Transition period days
Wolf cubs spend this period in the den too, mainly with their siblings and mother. Their motor abilities develop slowly and their exploratory behaviour is restricted to the immediate area underground. This period is characterized by increasing perceptual abilities. It starts with the opening of the eyes and ends with the opening of the ear canals.
Interestingly, there is a large variation in the timing of both eye and ear opening which, at least at the level of the breed, seem to be independent. According to Scott and Fuller (1965), Cocker spaniels open their eyes by day 14 but only 11% same-aged Fox terriers have their eyes open. In hearing,by contrast, the opposite pattern emerges. Here, spaniels seem to be a bit behind as, at this stage, only 61% of pups showed a startle response to sudden sound (the first indication of some hearing function), whereas nearly all the terriers respond to a startle in the same test. Thus, using eye and ear function as indicator dates, there is a difference in the duration of this period between some dog breeds. It lasts for only a few days in Fox terriers and much longer than a week in Cocker spaniels. The delay in Cocker spaniels might be attributed to their drooping ears, because they might need more time to 'learn' hearing.
Direct stimulation between mother and pups decreases in parallel with a decrease in the neonatal behaviour patterns, and motor skills for certain communicative signalling, such as tail wagging, emerge. Puppies slowly gain the capacity to change their behaviour following repeated experience to positive or negative aspects of the environment. Scott and Fuller (1965) mention evidence that in dog pups an operant response to food emerges around day 15, and a few days later they will show similar motor learning to aversive stimulation.
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