Our Puppies Come with Socialization and Early Training!

We focus heavily on early training, exposure to new environments, people, adult dogs, and most importantly: SOCIALIZATION

By the time pups go to new homes they have learned sit, down, and their new name picked out by their new family! They have also been participating in controlled outings since the age of 5 weeks. We take pups out on car rides from birth, to trusted family and friends houses, on stroller rides through outdoor stores, a dock diving facility, and to multiple puppy yoga classes.

This allows us to really pour our energy and experience raising puppies into the pups we breed. The first three months of a puppies life is CRUCIAL! This is called the socialization window, in the first 12 weeks of life puppies brains are rapidly growing and soaking up as much information as possible. The way they perceive the world around them in shaped and solidified within these 12 weeks!

What is Socialization?

Many people seem to think that the term Socialization means to introduce puppies to as many new people and dogs as possible! This is WRONG!

Socialization really means neutrality, more than introducing your puppy to new people and other dogs, it's more about exposure to new environments, places, sounds, textures, experiences, and lastly new people and other dogs.

The Basics of Socialization

Below is a summarization of the article, "The Basics of Socialization," published by Purdue University written by Candace Croney, Andy Pietraniec and Traci Shreyer

"Socialization is the process of introducing and adjusting a dog or puppy to its surroundings in a safe and gentle manner. Low-stress, short, gradual exposures is the recommended way to socialize a dog or puppy. When socializing, the experience must be positive – neutral is not good enough! Some things that dogs need to be socialized to are noises, textures, animals including dogs, objects, experiences, and people. The optimal time to socialize a dog is as a puppy. During this sensitive period their brain is primed and ready to learn what is safe and what is unsafe rapidly and with long lasting effects. The time period of 3-12 weeks of age for a dog is known as the socialization phase. Primary socialization takes place between 3-5 weeks and it is the most influential stage in a puppy’s life relative to social behavior patterns and learning. At this age, puppies show a willingness to approach and interact with people, which should be rewarded, to help prevent fearfulness of humans as the puppy grows up. At this stage puppies also learn many important behaviors from littermates and the dam, such as social cues, fear learning, bite inhibition, social hierarchies, and urination/defecation preferences. Puppies that are removed from their litters before 8 weeks of age may show deficits in these important areas."

Read Full Article Here

Early Training is Included

We focus really heavily on early socialization and begin early training for our pups, by doing this we are able to give them a solid head start on both socialization and training!

We allow puppies to go to new homes after they have turned 8 weeks old and have been deemed healthy by our veterinarian.

Early Socialization:

We do our best to set our pups up for success! Starting at 5 weeks, we take the entire litter of pups on socialization trips to new environments at least once a week! From new houses filled with new people, smells, sights and sounds, to public places such as parks, large stores, and outdoor settings. Safety if our biggest concern when taking puppies out and about! They only travel to the homes of trusted family members who prepared clean and sanitized areas for puppies to explore. They are introduced to our adult mature dogs who help teach their manners and proper dog to dog socialization. When we take them out in public they are always secured in a crate and are NEVER allowed to touch the ground or interact with strange dogs or humans. The entire point of taking them to new environments is to allow them to observe their surrounds from a calm and neutral state in order to create positive associations with new places. Public trips look like a stroller/ crated cart ride through a busy park or a large noisy department store like Lowes or Home Depot. And bonus, they also get to experience plenty of crated car rides!

We have also partnered with our local dock diving facility, Boise K9 Fitness, to introduce puppies to swimming in a formal lesson where the entire litter is allowed to interact with the dock and swim as a group! We do this around 7-8 weeks.

We have also partnered with Authentic Yoga and a local non-profit, Upward Inertia, to offer puppy yoga classes. These classes are held in a yoga studio ( that has been properly sanitized) and the entire litter of pups is allowed to run through the studio and interact with yoga students at their own pace. Yoga students are not allowed to wear shoes and wash their hands before touching the puppies. The puppies are given a safe space in studio to relax and take breaks as needed and they have continuous access to fresh water. Yoga classes take place when the pups are 7-8 weeks old.

Early Training:

We also work on early basic training during the extra time they spend with us! In addition to exposure of new places, we introduce early commands and concepts such as :

Sit
Down
Recall Noise/ Command to their new names
Potty Training
Dog Door Use
Manding: sitting when they want something rather than jumping or vocalizing
Leash introduction with heel position
Crate Training: the goal is to have all puppies sleeping in individual crates through the night by the time they leave us but they are familiar with and used to being crated from the time their eyes are open!
Water introductions, we take the litter to an indoor dock diving facility and let them explore the ramp and the water at their own pace!

Although their success when they go to their new homes is dependent upon your effort to continue and reinforce the training we have begun, we will effectively provide a solid head start to your new puppy!

In addition to the early basic training we provide for all of our puppies, we also offer three different additional board and train options for your puppy with us as well as with a trusted professional trainer who can provide one on one training and more in-depth socialization for your puppy.

Training Programs