LICENCED GOLDENDOODLE BREEDER
our puppy curriculum
Healthy Development
Puppyhood is a time of huge physical and behavioral changes, challenges, and steep learning curves. We strive to build a solid foundation in our puppies, helping them grow, develop and learn, with the vital skills required for our puppies to enjoy a long and healthy life. By helping your puppy become accustomed to all types of stimuli, stressors, and a variety of situations in a positive manner, they develop the skills and learn how to behave in a variety of situations to navigate life with ease and canine confidence.
Prior to conception our breeding dogs must be in top physical, mental, and emotional shape. When a female's body becomes ready, we start her on a small supplement of iron, folate, zinc, and omegas. We do this with intention. Pregnancy and motherhood place high demands on our breeding females as she provides all the energy that fuels her puppies’ growth, both in the womb and for the first weeks of life. The objectives are to maintain optimum health and body condition of the breeding female throughout her pregnancy as well as minimizing the incidence of midline birth defects and improve on brain development in our puppies.
Prior to birth, we work alongside our doodle moms and our amazing soon to be puppy families to ensure that all of our puppies are cradled in a loving support system committed to the welfare for the life of our doodle family. During the last week of pregnancy, the female often starts to look for a safe place to whelp her pups. We nurture our pregnant dogs nesting instinct by introducing her to her whelping box prior to her delivery date to allow her time to become comfortable and adjusted before her puppies are born. Our pregnant females receive lots of belly rubs and even a few little prenatal massages.
Rhonda stays by her breeding females side and assists in the birthing process. Puppies are identified, weighted, and charted. We post pictures and videos to our Zoe’s Doodle Puppy Parent group, on Facebook, so our families can witness the birth of their new family member. Step by step, from the beginning until the very end, we support you and your puppy through it all.
Once puppies are whelped, it is important to monitor their weight at birth, after 12 hours, and after 24 hours to ensure they are growing. Most puppies nearly double their birth weight in the first week.
neonatal period
EARLY NEUROLOGICAL STIMULATION & EARLY SCENT INTRODUCTION
The neonatal period is a critical stage for puppies. Short periods of daily handling and other stimuli have proven long term effects on a puppy’s behavioral and physical development. We follow a mix of Puppy Culture, Badass Breeder, and Avidog protocols to establish good foundations for all our puppies.
We start with early neurological stimulation (ENS) and early scent introduction (ESI) during the neonatal stage (day 3-16), which is a period of rapid neurological growth and development. ENS is based on the belief that by applying gentle stressors to puppies during their neonatal stage of development, it will improve their stress responses later in life. Early Neurological Stimulation is used by the US Military in their Super Dogs program, as well Dr. Carmen Battaglia wrote on the importance of ENS in his 'Breeding Better Dogs' book. ENS is known to:
1. improve cardio vascular performance
2. develop stronger heart beat
3. develop stronger adrenal glands
4. increase tolerance to stress
5. provide resistance to disease
Early Scent Introduction was developed by Doctor Gayle Watkins, breeder of over 100 titled Golden Retrievers and co-founder of Avidog International. She is an avid horse and dog lover, and it was from performing ENS on her puppies that she came up with the idea of introducing scents to neonate puppies in the hopes of producing adult dogs with exceptional scenting ability.
Gayle Watkins conducted an experiment over a period of nine years, which resulted in dogs with ESI showing earlier and greater proficiency in dog sports involving nose work. It is during the neonatal stage when a puppy's brain sees its most rapid development and will quadruple in size. Since puppies are born both blind and deaf, they are forced to rely on their sense of smell and touch to survive. It makes sense then, that olfactory development during this period presents a unique window of opportunity that only happens once in a lifetime. We collect a variety of smells ad introduce one scent daily at the same time we perform Early Neurological Stimulation on all our puppies.
transitional period
A COLLECTION OF FIRSTS
We continue performing ENS and ESI once a day until puppies reach the transitional stage, which is when their eyes first open to their new world. This is quickly followed with their ears being able to hear sounds and even some baby teeth may begin to emerge. It is such a beautiful collection of first images: first steps, barks, tail wags, seeing siblings, and identifying mama. Because a puppy in this period of development can see and interact with their littermates, they begin to learn the rules of play, bite inhibition, and body language. Once we 'transition' to this stage, our puppies are handled using touch points, multiple times per day, as well as loving strokes and cuddles. We organize weekly mini groom and health checks to better prepare them for future visits.
