At Bearhill, every detail of how we raise our puppies serves a purpose — even the colourful markings some of you might have spotted on our youngest sled dogs. Today, I want to share the story behind what we affectionately call our “painted puppies.”

The Challenge of Identifying Lookalike Pups

When a litter of puppies is born, each one usually comes with some unique markings that help us tell them apart — a white paw, a brown spot on the nose, maybe a slightly darker patch behind the ear. Add gender into the mix, and it’s often enough to keep track of who’s who.

But occasionally, nature decides to play a trick on us. Sometimes we get a litter where half (or more) of the puppies look nearly identical. This happens most often with all-black or all-white litters. And while it’s adorable, it also makes our job — weighing, training, observing behaviour, and building a bond with each pup — a lot harder.

Why Identification Matters

Being able to identify each puppy individually is key to giving them the best start in life. We weigh them regularly, monitor how they grow, track their behaviour, and begin early-stage training with their names. But if we can’t tell which puppy is which, it’s impossible to know who’s gaining weight properly, who’s developing what skills, and who needs a little extra support.

We start with descriptions: “the one with the slightly longer white sock” or “the male with the narrow stripe.” But these identifiers aren’t always reliable, especially when the pups are moving quickly, growing fast, and wrestling their way through the day.

Solutions That (Sometimes) Don’t Stick

One common method is using coloured puppy collars. These work in theory, but in practice they’re far from perfect. Pups grow fast, live outside, get dirty, and their mothers are constantly cleaning them. Collars get chewed, fall off, or disappear entirely in the rough-and-tumble of kennel life.

That’s why we sometimes turn to something a little less conventional but far more reliable: nail polish.

Enter the Painted Puppies

When collars fail or visual markings aren’t enough, we use small dabs of coloured nail polish on the pups. It’s safe, temporary, and surprisingly effective. Typically, we’ll mark them on the back of the neck with colours like pink, green, or blue — just enough to keep track during weigh-ins or feeding.

But recently, with one of our current litters, we had to go a step further.

We’re taking these pups on their early training walks through the forest — five white puppies, all very fast, very fluffy, and very hard to tell apart once they start zooming around the trees. We needed something more visible.

So this time, we gave each pup two large, brightly coloured marks: one on the back of the neck and another on their flank. Now, when they’re racing around on the trail, we can identify them from a distance. That means we can call their names correctly, track who’s responding to training, and build more accurate, positive associations for each pup.

Why It Matters

Using their names during training helps puppies learn faster. If we can spot who’s who and reward the right behaviour at the right time, we’re setting each puppy up for success — teaching them that their name means “pay attention,” that good things follow when they respond, and that their human is worth keeping an eye on.

So if you visit and see a white pup with a bold streak of pink or green on its back, now you know — that’s one of our painted puppies, and they’re well on their way to becoming a confident, focused sled dog.