Should I adopt a male or female dog? Which is better? Both male and female dogs
can undergo a significant change in temperament after being neutered or spayed. You can read all about our views on the topic of male vs. female dogs in our related
Blog Post.
What are the health clearances on your breeding dogs? All of our dams studs have full health clearances. If any intact male dog does not pass all his health exams, we do not keep him at our kennel, and he will be sold as a pet to a client. Our mama dogs have either preliminary or full health clearances for hip dysplasia, eyes, and EIC (exercise induced collapse). Some have extra health clearances for CNM (centronuclear myopathy), PRA (progressive retinal atrophy), and elbow dysplasia. Preliminary health clearances are conducted before a dog reaches 2 years old. It yields the same result as a health clearance after a dog is 2 years old, but we get the prelim’ tests so we know which dogs will be allowed into our breeding program and which ones will not.
Why do your puppies sell so quickly? Well, first of all, we’d like to take credit for our superior breedings. Pete is very careful to plan well in advance, making sure to match dams and sires for the perfect blend of an even temperament, intelligence, hunting desire, natural pointing instinct, superb looks, and proven pedigree in each litter. Because of these traits, we no longer have only hunters wanting to adopt our dogs. These same characteristics are very desirable in a family dog, as well, which has expanded our market. Second, we used to take a lot more reservations before litters were born, but we have not been doing that as much lately, since we like to know exactly how many puppies we have available for sale in each litter. This has slowed the speed of our sales somewhat, but clients still find us very easily after litters are born, so our puppies (which are, of course, super cute) still sell very quickly.
What do you think of electronic or “E” collars? Pete definitely uses “E” collars in some of his training, but he is very careful to only use light vibration or the slightest stimulation. There are so many ways to correct a dog without using an E collar, that it’s not always necessary. Even when Pete does use an E collar, it’s only with certain dogs at certain times, in certain situations, and only for brief periods of time, depending on how quickly a dog learns. Some dogs are so sensitive and easy to correct, it takes only a slight vibration to correct a bad habit. Other dogs can be more stubborn or so focused that a little more stimulation is required. E collars are very easy to misuse and you can ruin a dog’s training with an E collar if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. So, what do we think of them? They are probably best left to professional dog trainers, but if you bring your dog to us, Pete could probably complete a few lessons with your dog using an E collar if he believes it is necessary to correct a bad habit. It’s also possible that Pete might be willing to teach you how to use an E collar, if you plan to use one in your training, but you’d have to ask him about that.
Can you guarantee a point in your dogs? The answer, unfortunately, is no. The pointing gene occurs naturally in about 5% of all Labs. We have been breeding several generations of that pointing gene into our dogs, so it is now occurring in around 80% of each of our litters (but not in every puppy in each litter) and we hope that our upland hunters get that point in their dogs. Sometimes that point shows up in puppies around 7 or 8 weeks of age, but more often, it does not reveal itself until a dog is about a year old.
I don’t want a hunting dog, but I want a good Lab. Why should I buy a dog with a good hunting pedigree? You’re generally going to get a more trainable, intelligent animal with stronger health and a great pedigree if you buy a dog with strong hunting lines. A hunting dog spends about 90% of its time in the house, so hunters asked us to breed for calmer dogs. For several years now, we’ve been breeding great hunting dogs that are also excellent house dogs with a good on/off switch—excited to be outside and run around, yet calm and chill in the house.
How successful are your breedings? It depends… With certain female dogs, we have gotten a successful breeding in the past, so we can usually count on the success of subsequent breedings. Unfortunately, however, nature can fool us. Sometimes a breeding takes; sometimes it doesn’t. We usually do not know that a bred dam is pregnant until close to the whelping date, because we do not perform ultrasounds. We have had a few eager buyers (or owners of the dams) pay for ultrasounds, but they can include the expense of travel and hotel, so we usually wait patiently, let nature take its course, and encourage you to back up your choice of a puppy on a second litter, just in case.
Are there certain times of the year when you have litters and times when you don’t? Generally, yes. Pete keeps track of our dams’ heat cycles from year to year and can usually predict when we’ll have puppies and when we won’t. Some dams come into heat in late winter and early spring; others come into heat in late spring and anytime during the summer. This means our first group of puppies are usually ready to adopt in mid to late spring and another group is ready to adopt in late summer to mid fall. There are always exceptions, of course. We’ve noticed that dams tend to go into a period of dormancy and have no heat cycles during the colder months of November and December, so breeding seldom takes place during this time. Some people have asked us, “Can you warm up your dogs to speed up their heat cycles?” The answer is no. We have attempted this in the past and it has made no difference, so we’ve learned to sit back, relax, and let nature take its course.
