I had a singleton many years ago. In my experiance, the biggest issue we ever had was pain tolerance. He couldn't handle force fetch training. When he was older and we were loosing him to cancer, I had to watch him like a hawk around the grandson.
I will say it was very interesting to watch the one on one between Mom and son. We sure did learn a lot. Mom was super attentive to the point she gave the little guy "diaper rash". The experiance of watching her play with him and her obvious discipline of him was so much more easily observed and priceless.
I had a singleton a couple of years ago. It had its difficult moments, mostly he ate too much by himself and mom didn't want to be locked away from him, but he turned out awesome.
I made rice sock littermates for him to cuddle with. Sometimes I heated them up a bit in the microwave and sometimes not. Once he outgrew the sock littermates, I put in a stuffed Lab puppy with him.
Several times a day, once he was 3 weeks or so, the new littermate would play with him and attack him just like a real littermate would. I'd growl and make noises like a puppy would and they would play. He jumped and bit that littermate just like he would a real one. Sometimes I would yelp so he would learn bite inhibition.
Joey, the singleton, got a lot of time with the adults who also played with him and put him in his place if he got too carried away.
My female singleton was force fetched, but I do agree that the two I've had were wimps. It didn't keep Solo from doing everything that I asked of her, but Watson never became a retriever. He didn't like water, either. But I was super busy when he was a puppy and didn't work with him enough. Also, he was not part of my regular breeding program, but was in a study I was doing on retinal folds, so I wasn't as interested in training or developing him. That was probably a bigger issue than the fact that he was a singleton. I do think having adult dogs around can make a difference, and the personalities of those dogs matter. Watson had only doting aunties. Solo was raised in a different home until she was 7 weeks old and had to be integrated into the pack, so they weren't quite as accepting. When I visited her co-owners, she was almost never in the whelping box. Even as a two week old puppy, she would be out in the living room with the family, lying on a rug on the floor or being snuggled on the couch. She grew up very social. I would give a singleton lots of contact with people and with adult dogs if contact with other puppies isn't possible.
I admire all the effort Laura went to with her singleton, and certainly it wouldn't hurt. Nothing like that was done for Solo or Watson.
Laura your rice buddies are a great idea ,i thought of putting little stuffed animals in with him(or her ,don't know yet:)
Thank you for sharing your experiences ,the're important and a huge welcome!
Gives me a general idea of my ''work'' ahead of me .....
I've got a dog puppet that I might try to use to play puppy with him ,I've got to find all sorts of ways to help doggie raise him if i can't find litter mates !!!!
He will be well socialised with adult dogs and people but I'm really worried about is the pain tolerance :(
I also had a friend who had a litter of similarly aged puppies. When Joey was older and had a shot, I took him over to her place and he was able to play with real puppies too.
