When Do Puppies Eyes & Ears Open?

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Dr. Marcia Martin, and we're here at Safe Harbor Animal Rescue in Jupiter, Florida. Today, we're going to talk a little bit about when puppies open their eyes and their ears. Puppies come into this world pretty helpless. They can't see; they can't hear. They can smell and they can feel, and they're completely dependent on mom for the first two weeks of their life. At that two week mark is when their eyes and their ears start to open, and once this happens they really start to interact with their environment more. They start to recognize their litter mate, recognize mom, recognize the people in their world, and they start to explore. And as their motor skills develop they really start to explore it with their, with all of their senses, their sight, their hearing, their sound, their taste. You will notice that they start wandering off to find a place to urinate and defecate outside of their bedding. They're interested in their environment and they they they start venturing farther and farther from mom and they start getting braver and braver. This is a great time to start introducing your puppies to things that you want them to be familiar with as they grow older. It's called the social socialization period. You want to introduce your dog to cats; to children; to other people; to car rides; to the vet. The more things you introduce him to during the sixteen week period the better dog he'll be as he grows up. And that's when puppies open their eyes."