How many puppies do you average per litter? We’ve had as few as 1 puppy in a litter and as many as 11 in other litters. The average is around 5. Sometimes we advertise litters that have not yet been born. If this is the case now, look over the litters that you like and check to see how many puppies are already reserved (or call us to ask this question, if we have not put it on our website). If there are already 6 or more reservations for a specific gender or color (bearing in mind that Pete always reserves first or second pick of each color and gender in a litter), your odds of getting the puppy you want in that litter are very low. Backing up your choice in a second or third litter can usually ensure that you will get a puppy in at least one litter (assuming the breeding is successful).
How many litters do you average per year? Because we have so many mama dogs placed in homes all the way from Southern California (San Diego) to Central Oregon, as well as some in Nevada, we can have a many litters per year, depending on our dams’ heat cycles, how many of our dams are enjoying a year’s rest, how many pregnancies are actually successful, etc. It fluctuates. Because of the newness of this new program model, we’re evaluating how the market is holding up as far as sales of puppies. When demand is high, we have more litters; when demand is low, we have fewer litters.
What is a puppy profile? How do you evaluate the puppies? These are two other popular questions. When a puppy is seven weeks old, Pete puts all puppies through a short battery of tests to evaluate their natural skills and temperaments. The criteria tested are: boldness/dominance, energy level, nose, retrieve, birdiness, responsiveness, size, and color/shade. We send this out to all puppy owners so they can be better educated in making their selection. Here’s a sample of a puppy profile test for you to view:
Click here.
What happens to puppies you can’t sell right away? This hasn’t happened for a long time, but it used to happen when we’d have a lot of puppies born at once. Whenever we would have an unadopted puppy, s/he would go directly into our “Super Citizen” (SC) training program and the “new and improved” pup would then be sold at a higher price. Once a puppy is in this program, we work through our waitlist of people interested in a specific personality, color, or gender to see if this puppy can be matched with them after training. Because Pete’s policy is to generally reserve first and second pick puppies for himself, we never feel “stuck with” any puppy. Instead, the training gives us more time with puppies, so we can evaluate them and determine if they are a good fit for our breeding program, but a trained puppy is a hot commodity, so we almost always end up selling them. Furthermore, many people prefer buying an older puppy that is obedient, partially housebroken, and can be more predictable than a younger 8-week old puppy.
What are your facilities like? Usually people want to know this, because they want to make sure we’re not a puppy mill, so we’re more than happy to put you at ease. We believe it is more humane to have a reasonable, manageable number of dogs on site at any one time, rather than too many dogs in crowded conditions. Our “
Partner Breeding Program” was launched in order to adopt out 100% of our breeding female Labs, while we keep only our few stud dogs on our property. Furthermore, to ensure that our dogs are treated humanely, we have wide open spaces and lots of lonely dirt roads for our dogs to run several miles at least once a day (typically mornings). In addition to this daily exercise, our dogs’ kennel runs are large and spacious enough to accommodate additional physical exercise and play. Dogs are social animals and thrive in a pack so we try to allow several dogs to live together. However, as you’ll see in answer to the next question, a lot of our dogs don’t live with us at our kennel.