Socialization period
PUPPY CULTURE
We use a combination of several amazingly effective training programs to support our puppies. They are raised with love in our home and 'R Doodle Shop' is where our daily training regime begins, following a tried and proven program mainly derived from PUPPY CULTURE.
This highly effective puppy socialization program is based on years of research and science and is proven to produce calm, confident and more tolerant to stress dogs by exposing them to a wide variety of subtle stimulation during their time with us. We are proud to present well adjusted puppies to our families and are confident that they have received the best possible socialization in our home.
The critical socialization stage begins around three weeks and last until your puppy is 12 weeks old. 'Did you know that your puppies will have larger brains and be more emotionally stable if you raise them in an enriched environment?' - Jane Killion - creator of Puppy Culture. Combining three key components; exercise, stimulating environment and problem-solving games will create an emotionally stable dog with a larger brain.
Exercise alone strengthens and increases the thickness of the cerebral cortex. Creating an enrichment area with different sounds, textures and visual does maintain and can improve brain cell survival. Problem solving and learning games increase neural connections as well as increase neural formation and survival. The benefits from an enriched environment include an improved ability to learn and remember, more emotional stability and better resiliency to stress.
Crate training and doggy doors are introduced as well as clicker training. We utilize noise desensitization, safe socialization, barrier and emotional resiliency exercises to best prepare your puppy with the skills for their new world.
Our objectives are to create or improve upon;
- Communication - giving a puppy their voice. We encourage 'Manding', right from the whelping box!
- Habituation - what we want is to expose our puppies to a huge variety of stimuli, people, sounds and places.
- Emotional Stability - ability to react with a graded response and to recover easily from either stress or fear.
- Enrichment - new challenges and stimuli are seen as opportunities for enrichment rather than fear.
Our goal is to produce emotionally stable puppies with an understanding of basic obedience skills for a gentler transition into their forever homes.
training
TEACH AND PRACTICE DESIRED BEHAVIORS
At Zoe's Doodles we firmly believe that when a puppy owner invests time and effort into training their new family member they will be rewarded tenfold. Puppies grow up fast and training has the greatest influence during their first year and will help form their behavior for the rest of their lives. We feel it is very important as pet parents to have a training strategy in place before you bring your puppy home.
Once they leave our home for yours there is still much training to be done and we want the transition between homes to be as seamless as possible. We are excited to partner with an easy to use and fun to follow online puppy school called BAXTER and BELLA (for a 25% discount on a lifetime membership use our discount code "ZOESDOODLES"). They offer a lifetime of training and support to dog owners by providing online puppy training classes, one on one live sessions with an experienced trainer, an extensive resource library of videos and blogs, live interactive podcasts and much more. Baxter and Bella will provide 24-hour support and enable you to train your pup effectively and correct negative behavior patterns in a positive and nurturing way.
To get you started, see our crate training, potty training, and house training methods below.
The BAXTER & Bella method
crate training
Crate training takes advantage of your dog’s natural instincts to seek out a comfortable, quiet and safe place. By crate training your puppy through positive means, you'll provide them with the ultimate level of care and safety.
The BAXTER & Bella method
POTTY TRAINING & HOUSE TRAINING
Initially, puppies have no control of when or where they unleash their goods. So how exactly do you potty train & house train your puppy? Read on to find out the basic techniques and a lot of useful advice.
WE ARE ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS ON OUR CAR LITTER
Our puppies are getting ready to leave us very soon. We have availability in this litter for loving & responsible forever families. Give us a shout and lets get the conversation started!