February 1, 2024 – Kylie and Gunner’s puppies are home! We’re hearing great reports and we know that every pup went to a wonderful new home. We’re so thankful to each of the families that adopted from us and are proud of this litter and all the joy and help these pups will bring into the world! Because of these families and their support, we were able to donate $1,800 to Operation Underground to help fund the rescue of children from dire situations all around the world. Thank you to each of the families represented here! We hope you have a long, happy life with your new family member. Here is a picture of each of the pups on going home day! (If you want to see more of what goes on here, check out our Instagram page.)
January 18, 2024 – Selection day is here! Here are some pictures we took of them today. They are ALL absolutely wonderful pups! No carsickness, quiet in crates, social, loving, affectionate, intelligent and adaptable! They’re doing well in crates, with baths, blow dryers and on leash. They are sitting for attention (mostly!). They quickly bond to humans and stay at our side. They follow and track and are submissive and confident at the same time. A great litter!
January 17, 2024 – The puppies are doing great! We all are surviving the ice storm just fine, with no power outages here. So thankful! The pups have continued to progress… learning more and more to be comfortable and alone in a crate. They are a little inconsistent in their crate time day to day, but if they fuss, it’s only for a few minutes, and when they get no reaction out of us, they settle right down. (Not getting a reaction out of us is key. If we respond to them whining, we are rewarding bad behavior and teaching them that whining and yelping works well!)
Today we did temperament testing to score where each of them are at, to make sure that we haven’t missed anything. Every pup is exactly where we want them to be! In testing, we clearly saw pups that are nonreactive to startling, scary sights and sounds. All were coming, following, tracking us, showing good healthy submission, and were not at all sensitive to touch in any areas, or being elevated. All part of the testing. None of the pups are retrieving. Not a surprise, as this is what we call our therapy, lap dog line. They may find an interest in retrieving down the road, but they much prefer snuggling over fetching.
The pups all showed that they are confident and socialized. They love humans and prefer people over anything else. They are focused on us just as we condition them to be! Through temperament testing, we can see which pups are more of the leaders and which ones are more hesitant and would rather observe and/or follow instead of dive in. Please know that their personalities and temperaments will continue to be formed by their new environments and the training style of their new pack leaders in their forever homes. Keeping up the good balance of socialization and crate time will be so important in the weeks and months that follow!
Here’s a little more info on each pup from what we can tell so far.
All of the puppies will stay close to their pack leaders, love being held and are very adaptable. Every pup will be wonderful companions. None of the pups show a greater energy than the others from what we are seeing. Each pup seems equally intelligent (this is part of this highly intelligent breed’s characteristic, along with the bio-sensor program that stimulates them neurologically at an early age.
Kindle is probably the most chilled, laid back pup at this point. Being the largest pup from birth, he’s got a swagger about him of just being very laid back. He’s perhaps just slightly ahead of the others and is first to sit, first to calm down in the crate and doesn’t seem to sweat any of the small stuff. I think his size in the pack has a lot to do with his confidence at this young age, among his siblings. Kindle weighed almost two pounds more than any of the other pups when weighed this week. All of the other pups are almost the same weight.
Windy and Holly scored identical in every way! Very hard to see any differences in these two girls at this point. Each is loving, submissive, confident, happy and bonds quickly to humans.
Cocoa is less sure of himself and prefers observing and watching from the sidelines a bit first before forging ahead. He is not an alpha leader. He’s confident with people, very affectionate and loving, but wants to observe new situations and takes a little bit longer than his siblings to jump in to something new. Cocoa is gentle, and like all the others, loves to snuggle and have time with us humans. If Cocoa goes home to another pet, he will probably look to the other pet to lead the way.
Boots is just this happy little pup! He readily comes with his tail wagging for any new thing we call him to do. He is a confident, little playful pup.
Cardigan and Corduroy scored identical in every test. They are so similar. Confident, playful, loving, gentle, affectionate. They are affectionate and happy pups.
January 12, 2024 – Kylie and Gunner’s pups are doing very well and we’re so pleased with exactly where they are in their progress! These puppies all have wonderful temperaments and are all exactly what we expected from this litter. The pups all weighed almost identical this week, except for Kindle. Kindle was born the largest and is expected to be about five or six pounds bigger than his siblings. Here are the pictures we took of them today!
January 5, 2024 – Kylie and Gunner’s puppies turned five weeks old! They are getting cuter every day. They are beginning to separate from mama more each day, and they are now eating mushy kibble meals three times a day. This week, we started them on daily crate training time, they are getting really good at using the litter box, and we continue to condition them to loud sounds and new experiences to build their confidence. They are doing so well. Here are the pictures we took of them to show off their cuteness!
December 28, 2023 – Kylie and Gunner’s pups are doing great! Time is really flying by here. The pups have been listening to “scary” sounds for the past week as we know they are hearing now. They are pretty relaxed already and seem not to even notice the construction sounds, washing machines, blow dryers, fireworks sounds, thunderstorm noises and more.
They are starting to play a little more, and we bring them outside of their pen for some playtime a couple of times a day. They are used to warm baths, getting blow dried and have been handled a lot by us humans. Socialization is key at this point as well, and they’ve had time with lots of different people at this point. We continue their conditioning every week by introducing them to more and more.
They are learning to use a litter box now, and they had their first taste of kibble mush today. They loved it! It gives mama a break from all the feeding and it’s the first step toward separating them from mama.
Here are the pictures we took of them today, four weeks old!
December 20, 2023 – All of Kylie and Gunner’s pups are doing well! Kylie continues to be a great mama, and all of the pups are gaining weight and getting stronger each day. Soon they will be active! Their eyes are open now and they’ve completed their daily bio-sensor temperament conditioning steps. Within a few days, they will be able to hear. The next steps will be sound conditioning to all types of “scary” noises. All of this is important to help them to be non-reactive and confident pups, free of anxiety issues for life. The earliest weeks and the work we do is some of the most important steps to raising a great dog. They are still very tired and mostly just eat and sleep, but we got them up and away from mama for some quick pictures. They are almost three weeks old and here they are!
December 13, 2023 – Kylie and Gunner’s winter litter is doing very well. They are thriving and all are steadily gaining weight. Their eyes will open soon and you’ll see that on our next post! They can’t hear yet (not until around three weeks of age) so we are communicating and conditioning them through touch. They are doing the bio-sensor steps with us daily, getting regular baths and lots of holding and massaging. Not much has changed, other than their weights. They mostly just eat and sleep all day long. That will change over the next couple of weeks! Here they are at almost two weeks old.
December 4, 2023 – Kylie and Gunner’s winter litter has arrived and we’re pretty excited to have puppies again! The pups arrived on November 30 and all are doing well and thriving. We have seven pups: 5 boys and two red girls. Mama is doing great in every way. We will try to keep this blog spot updated once a week so that families can watch their pups grow. We welcome to our world: Cardigan, Corduroy, Kindle, Cocoa, Boots, Windy and Holly!