How many dogs do you have at your kennel? In our old model, the number fluctuated dramatically from about 60-70 dogs. However, in our new
Partner Breeding Program model, we can have as few as 4 stud dogs and up to maybe 8-10 dogs at a time when partner breeder mama dogs come to our kennel to give birth and nurse her puppies for about six weeks of their puppies’ lives until they are weaned. We may also have a few pups-in-training. Here’s an overview on what dogs and pups you might see at our place:
STUDS: We currently have 6 stud dogs. Stud fees sometimes change, so ask us about our current pricing. All of our stud dogs have either preliminary or full health clearances for hip dysplasia, eyes, and EIC (exercise induced collapse). Some have extra health clearances for CNM (centronuclear myopathy), PRA (progressive retinal atrophy), and elbow dysplasia. Preliminary health clearances are conducted before a dog reaches 2 years old. It yields the same result as a health clearance after a dog is 2 years old, but we get the prelim’ tests so we know which dogs will be allowed into our breeding program and which ones will not. Here’s a rundown on what dogs you might see at our kennel when you visit:
DAMS: In our current model, 100% of our female breeding dogs belong to their owners, but we retain the breeding rights for up to four breedings. These are called “partner breeder” dogs. When one comes into heat (and if she has had a sufficient rest period between litters), she comes back to our kennel to be bred, after which she is returned to her family until she’s ready to whelp. When she’s about to give birth, our partners can choose to keep their mama dog at their house to give birth to puppies there, or they can bring the mama dog back to our whelping kennel, where we care for her and her puppies until the puppies are weaned. The positives of this program are fantastic for everyone involved–especially for the breeding female dogs who get to live in homes for their entire lives, rather than in a kennel. The only real negative is that sometimes people come to our place to meet the parents of their puppy, but only the dads are here and often not the moms.
PUPPIES-IN-TRAINING: It varies, but we can have anywhere from 1 to 15 pups-in-training for clients and future clients. Our trainers, Dillon and Clyde, (and sometimes our kids when they’re home from school) provide puppies with “Super Citizen” basic training.
How often do you breed your dams? Four to five times and on very rare occasions six times, but only if she is exceptionally healthy and strong and has a record of producing large, healthy litters. The number of breedings is dependent on a contractual agreement with our partner breeders. Our partners decide how many litters they want their female dog to have.
What do you do with your dams after they’re done having puppies? As stated above, most of our female dogs do not actually live with us, since they’re part of our partner breeding program. The owners own the dogs outright, but we retain the breeding rights for up to 4 breedings. There’s a slim possibility that we might have a retired breeding dog available for adoption, in which case you can find one on our “
Retiring Breeding Dogs” page. You should be aware, however, that these retired mama dogs are often neither hunt trained nor house broken. They are well socialized with people and other dogs, but basically green in all other respects.
Do you have any older dogs for adoption? Sometimes, yes. We have an amazing partnership breeding program, in which we adopt out our breeding females to local partnering clients. See our “
Breeding Females for Adoption” page to see the older breeding dogs available for adoption in our “Partner Breeder” program. Also, if we have any retired or retiring mama dogs or studs, one may be available for adoption for free or at a reduced price. See our “
Retiring Females for Adoption” page. Occasionally, we might have a male dog available for sale that we intended for a stud, but, genetically, his eyes, hips or elbows didn’t pass our high standards for breeding or, in his hunting training to get him championship titled, he turned out to be gun-shy or wouldn’t retrieve well, etc. If we have any male dogs available, they will be featured on our “
Trained & Other Adult Dogs” page. You should be aware, however, that these dogs are often neither hunt trained nor house broken. They are well socialized with people and other dogs, but basically green in all other respects.
What supplies do we need for our new puppy? A common question we get from our clients is, “What supplies do we need to buy before we bring home our new puppy?” The list below could look daunting to you, but understand that we’re giving you a list of only a few items, along with our explanation of those items, so it’s not really that long. Here are a few suggestions we offer to people bringing home a puppy for the first time:1. Crate: We have two options for you on crates:a) You could choose a crate that will fit your 8-week-old puppy when he’s fully grown, which means a crate that is made for a dog 60-80 pounds. In this case, we recommend putting something like a small plastic milk crate in the back of the crate to fill in the empty space. This will also (usually) prevent him from soiling in the crate, since no dog likes to soil in the area where he sleeps. OR b) You could choose a crate that fits your 8-week-old puppy now and buy a larger crate for him when he grows out of this one.2. Dog Beds, Pillows and Blankets: We use dog beds and pillows in training all the time. First of all, we have found that, when training a dog to lie down, they will do so much faster and easier if a pillow is used. Second, we place a pillow just inside the front door and maybe another elsewhere in the house, because we don’t