Puppy Culture

What happens during the first weeks of a puppy’s life can completely shape his or her future. At Legend Goldens, we take this window of opportunity very seriously! We are able to enhance the natural trainability and temperament of our goldens by implementing the puppy rearing protocol known as Puppy Culture. Puppy Culture represents a gold standard in puppy rearing and early socialization. This begins when our puppies are three days old and we encourage new families to continue utilizing the Puppy Culture protocol at home! The Whole Program lasts into adulthood to make well adjusted adult dogs who are a joy to live with and are social, stable, and easy to handle adults

What is Puppy Culture?

Puppy Culture is a science based approach to canine socialization and training. It was developed by vets, behaviorlists, trainers and breeders, compiled by Jane Killion to create a week by week approach as to what a puppy needs at each point in their development.

Early Neurological Stimulation

We conduct E.N.S exercises with every litter​ starting when puppies are three days old.

These exercises include: 

• Tactile Stimulation
• Head Held Erect
• Head Pointed Down
• Supine Position
• Thermal Stimulation​​

​These five exercises will produce neurological simulations, none of which naturally occur during this early period of life. These exercises impact the neurological system by kicking it into action earlier than would be normally expected. The result is an increased capacity that later will help to make the difference in the puppy's temperament and trainability. However, these neurological exercises are not substitutions for routine handling, play socialization and bonding.

Week to week overview

Click on the link above to read more about the whole process.

Day 1: Whelped in the living room Stimulations begin the first day, as well as daily handling. This helps puppies get used to being held, feeling different textures, and experiencing a range of Sounds, voices and people.

1-3  Weeks:Pups are handled individually every day. We talk to them, pet them, and let them explore their pen in our home.

4 - 6 Weeks:Puppies are handled every day, held, petted, and talked to. They are taken out of the whelping pen and begin to explore. Toys are introduced, and puppies begin to do short retrieves.

6 - 8 Weeks:Puppies continue retrieving and playing with toys. They are taken for walks to explore outside. Puppies are introduced to the collar and a dragging lead. We take our pups through cover, over ditches, up and down hills, and to all the places they need to learn to go for hunting and to be a well rounded family pet. They become comfortable inside the house as well, going up and down stairs, seeing a TV, cats, other dogs, and other aspects of home life. Beginning crate training is started, with pups becoming more and more familar with the crate as time progresses. They are introduced to many new surfaces, rooms, environments and people.

8-10 Weeks:Puppies are can go to their new owners! (Puppies being shipped can fly to there new home at 10 weeks)

Week by week we work to teach pups to learn to deal with fear, frustration and overcome obstacles, therefore building confidence with activities such as “the box game”, barrier challenges, obstacle challenges, tarp challenge and much more. Through this, our puppies learn to problem solve.

*Our pups are raised in our home, with lots of toys and household noises, along with intentional sound stimulation. We reinforce with training, positive elements in daily life, like baths, nail clipping and much more. Our puppies wander the house before they head home and since we have so many of our pups that go on to be service dogs, therapy dogs or live with a family with young children,  every litter goes through some sort of temperament test.

The way we interact with them in the little moments and use small opportunities to create positive experiences and imprints. We don’t have a huge house or a massive set up, but we make it a priority for the pups to have both a play area and a sleeping area in our home, and we let them become comfortable in our home by being able to explore on their own, sit on the couch with us, watch movies and have one on one time.

*Other elements included in the pups weeks with us is learning to “mind”, which is sitting to ask, instead of jumping or other bad behaviors pups learn to get our attention. At our house we teach that the way to get our attention is to “sit to ask”. 

*They learn to walk with/next to us (without the leash) so that when the leash is added, they have already learned to walk with us, the leash isn’t a surprise.  Puppies also drag a leash supervised to learn about restrictions and limitations a leash represents before going home.

*We crate train our pups starting at 5 weeks old and by the time they head home, they are typically sleeping from 10pm-6am without accidents by the time they go home.