We are located in Kendallville, Indiana, the northeast corner of the state. We only have one or two litters of poodles a year. Right now our dogs in the family consist of our 12 year old collie, Blaze, a nine year old, five pound mix, Rodney, a four year old golden retriever, Miley. Daphne is our cream standard poodle and our newest addition is a seven month old Chocolate poodle named Zayda.
All of our dogs are considered working dogs because I am in charge of humane education for our local shelter, and from the day we get a new puppy in our family they start their career in humane education.
We go to nursing homes, day cares, and schools. We do a reading with the dogs program where children read to the dogs. It is really good for a child's self esteem to read to a dog because the dog won't care is the kid makes a mistake, and eventually this cause the kids to get more confidence.
All of our dogs are friendly and well socialized. When we have puppies, we like to do the same with them. They stay in a big, plastic kid's pool right in our living room. They are exposed to all the sounds of home T.V., sweepers, dogs barking, etc. We handle them numerous times daily and love to snuggle with them. At about three weeks of age they start going to work with me, which happens to be my grooming and boarding shop right next to our home. We groom about 15-20 dogs a day and so the puppies are exposed to the sounds of the shop during the day. They get a lot of attention from customers, and meet new dogs too! Around 4-5 weeks we start potty training them by putting them outside numerous times a day. At 5-6 weeks of age they start attending the reading with the dogs program at school.
When we raise a litter of puppies we commit ourselves to raising well adjusted puppies who will fit into their forever homes with as few problems as necessary. So often in our shop we groom puppies that are scared and timid, and you can tell they were "kennel dogs," who had very little human attention and interaction. Standard poodles require a lot of grooming and we start the process at one week old, with their first nail trim.. Then, we trim the nails weekly after that, because puppy nails grow very quickly! |