allow our dogs to roam freely inside. When a dog comes into our house, he heads straight to a pillow and he knows he has to remain there for the duration, unless specifically called to leave the pillow. We place another pillow or thick blanket inside the crate for bedtime.3. Toys: We don’t give our puppies a lot of toys to chew on–just one or two plain, hard rubber toys. Sometimes I’ll use the kind you can hide food inside, but if they’re too difficult for some younger puppies, they’ll only get frustrated by them. I would do a search for recommendations on dog toys, since these are about the only ones we use. We’re not that diverse in this area. Soft toys get destroyed too easily by most puppies and we have heard terrible stories of dogs ingesting toys and having to have them surgically removed.4. Collar: We recommend an 8-14” adjustable collar for your new puppy. This shouldn’t be an expensive collar, since he will grow out of it, but having some form of identification tag on your puppy’s collar is a good idea.5. Dog Foods and Snacks: We recommend using dogfoodadvisor.com for their unbiased ranking of dog foods available for purchase. We have chosen to feed our dogs Costco’s Kirkland brand of dog food, due to the fact that dogfoodadvisor.com gave it a 4 out of 5-star rating. We use either Kirkland’s “Puppy Chow” (currently an aqua bag) or the adult version (purple-magenta colored bag). When you adopt a puppy from us, we give you a large ziplock bag of dog food so that you can mix it in with whatever food you choose. This will minimize upsetting your puppy’s stomach as s/he transitions to your dog food. We don’t give our dogs too many treats, aside from kibble or maybe some chopped up bits of hot dog, which we use in training. One important thing to remember is that, when you give your dog any sort of treat, try to keep track of exactly how much you gave him so that you can subtract that amount from his next meal. You do not want to overfeed your dog. With regard to bones and other chewable “snacks,” we do give our dogs rawhide and haven’t had any problems with it, despite the negative press about their being a potential choking hazard. As long as you’re near your dog when he’s chewing on a rawhide bone, you should be able to monitor his chewing habits and make sure he’s not choking.6. Dog Dishes: As for food and water dishes, we use stainless steel bowls to feed our dogs, because they tend to chew plastic bowls. But, make sure to purchase a high-quality stainless steel, because cheaper ones are thin and quickly develop pinhole leaks in the bottom, rendering them worthless very quickly. We do not recommend a self-feeding food bowl, because, again, dogs might chew on them and, even more important, your dog could overeat, since you’re not actually monitoring your dog’s food intake. However, a self-watering system is recommended if your dog will not chew on the mechanism.7. Training Items: training pack, leashes, whistle, and clicker. First of all, what is a training pack? Well, some dog trainers use tool belts, and some of us still use those, but I personally use those notoriously ugly fanny packs that look like the ones from the 1980s, only I move the pack to the front, so I can easily grab dog kibble (which I store in a small Ziplock bag), leash, whistle, clicker, and cell phone. We buy very cheap leashes from Dollar Tree and hang them beside every door in the house and kennel, place more in the car, and put more in our training packs. Sometimes our trainers wear heavy duty leather gloves or chaps for training, if they’re working on correcting a dog’s bad habit like biting or nipping. And, one more note on the clicker. I used to use a clicker in training, but often had my hands so full, I found that I could just make the “clicker” sound with my mouth and get the same results. But try it if you’d like, because it is a very effective and handy training tool.8. Diaper Bag/Box: I personally like to have a sort of “diaper bag” or plastic lidded box in the car filled with wet wipes, Lysol spray, snack-sized Ziplock bag filled with dry dog food to keep in your pocket on outings so you can keep up your dog’s training wherever you go, extra water dish and water bottle, plastic trash bags, dog waste bags, and extra blankets or towels. You may not care about the smell of your dog, but we keep baby lotion on hand to cover our puppies’ fur with it–and it will make your new “baby” smell like a baby. I even carry a thin, light sheet to put over the crate in the car to keep fur contained in the crate so it doesn’t get all over the car. However, we caution you that, on warm days, it can get too hot for the dog, so be careful of this.9. Blanket or towel: Some experts recommend bringing a blanket or towel to rub on your new puppy’s littermates. This puts the scent of your puppy’s littermates on the fabric and could make the transition from litter to new home a little easier.10. Baby gate(s) and metal fencing: In order to confine your puppy to specific areas of your home, we recommend installing metal baby gates. (Your pup will likely chew up and destroy a wooden gate.) Also, while your puppy is being housebroken, a metal pet fence comes in handy (like a playpen). Put the fence on a floor that can be easily cleaned (hardwood, tile, linoleum, etc.) while your puppy is likely to have occasional accidents in the house. You can easily fold in the gate whenever your pup has an accident on the floor, clean it up, and pull the gate back out again. Make sure the gate and fence are tall enough so that your pup can’t climb out. We find that the shorter ones are worthless for puppies older than eight weeks of age.I’m sure there are a few more items that could come in handy for you and your new puppy, but these are a few of the essentials that we can recommend to you.
