Socialization and Training

A dog that's easy to train and friendly to people and animals is a joy to have as a part of your family and will be able to make your days brighter no matter what life brings you. Our goal is to socialize our dogs properly during their early development so that they are a joyful part of your family for their entire lifetime. So often dogs that have been bred by inexperienced breeders have not been properly socialized and are sent from home to home because of their behavior problems. Extensive research shows that socialization in early development is critical to reduce fearfulness and anxiety. We use a combination of human contact, animal contact, textures and sounds to stimulate proper behaviors in our puppies. We have the knowledge and experience to make sure our puppies are the best of the best. We strive to have our puppies qualify as service and therapy dogs and are the most loving family dogs.

The Association of Pet Behavior Cousellors has lots of common sense advice that we implement in our training program. My favorite advise from this website is to record sounds so that the puppies are not fearful of common sounds of family life. I don't have a vacuum cleaner because I don't have carpet but I do record one for the puppies to hear every few days. I also have an extensive net work of experienced breeders that I rely on to stay up to date and well informed on the latest research. Here's an overview of our system that has been working best for us.

Week 1-2: The first 2 weeks of our puppies' development, their momma does most of the socializing and feeding. It's a good time for the puppies to be in a quiet area away from the busy sights and sounds of our family but we make sure to gently cuddle them every 2-4 hours and bottle feed as necessary.

Week 3: Starting at 3 weeks old, we begin introducing our puppies to some new sights, sounds, and textures every day so they are beginning to become accustomed to busy family life. We are still very careful to not expose them to any new people or dogs to make sure they stay as healthy as possible but have found recordings of new sounds to be helpful in minimizing their fear of new environments.

Week 4-5: As the puppies reach 4-5 weeks old, we also introduce them to other animals and they learn to bond with both cats and dogs. At this age, our puppies have a stronger immune system and have their first shots so we allow visitors to meet our puppies. The more friends and family they meet the better! We continue to use lots of audio and textures so that the puppies are comfortable everywhere they go.

Week 6-9: We work hard to make sure that our puppies have lots of beginning training to make the transition from our home to yours much easier. They are crate trained and getting used to being more independent from their siblings. We work on leash training and the "come, sit" command that we show in this YouTube video. Come and Sit command

See all of our videos on our YouTube Channel

 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF0XXZWlG9j2K5pBAORihKA