By two weeks of age the puppy will have touch reflexes on its front legs and by three weeks on its back legs.  During this time the puppy’s teeth will come through and from here the puppy learns how to regulate its bite through play with its litter mates and by the dam; the puppy will bite its siblings and be bitten back. With the puppy’s new sense of touch in its legs, improved co-ordination plus sense of sight and sound, it begins to act more like a dog as the puppy explores its surroundings, jumping up the sides of a whelping box, wandering further away from its mother and problem solving along the way.  The puppy begins to interact more with its littermates and the learning process continues.[6]  Playing becomes very important as the puppy begins to understand its limits and environment.  Through ‘rough and tumble’ games the puppy learns about expressions, body language and experiences conflict.  The mother will also play with her pups, teaching them how to hunt, to pounce and shake their prey.[7]  These attack and defence movements learnt through play would, if the puppy was in the wild, help him later in the hunt for prey and in challenges over status.  “Play fighting and biting with the needle sharp teeth that Mother Nature gave them [puppies] teach them how hard to bite to cause pain and by being bitten in return they feel what pain feels like.  In fact, the only purpose that these needle sharp teeth have is to cause pain.”[8] 

As the puppy continues to develop both mentally and physically we begin to see a change in the relationship between the mother and her pup.  The puppy’s nervous system is now more developed as a result of myelin coating on the nerves, this improvement means that by three to four weeks of age the puppy no longer needs the stimulus from the mother to help it go to the toilet.  And with the arrival of razor-sharp teeth, the mother begins to teach her young consequence of actions if they bite her while suckling or in boisterous play.  She will now begin to evade their advances for nourishment, and from around five weeks the process of regurgitation begins.[9] 

This shift in the relationship between mother and puppy continues as the young dog enters the third critical stage of its development – the Socialisation period (five to twelve weeks).  During this time the mother-pup relationship moves from that of the ‘care giver’ to a more dominant-submissive interaction.  This change is underlined by the mother teaching her puppy what is and is not acceptable behaviour and she will snarl, growl, snap or even attack as ‘punishment’.  According to Fogle, the severity of punishment or threats the mother uses in altering her relationship with the puppy at this stage can have a direct bearing on how that puppy behaves with people.  Fogle sites research undertaken by Erik Wilsson at The Swedish Dog Training Centre, where puppies whose mothers were extremely aggressive with them and continued to punish them even after they withdrew were less socially gregarious with people compared to other pups.[10]  Wilsson’s research illustrates how early imprinting can affect the behaviour of the dog.  This imprinting continues through play during this third stage of development, as the puppy begins to learn about the hierarchy of the pack and signals for dominance and submission.  Through play puppies learn how to interact with other dogs “and they [puppies] acquire their first lessons in the Doggish language”.[11]  Dominant activities through playing include pouncing, chasing or attacking and biting littermates, while submissive signals include the puppy’s tail tucked under, licking of lips, urinating and rolling onto its back.[12]  All of these signals will be used throughout the life of the dog as part of his communication tool-kit.