What do you recommend for a puppy/dog with loose stool? Over the years, certain litters of pups develop loose stool while here at our kennel. We used to have giardia and coccidia parasites in the streams and puddles around our old place and, because of this, we’re still in the habit of treating every puppy for worms, giardia and coccydia. If your puppy’s loose stool persists for more than a week after s/he goes home with you, please call us to describe the stool and we’ll decide whether or not it’s necessary to send you more medication. A couple of veterinarians have also said that the dog food (and especially puppy foods) can be too rich and actually cause diarrhea in some puppies. If your puppy continues to have diarrhea even after tests for parasites and microorganisms come up negative, our consulting veterinarians recommend putting your puppy on a 30-day cleansing and healing diet of nothing but roasted turkey, vegetables (especially stewed pumpkin) and rice. This diet has healed the stomachs and/or intestinal linings of many of our pups, as we have heard rave reviews from our clients. We have been recommending feeding your pup 1 tablespoon of plain, probiotic-rich yogurt twice a day for at least 4 weeks, even after the stool is formed and healthy-looking. This is important because the antibiotics and anti-parasite treatments deplete the necessary healthy probiotics in the puppy’s intestinal tract. However, some puppies actually develop allergies to dairy products, so if the diarrhea continues, remove the yogurt from his diet. To ease diarrhea, we also follow our local veterinarian’s advice and treat puppies and dogs with anti-diarrheal medication, like Immodium. Just make sure you adjust the dosage for a small puppy by cutting the pill in halves or thirds, depending on her size. Just be aware that antidiarrheals are not a cure for the problem; they only make the problem a little more bearable until the problem is fully resolved.
Is crate training good for a puppy/dog? Yes, we believe so. You don’t want to leave a puppy in a crate for too long, but you can start with one hour and gradually increase to eight hours at a time for a full night’s sleep—for both you and the dog. You can also leave a dog in a crate for 3-4 hours at a time during the day for a good nap. (All dogs need their daily naptime.) We recommend crate training for at least three reasons:
Security: The crate makes a puppy and older dog feel safe and secure. No matter what is going on in the home and no matter how energetic a dog is, she can be trained to calm herself, relax, and rest in a crate.
Reward: The crate can be used as a reward. After a challenging obedience training session, the crate is a place for a dog to relax, rest, and enjoy a doggy treat. (We recommend tossing in a kibble treat to get the dog to go inside the crate so the crate is always associated with a small snack reward.)
Sleep: The crate triggers a sleep reflex. After a quick walk outside in the evenings to relieve himself or “take a break,” as we often say, your dog will head into his crate and usually fall asleep right away, sleeping through the night.
What size crate do I need for my puppy? If you are adopting an 8-week-old puppy, he or she will usually weigh anywhere from around 8-15 pounds. A small, size 100 crate (21x16x15 for LxWxH) is generally good for these smaller puppies and may be best for transporting your puppy if you are not holding her in your lap on the trip home. However, your puppy will grow very fast and we recommend a large size 400 crate (36x24x26) for a full-grown American Lab of around 45-60 pounds (usually a female) and an extra large size 500 crate (40x27x30) for a full-grown America Lab of around 60-75 pounds (usually a male).(English Labs tend to get much larger, so we’re only talking about American Labs here.) If you need to transport your 8-week-old puppy on a plane or in a car many times as she is growing, you might have to go with a small crate and just keep buying larger crates. However, if you want to save money, we recommend that you buy an adult-sized crate and place a milk crate in the back of the crate while your puppy is still small. Creating that smaller space for your puppy inside the larger crate will make him feel more comfortable and secure. When we crate train puppies, we find that they are more likely to have fewer accidents in a small crate or in a larger crate with a smaller, more confined sleeping area, because dogs do not like to soil their sleeping space. This is also why we believe crate training is a great precursor to housebreaking, as well as many other great things.
Do you name the puppies? Yes, but not in a way that makes the puppy permanently used to their name. When the puppies turn five weeks old, we place colored collars on each one. At that time, we temporarily name the puppies according to their collar color, referring to them as “Pink Dash,” “Blue,” “Red,” “Green Dash,” “Yellow,” and so forth. (We put black marking pen dash marks on all the collars worn by female pups.) At 8-weeks old a puppy will begin to go into training and will then be given a name either from us or their owner. We use a “here” command, a whistle command, and their name to get their attention during training. Any puppy that is available for adoption with a name is given a temporary name and isn’t 100% attached to their name.
