As breeders, we have more power than we think in shaping temperamentally sound puppies. It’s up to us to help ensure every puppy we produce has the best start to life possible. Puppy Culture represents the gold standard in puppy rearing and early socialization. This program was developed by Jane Lindquist, a dog trainer and Bull Terrier breeder. She, combined with her team of experts, has distilled down over a century’s worth of combined experience into easy to follow protocols.
The exercises and protocols we cover with our puppies include, but are not limited to, many of the following:
Puppies go through an imprinting period starting at birth and lasting until 16 weeks of age. They will learn more in that period of time than they do in the rest of their life combined. We as breeders have more opportunities to make a dramatic impact on a puppy’s ultimate personality than anyone else ever will. By the time the puppy goes to his new home, much of that opportunity has already been lost.
We start teaching our Lab puppies the foundation for learning by using positive reinforcement with food as a reward. This training begins when the puppy is able to start taking food out of our hands, usually around five to six weeks old. Before your puppy goes home between eight to ten weeks old, we will have already introduced them to leash walking, luring into the different static commands (sit, down & stand), recall, basic manners (primarily not jumping and decreasing puppy mouthing/biting), crate training and will have begun the process of teaching their name (if we were given a call name ahead of time).
In addition to the extensive work we do with the Puppy Culture and Avidog protocols, we also focus on getting our pups outside to explore the fields and woods that our property has to offer.
Our puppies receive daily handling and affection starting on Day 2, and as they grow, we gradually expand their environment and introduce new things at a safe pace, so that they think of the world as a wonderful and exciting place, full of fun places to explore and friendly people to meet. Not only does every new experience happen with the people they trust most in the world, but they also experience them together — the bold ones plunging in first and the rest following their example when they’re comfortable.
Big things. Small things. Things you can carry around and things you can jump on. Things you can see through and things you can shove. Wet things and loud things. Hard things and smelly things. Slick things and bumpy things. Things that reach out and touch you. Things that wobble. Things that taste good. Things that bounce.
Dogs can’t articulate or understand these categories, but the more we can show them in this critical age range, the more context they’ll have later on. Life will always be full of novelties, but a well-socialized dog can actually enjoy them.
Our puppies are exposed at appropriate intervals to new people, places and experiences. These interactions help shape in a positive way the way our puppies view new people and things appearing in their environment.
In addition to the extensive work we do with the Puppy Culture and Avidog protocols, we also focus on getting our pups outside to explore the fields and woods that surround our property to exercise their bodies and minds. From finding caches of food along a path in the woods, to chasing a ball in high grass, to ignoring passing cars along our country road, our pups are learning and exploring throughout their time with us as they wait for their new families to find them.
Introducing new tactile stimulation, creating frustration on a manageable level for the puppy, and adding in various obstacles and barriers creates a more resilient puppy. These problem solving games and objects allows the puppies the chance to figure out how to access their food, use their different senses to gain success, and begins the process of how to manage their stress and find their advantage.
At about three weeks old, puppies start scooting away from their sleeping area to relieve themselves, and by carefully maintaining their space so that the line between their potty area and their play/sleep area never gets blurry, we can preserve their natural instinct to keep their “den” clean all through puppyhood. This makes them partners in the potty training process, rather than the clueless adversaries we’ve all come to expect, because they want to keep their space clean as much as you do.
We’ve found that starting this training early helps to encourage our Lab puppies to be cleaner overall and easier to house train in the long run. We’re intentionally capitalizing on the puppy’s innate instinct to move away from the area they sleep to relieve themselves. This also makes crate training a quicker process.
