Raising of the pups

Our puppies are born in our living room. Part of the room is closed to the other dogs so the future mother can be in peace. This way we can stay in contact with mother and babies as soon as we are at home. Our life happins mostly in the living room which is why we place the litter there. Once the mother decides that the other dogs may approach her babies we open the space so the adults can enter and leave as they wish. When the puppies are 4 weeks old they move outside into the puppy pen.

The indoor playground

During the day they stay in the puppy pen together with their mother and at least one other adult dog from 5 weeks onwards. In this pen they find different types of undergrounds, they have opportunity to climb, crawl, jump and to discover water. Every day we the pups rejoin us at home in their indoor playground and one by one they get to know all other pack members. Our dogs are very close to each other so we have no problems neither between the girls (jealosy,...) nor between the boys (rudeness, bullying,...).

The puppy pen

When the puppies are about 5 weeks old I start to take them out to walks into the woods together with another adult dog (not the mother). We do little walks where they can discover new surroundings, learn to keep together and to follow me. We cover a maximum of variety trails, steep ones, large ones, stony ones, earthy ones, wet ones,...

Ewok with the 4 week old puppies

Our aim is to present new situations to the puppies at the same speed as they acquire new capacities and adapt to the situation we submit them to. This way constant change with constant adaptation becomes a habit. This is vital to any dog, be it a family dog or a professionnal sleddog. It will greatly determine his outview on life and how he will cope with the frequent changes in life.

We treat the pups just the same way we do our adult dogs, it is just much more work since they don't obey to any rules yet. But we initiate them to house training, respecting our property (especially the cat), the recall, behave when eating and good social pack behaviour.

6 week old puppies discovering cows

When the puppies are about 7 weeks old the off-leash walks become too difficult as they have a bigger and bigger radius and we start the individual walks with leash. They are first accustomed to collar and leash and then walked in the nearby little town in order to get to know car traffic, streets, shops and the rest of the civilised human world.

Joshi Dolina Volka 8 weeks making friends

A breeder is limited by the time available for each individual puppy. This is why it is better the puppy moves into his new family at the age of about 9 weeks (10 weeks at the earliest for the new homes without dogs). At this age the puppy is fully used to riding the car and going out into the world without the rest of his family. He has built enough confidence to readily face the big changement that his move into a new family and new environment represents.

J'Cali Dolina Volka 10 weeks ready to join her new family