Do the puppies receive vaccinations and have their dew claws removed? Yes and yes. By the time you pick up your puppy at 8 weeks of age, s/he will have had her/his first round of vaccinations. S/he will still need another round of vaccinations and the recommended date will be printed in your puppy’s immunization records. As for dewclaws, they are removed shortly after the puppies are born. Although this may be a controversial decision, we remove dewclaws in an effort to improve the quality of life in the long run for these puppies.
How can my dog avoid getting hip or elbow dysplasia? We do our best to breed out these genetic markers in our dogs. All of our dogs are either cleared or pre-cleared for hip and elbow dysplasia. However, it can show up randomly in offspring from time to time, due to recessive genes. You can have your dog tested for these genes at two years of age. You cannot remove the genes from your dog if he/she has the markers for hip or elbow dysplasia, however, whether or not your dog’s DNA contains the genetic markers for these problems, you can do a lot to prevent or avoid your dog ever having any symptoms by NOT OVERFEEDING HIM/HER–especially as a puppy. We’re getting up on our soapbox now, but we cannot overemphasize this critical preventive measure. Americans are notorious for overfeeding their pets and it can cause long-term damage to a dog’s bones, hips, joints, and overall skeletal development.
Which Labs are smarter–blacks, fox reds, yellows or chocolates? If people have been exposed to a graymatter-challenged dog of any color they tend to think most dogs of that particular color have less intelligence. Almost monthly someone tells us that chocolates are dumber than blacks or yellows are smarter than chocolates, or they’ve never seen a smart yellow dog, etc. It’s all based on people’s individual experiences. Thankfully, the color of the dog makes no difference whatsoever in our kennel. Any dog you get from us, regardless of color, will be intelligent, so it’s a non-issue. After people buy a dog from us, we hear, “We’ve never seen such a smart dog!” And that goes for every color. As for chocolates, they do get a worse rap than other Lab colors, because most chocolate breedings worldwide are what we call “backyard” or irresponsible breedings. Unfortunately, many breeders (even ones who might be considered more responsible) have focused so much effort on getting the coveted chocolate color (or other unusual colors, like silver, which are recessive genes and harder to get), the dogs have not been bred for intelligence. So, if it seems like there are more unintelligent chocolate Labs in the world than other more common Lab colors, it’s because it’s largely true. I’m not saying they don’t exist outside of responsible kennels like ours, but an intelligent chocolate Lab is certainly less common–and our hard work has proven successful to change that trend. (Please note that we have nothing against many families who choose to breed their dogs at home and experience the whelping process. If we had not first gained the knowledge and joy of breeding and birthing puppies in our own home we wouldn’t be where we are today. We do, however, oppose the unplanned, haphazard, irresponsible manner in which many dogs are bred, due to a lack of neutering/spaying.)
Which Labs are calmer–blacks, reds, yellows or chocolates? The answer to this question is similar to the one above. Calmness is not dependent on color, but on breeding. If the sire and dam are calm, the puppies will be calm. However, it is true that “out there in the world,” more black Labs have been bred for field trial competitions and will usually be higher in energy than most of our black Labs, which have been bred to be calmer. It is also true that many have been bred to be guide dogs, therapy dogs, etc. and will be calmer than the black Labs you see out there. As for chocolates, most chocolate breedings, as stated above, are “backyard breedings” and there appears to be no consistency in temperament whatsoever. Some chocolate Labs are calm; some are higher energy. All of our dogs are bred for calmness, which is why we often pair a more energetic dog with a more calm dog, in order to get offspring that have a peaceful, more even temperament with that on/off switch, meaning they will be relaxed with family in the house, but turn on the juice outdoors when it’s time to run, play or work. (Please note that we have nothing against many families who choose to breed their dogs at home and experience the whelping process. If we had not first gained the knowledge and joy of breeding and birthing puppies in our own home we wouldn’t be where we are today. We do, however, oppose the unplanned, haphazard, irresponsible manner in which many dogs are bred, due to a lack of neutering/spaying.)
