Puppy Culture is  a birth to 12 week program with age appropriate exercises that help puppies develop confidence and impulse control, become desensitized to sounds reducing the risk of noise phobias later, and teach them a life long love of learning.  It helps us help our puppies reach their full potential. It empowers us as owners by giving us a much more deep and accurate understanding of puppy development, including how they view the world, and gives us the right knowledge and tools to help raise our puppies well.  It's passive and active enrichment, and while it can take some time, the time is so well spent at this age. The critical period for socializing ends between 12 and 16 weeks of age, and what a puppy learns and experiences, or doesn't learn and experience in that time, can have lifelong effects for better or worse.  This helps us do the right things and avoid doing the wrong things.  We can be advocates for our puppies as we start taking them out in the world too, so others are not doing things that can undermine the strong foundation we start.  

  As a person with decades experience in canine behavior, I can't recommend Puppy Culture enough!  I call it the gold standard for puppy raising! 

I do use what I call a modified version of it, tweaking it not only for the developmental variations of my breeds as compared to the bull terriers in the movie, but I also skip the resource guarding protocol and do it differently later if needed. I also use my voice rather than a clicker for training.  Even if you don't follow PC to a t, but use it to have more understanding of the developmental stages of puppies, for learning how they view the world, how they think and learn, you will still reap some amazing benefits!

 

 

 

I wanted to make this page devoted to sharing information and photos about how our pups are raised.  Ever since I started, my goal was to raise puppies to help the reach their full potential. This includes very intentional methods of handling, socializing and enrichment that is so critical in the first months of life.  I've used various methods and am starting to implement ideas from The Puppy Culture.  We also have an Adventure Box and many other toys and obstacles to help puppies learn confidence and build physical agility.   This page is a work in progress so check back to see what we add!

 

   Something else to consider - I was talking with someone about temperament tests and puppies, and had this thought: "I think a temperament test should more accurately be called an aptitude test as it shows traits the pup has so far, and can show areas to work on."  I try to match my pups based on all I see over the time they are with me, not just based on a one time "test."