pups may look like cuddly, wuddly, widdle cutie-pies but she's down int the trenches and knows they are really just fuzzy piranhas. 

Bold, bossy, thug pups shrug off regular corrections and sometimes mom needs to do a big smack-down to get through to them.  Despite the dramatic snarling & screaming of the smack-down, I've noticed that bold confident thug pups come out the experience still as bold and confident as ever but less thuggish.  They certainly aren't cowled by the experience.

Besides, I figure a big, all-sound-&-fury, correction by his mom, who in theory loves him, is better than a big for-real correction later in life from a pissed off dog that doesn't have any maternal instincts holding him back.