Do you offer boarding at your kennel? If you have adopted a dog or puppy from us, we offer boarding exclusively to our clients. We can offer training with the boarding, if you desire. Please inquire about our boarding and training fees, as they are subject to change. We have concrete plans for 2024 to have a full fledged boarding kennel separate from our dedicated breeding/training facilities, but until then this is only exclusive to past clients of our kennel.
When should I get my dog neutered or spayed? We recommend the sooner the better on females, so you don’t get an accidental pregnancy. For males, however, if you want a bigger, blockier head and body, you might want to wait until he’s a 18-24 months old. The negatives to this, however, is that he may mark his territory more often, wander off, or act aggressively toward other dogs.
Do you offer breeding rights for your dogs? We do offer breeding rights. Please inquire about our unlimited registration fees.
Which gender is easier to train, male or female? Gender is not the issue. What makes a dog easier to train is more about you as the trainer than your dog. Some dogs (male or female) are strong-willed, perhaps more independent, and require a firmer training style. Pete uses a lot of growling when correcting these dogs. For example, if a dog is being trained to remain inside a crate with the door open, as soon as the dog steps a foot outside the crate, the dog will hear a low, deep-throated “Grrrrr!” from Pete. The dog will immediately step back inside the crate. They know and understand what a growl means and negative correction doesn’t really faze them; it makes them more successful. Other dogs (male or female) are “softer,” which means they respond easily and quickly to minimal correction. However, these compliant dogs can be extremely sensitive and dislike correction so much that they want to escape the training process altogether. These softer dogs require more gentle encouragement in the form of praise and petting than their rougher, tougher counterparts. In other words, it’s best to “catch them being good,” as they say in our elementary schools. As we’ve stated before, dogs are much like humans in many ways. They’re all different and training must be adjusted for each individual dog according to temperament. What you should consider is your personal training style. If you are more sensitive, gentle, and patient, you might prefer to train a softer, more compliant dog. If you are a little tougher and more rugged yourself (and perhaps lack patience), training a stronger, more robust and even stubborn dog might be a better fit for you. If you feel your training style has been mismatched with your dog, guess which one of you has to change, in order to make your dog a success? Hmmm. We could write an entire book that compares dog training to child rearing.
If I adopt two dogs, should they both be the same gender or each different? If you already have one dog, you might want to consider that your next one be of the opposite gender, since dogs of the same gender have a tendency to fight. However, due to their strong territorial and reproductive instincts, this is more often the case with two females than with two males, regardless of whether or not the females are spayed.
If I adopt two dogs, should they both be from the same litter? In our experience, we have observed that people are more likely to have success when they adopt dogs that are
not from the same litter. There are two reasons for this: 1) Natural aggression is more likely to show up toward siblings than unrelated dogs; 2) When dogs spend most of their lives with a sibling, they sometimes develop insecurity and separation anxiety.
Do you use “Neuro Stim” imprinting exercises on your puppies? This is actually not a frequently asked question, but you might find it interesting nonetheless. We already work diligently to make sure that every puppy in our kennel is fully socialized with plenty of contact with kids and adults from an early age on a daily basis. However, we have not been consistent with utilizing Early Neurological Stimulation or “Neuro Stim” for short with each and every puppy in every litter. However, we find the concept intriguing and have begun implementing the exercises to some extent whenever we find the time or have the inclination to do so. Some of the claimed benefits of Neuro Stim exercises include improved cardiovascular performance (heart rate), stronger heart beats, stronger adrenal glands, higher tolerance to stress, greater resistance to disease, and in tests of learning, pups were found to be more active and exploratory than non-stimulated pups. Here’s a link to a YouTube
Video Cip of someone explaining how Neuro Stim is used on puppies. Here’s a link to a
Video Clip of one of us doing a couple of Neuro Stim exercises on a puppy here at Marble Mountain Kennels. (Here’s a link to a second
Video Clip of us performing only a Neuro Stim paw exercise on a pup.) In this video we’re stimulating the paws in one exercise and inverting the pup in another exercise. (Note that we used our fingers, rather than a q-tip.) As of this date, 2/20/15, we have not been using NeuroStim long enough to follow up on the pups to determine whether or not the long-term affects are beneficial to them when they reach maturity. To read more on this subject, click on this link to a Neuro Stim
Information Website. (Below are photos of some neurostimulation exercises performed with one of our puppies.)
