WHAT ARE

PUPPY CULTURE AND AVIDOG?

A word about both Puppy Culture and Avidog

They are both excellent programs, but they are no substitute for experience.

A novice breeder can implement most of the protocols, but not as well as an experienced breeder.

Even more importantly. the raising and husbandry of puppies is the most important training your puppy will have in her life: this is the time that decides whether you have a great, emotionally and mentally strong puppy, or a mediocre or worse puppy, prone to fears and unwanted behaviors.

Most breeders have absolutely no training experience.

None.

The ideal breeder is one with both breeding and puppy husbandry experience, as well as training experience.

That's where we excel: We have extensive experience training in multiple disciplines, animal care experience, and breeding experience.

We are professionals.

So you need to decide who you want raising your puppy:

A volume breeder who pays no attention to puppy development
A backyard breeder who knows nothing about raising puppies, but just wants to make a few bucks or get a puppy for themselves out of their pet
A home-based breeder, who may try to use Puppy Culture and/or Avidog, but has no real training experience, so even if they do use the protocols, they aren't as effective
Or a professional home-based breeder/trainer with decades of proven experience and the extensive videos and reviews to back that up (that's us!)

If you want a puppy with the best start possible, complete an application and join our puppy family.

We use two amazing and proven programs to raise superior puppies: Puppy Culture and Avidog. Lot's of people are familiar with the names of those programs, but don't really know what they entail.

Puppy Culture

Puppy Culture has taken most of the best puppy husbandry practices from over the last 50 years and formalized them into a systematic program. We have used most of these protocols, but what we like best about Puppy Culture is that it has connected each protocol to specific developmental markers. This makes is much easier and effective to not only do the right thing, but to do it at the right time for optimal results.

Just a few of the Puppy Culture protocols include:

Early Neurological Stimulation (ENS) to enhance the development of strong nervous systems
Barrier Challenge to instill problem-solving ability and teach the puppies frustration tolerance
Clicker training to teach the puppy how to learn, how to enjoy learning, and how to seek out learning
Conditioned Emotional Responses to teach positive associations with important puppy skills, such as crate training, grooming, veterinary handling, enjoying the company of humans, and having manners
Manding, which is a way of teaching puppies to offer polite behaviors and asking for attention, instead of jumping, barking, etc.
Attention to People to teach a puppy to be confident enough to make eye contact with humans, and to use this as a communication method
Puppy Parties to teach the puppies to engage confidently with humans and enjoy activities with humansResource Guarding Prevention to help prevent the unwanted behavior of puppies or dogs guarding food, toys, people, or other valued items.
Puppy obedience, such as sitting, walking on a leash, and waiting at doors
Habituation to and desensitization of loud noises and new experiences, such as a vacuum, lawn mower, and roller suitcase.

You can find us on the Puppy Culture Worldwide Breeder Map and Database, and we were an early adopter of the program and the first, and for a long while only, Goldendoodle breeder to be listed.

Please see the sidebar to the left to understand what to look for in a Puppy Culture breeder.

NOTE: Puppy Culture has become a very popular program among puppy buyers. Because of this, breeders are realizing they can make more sales if they say they use Puppy Culture. Some breeders think that throwing some toys in the pen and doing ENS is Puppy Culture. But it's not. Be sure any breeder who says they use Puppy Culture actually shows you the proof.

There's no reason a breeder shouldn't have a ton of videos showing how they raise their puppies. We have over 50 videos on this site, and over 200 videos on Youtube. The Puppy Culture motto is "The Proof Is in the Puppies." Demand that proof from your breeder.

Avidog

Avidog provides a large scope of education to breeders, from how to have and maintain health dogs, to best breeding practices, to training and raising puppies and properly matching puppies with families.

Program components are too many to list, but a few include:

Preparing strong and health breeding dogs: Understanding genetics, epigenetic, prenatal nutrition, effects of parental stress, and more
How puppies develop and how to teach skills to puppies
How to reduce behavioral problems
How to evaluate puppies and match them with families

We have completed Avidog's Transformational Dog Breeding Program, Transformational Puppy Rearing, and regularly participate in the Avidog Breeder College discussion group.