Puppy is 13 weeks old now.
Elective C-section, then Mastitis. 'Breeder' stated she did not know how long before she weaned the puppies. No formula, just moistened dry kibble. No surrogate. We have pictures of the dogs and pen at 6 weeks and we cannot see a place for the dam to be.
Runt had bite marks on face at 6 weeks, and at 9 weeks when we put a collar on she was attacked and dragged around the pen by the entire litter.
Puppies lived in pen for 9 weeks, no indication the dam ever was in this pen.
HELP - the runt has serious mental developmental issues. Most of the day she is wonderful. She then snaps randomly with vicious biting. She does not understand bite control. For our month with her, she is getting much more dangerous. We love her, and never follow our breeders suggestions, like smack with a rolled up newspaper or other lousy ideas. A lot of play, toys, walks and meeting people and kids. Running in our fenced yard. We are always positive, even while being snapped at. We do the yipping when bitten, all the usual tricks. Not our first puppy....
We are trying to understand how to train a puppy that maybe saw her mother for 2 to 3 weeks, possibly less. The Dam is the expert trainer for proper behavior. We do not know how to replace or replicate that training. We are working with a $600 personal trainer for this but no success so far. She lived the "Lord of the Flies".
If we give up and this puppy goes to another family, they may not have the history we have to know why she is so maladjusted.