Puppy Culture & Neonatal Testing

Bringing a puppy into your family is a big decision. We try to breed very versatile puppies that can go in any direction. We really enjoy seeing our puppies go on to be service and therapy animals. In order for them to achieve this goal they have to be raised with a proper foundation. We raise all of our puppies in our home with the ‘Puppy Culture Method’ I strongly recommend every single one of my puppy buyers to purchase this video so that they can understand the important skills that their puppies were taught in their first eight weeks of life. 

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Before we have a litter with any of our females we spend months, if not years looking for the perfect stud to compliment our female. We are constantly looking for the best possible pairings. We health test all of our dogs and when we choose a stud we expect him to also have all of his proper health testing done!

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One of the things that puppy culture emphasis on is making sure that the female feels happy, loved, and safe during the pregnancy. We make sure that we are accommodating our pregnant females to the best of our ability, we are very mindful of how much they are eating, drinking, and how much they are wanting to play. Pregnant females tend to get pretty needy! Each female tends to need their own accommodations. While our girls are pregnant we make sure that they get the proper prenatal care, they go into our reproductive vet at approximately 25 days into their pregnancy to confirm that they are pregnant. After this time that is when we start to watch them more closely. At about 57 days we take them in for their pregnancy x-ray. The purpose of this is to count the fetal skeletons so that we can be aware of how many puppies to expect during whelping.

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Ensuring that mom is healthy is the best way to ensure that we are bringing healthy puppies into our breeding program, we like to make sure that mom and puppies are getting the proper nutrition. Avoiding prenatal stress for the mother is very essential for the well being of the puppies. Having a stressed out mother can influence the puppies behavior and the way that their brain develops. In puppy culture it talks about stroking mothers bellies during the last few days of pregnancy. They say that the puppies learn to respond to touch. If puppies learn to respond to touch while they are still in utero they are often more docile once they have been born. They believe that the puppies will enjoy being handled more if touched through the moms belly.

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All of our puppies are raised using the Puppy Culture method. Puppy culture helps us to teach our puppies these skills

1. Communication Communication between humans and dogs is very important.

2. Emotional stability

3. The ability to recover easily from fear

4. Being able to cope with stress

5. Habituation

6. Enrichment

7. Health

8. Learned behaviors So that they can exist in a human society.

9. Love For animals and humans

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Starting from the time they are 3 days old, Puppy Culture protocols begin.  This involves ENS & ESI (Early Neurological Stimulation & Early Scent Introduction) from days 3 - 16, emotional resilience exercises, daily checklists of tasks, learning to "mand" (an automatic sit when they want your attention), working on potty and crate training... and SO much more!  This method is shown to increase the size of a puppy's brain, increase their resilience to stress, and enhance their emotional stability.   

 

We do temperament testing shortly before pups go home to help guide you in suggesting which puppies would be considered to have the best odds of meshing well with your family's activity level, training experience, desires, and needs. While the overall temperament of German Shepherds are one of the best, this helps you have more insight into selecting your future family member, whether your puppy is going to be a family companion or a potential therapy, service, or emotional support animal or even a prospect for sports.

Prior to picking, you will receive the entire litter's written score charts of assessments, along with our own overall observations from raising and interacting with the litter.  (We acknowledge that temperament testing is NOT a guaranteed insight into a puppy - Let's face it, puppies are like toddlers.  At any moment, they can be sleepy, cranky, hyper, or not acting like their normal selves!  We can't honestly determine how a puppy will be as an adult based on a 20-minute test involving a neutral party in a new environment.  However, paired with our personal observations since birth, we feel it can give great insight into helping you make an informed decision and increase your odds of making a wise choice as to a puppy best for you.

 

Every puppy in the litter will have had genetic testing through Embark done and made available to you prior to Pick Day. This $159 value is included in the puppy cost!  This helps us reassure you of your puppy's health, confirms their breed makeup (so you know your German Shepherd is of the lineage and also free of over 200 health checks), as well as letting us know what can be expected for each puppy's individual coat traits and allergy friendliness for families concerned about shedding and allergies. 

 

We start crate training for you!  We slowly introduce crates in a group environment, then work toward puppies sleeping in crates independently.  Imagine taking a puppy home that will have a better chance of not be keeping you up ALL night long crying because it misses its mom and littermates!  Priceless!

We begin the potty training process for you!  We focus heavily on introducing potty training protocols starting at 3 weeks and get them accustomed to a doggie door and pottying outside.  They are on a tight schedule prior to going home - we share this with you for the best success in this area! 

 

We begin basic training for you!  All puppies are introduced to "manding" (sit to say please) "wait", "sit" (on command), "down", "stay", "off", resource guarding prevention protocols and loose leash walking before they ever go home!

 

You have the comfort of knowing you have a 2-year genetic health guarantee.  Our parents are DNA tested to ensure you're getting a dog that comes from parents who tested 100% clear of having over 200 genetic diseases or carrying their recessive traits.   

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Our puppies are 100% reared inside our home so they'll be acclimated to all normal noises of a household - children, vacuum cleaners, etc. as well as adding in noise desensitization protocols, intentional socialization, handling, and attention! We also have other dogs and cats and recruit children and adults of all ages to ensure that they'll be well adjusted.  While we know the smell of potty training puppies (!) and the extra noise isn't ideal, we believe puppies raised in a home environment that are exposed to as much as they can, offers the best success rate for puppies and their future owners.) *We feel every potential family looking for a puppy should have the right to be able to request to see the environment puppies are raised in to ensure it's clean, sanitary and puppies are being well taken care of.  We happily offer video calls and pictures of our home/their environment to our potential families so they can see for themselves how our puppies are being raised! If a breeder will not show proof of some sort of how puppies are raised, that's a red flag! 

 

We offer lifetime support for our families. Have a question?  Need training advice?  We're here and long to have relationships with our families!  In fact, we WANT to hear from you, get updates and pictures, and help any way we can! While we may not always have the answer, we're dedicated to finding it for you or directing you where to go.  We are here to support you!  We know life situations can change.  If, for any reason, you're unable to keep your dog, we're here for that, too. We will ALWAYS take one of our puppies back and make sure we can find their next best forever home. The last thing we would want is one of our puppies going into a shelter situation or unsuitable home. 

 

There are many expenses that go into breeding responsibly that most don't realize.  Between health testing the parents (and each puppy), paying for breeding rights, investing in the purchase of potential parents only to find out they don't qualify to be part of our program, and whelping and medical supplies - these are large expenses. 

 

Vet expenses (including prenatal care, supplements, well checks, emergencies, ultrasounds, and x-rays for moms, age-appropriate puppy vet checks, vaccinations and de-wormings, fecal exams, and microchips) are costly.   

 

Add in the cost of items for puppy enrichment and our constantly continuing education (attending and traveling to seminars from leading experts, investing in curriculum, programs, training, and reading materials, consultation fees with professionals, etc.) and the many sleepless nights and time and energy we put into each and every litter, this is honestly not a money-making endeavor for us.  And that's okay with us! 

 

We do this for the heart healing and joy we KNOW our puppies provide and want to set our puppies and their future owners up for the absolute very best outcomes. We believe all of these things add up to that.  Any money that is made is put right back into making our small program better, more education, supporting non-profits, investing in potential breeding stock and health testing, and being able to offer discounts for military, first responders, and educators. 

 

Are there breeders that are in it solely for the money and cut all possible costs in order to do so?  Sadly, yes.  However, we are not one of them.

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As breeders, we realize that we have willingly chosen to bring animals into this world and we take that responsibility to heart ...not only for our puppies but their future homes as well.