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Our waiting list is currently closed. Please see “Waiting List” section on our website for more information.
We are proud to share images and information about our puppies. We treat our puppies and dogs as members of our family and will only consider homes where they will receive the same love and care that we give them. They are born in our bedroom in a heated whelping box beside our bed. They are nurtured and cared for around the clock during the initial weeks of life.
As our puppies grow and mature, we introduce a sleeping area, a play area, and a potty area. This helps establish early potty behaviors and encourages them to separate their sleep and play space from their bathroom space. Around four weeks of age, we begin taking the puppies outside to expose them to grass and a new environment. As they grow, we take more frequent trips outside to start the initial steps to potty training (weather dependent). This helps the puppies learn, early on, that outside is where dogs go potty. It helps to imprint the desire to soil away from their den, which is your home. We also do early crate exposure to help puppies transition to crate training with less stress and anxiety. Our goal is to send every puppy home with a great start to potty and crate training, which helps their new family in so many ways.
** A note about puppy pricing – Many different things go into determining the price of our puppies. If you join our waiting list, prices can be emailed to you at that time if so requested.
Unfortunately, as living beings, dogs are susceptible to illness and disease. Thankfully, there are some things we can do to try to prevent health issues in our dogs. There are so many factors that influence the well being of your dog. Some include a healthy, species appropriate diet, providing clean and fresh water, exercise, yearly health exams, appropriate vaccination, and environmental exposures.
In addition to all of the things you can influence as an owner, we also test our parent dogs for quite a few genetic defects. We cannot prevent all bad things from happening, but we certainly can make sure we are choosing healthy and sound parent dogs.
Our dogs have been tested for PRA-prcd (a genetic eye disease that can be found in poodles and cocker spaniels) and all are “clear” and do not carry for this genetic defect. We also only use clear males as stud dogs for our litters. We also have our dogs examined and OFA certified for patellar luxation. In addition to PRA-prcd, some additional genetic defects we test for are Degenerative Myelopathy, Exercise Induced Collapse, von Willebrand Disease I, and Glycogen Storage Disease VII, PFK Deficiency. (Please see our parent dog’s page to see specific testing information.) While testing helps prevent many issues from every developing, it cannot guarantee that your dog will not develop any issues throughout their lifetime. However, we do our very best to prevent future health concerns.
All of our puppies will come to their new home with their first set of shots and will have been wormed according to vet protocol. They will also have a vet certification of health. We give our puppy families a signed copy of our guarantee at pick up and a copy can be sent via email if requested.
We do not remove dew claws or dock tails. This is a good article to read if you want more background on the benefits of keeping dew claws in tact. https://www.avidogzink.com/do-the-dewclaws/?mc_cid=5bc9e30116&mc_eid=fd79e6c90a
A special note about house training: House breaking a puppy can be an overwhelming task and can lead to stress, frustration, and resentment. We are very focused on making this process as easy as possible, which is why we keep our puppies in a clean and dry environment and also why we spend a lot of time taking the puppies outside as often as possible once they’re of an appropriate age. Very young puppies cannot be fully house trained and need consistent and responsible supervision and guidance to become fully house trained, however, our puppy families often report a smooth transition to house training in their own homes. House training is only one part of raising a puppy, however, it is a very important issue for most families.
To help with this process, we send our puppies home with some early crate training exposure. An appropriate sized crate gives the puppy a safe place to be kept when a family is not able to supervise or when a puppy is left home alone. Crate exposure begins here in our house around five weeks and slowly builds over time. One important element of crate training is to make the crate a positive place where the puppy feels safe and content. We start with open door crates where the puppies are completely free to go in and out of the crates to rest or to chew on a high reward item. They naturally choose the crate to nap and rest with their litter mates and make very positive associations with the crate early on.
Please note that all young puppies must be given frequent opportunities to go potty. Do not expect an 8 week old puppy to be in a crate for 8 hours during the day without soiling their crate. This is not only counter productive to house training, but it is also not in the best interest of your puppy. All new puppy families should plan to take some vacation from work if at all possible. Puppies should have a minimum of a few days (preferably longer when possible) with someone at home as they transition into their new surroundings. The more time you can give your new puppy, the more more benefits and rewards you will receive. You will need to have a plan in place to give your puppy potty breaks throughout the day. If everyone works full time, this means you need to have a trusted friend or family member help with potty trips and visits in the beginning. If this isn’t possible, you will need to set up a puppy room or large play pen area with a sleep and play area and a separate potty area. Using this set up may delay the timing for a fully house trained dog, but it is necessary if you must leave your young puppy all day without potty breaks.
We offer our new families lots of information and support regarding “house training do’s and don’ts” and list expectations and plans in our take home puppy manual, along with a lot of other useful information.
A special note about our “Puppy Philosophy” – We discovered an amazing program called “Puppy Culture”. It is an overall philosophy and developed best practices for raising puppies. There are so many elements that go along with Puppy Culture and we try to implement as many as we can while the puppies are here in our home. Their early neurological stimulation and specific socialization activities are a big part of our daily puppy routine, along with some of the other methods they suggest. You can learn more about Puppy Culture at puppyculture.com.
We also believe in positive reinforcement training. We do not believe in using punishment or physical violence in dog training. We highly recommend the book, “Training the Best Dog Ever: A 5-Week Program Using the Power of Positive Reinforcement”, by Larry Kay and Dawn Sylvia-Stasiewicz. This book can easily be found on Amazon. Whether you purchase a puppy from us or from another breeder, I highly recommend you put in the time to prepare for your puppy. This book is a very helpful guide for everyone who wants to have a long and lasting bond with their dog.
Sophie Lou Cockapoos 