our puppy curriculum

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. 

 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.