​Why Choose a puppy Vom Geliebten Haus?

All our litters are planned in advance and each female has a full veterinary exam with bloodwork and vaginal swabs completed prior to breeding. All bred females are fed nutritious diet with extra meals and treats and a variety of supplements and vitamins to ensure proper growth and development of the litters. All litters are born inside our warm home and our pivotal role of breeders with heart begins in the whelping box. We are raising well-adjusted, confident puppies starting from birth. We help them become obedient dogs with big personalities and unconditionally loving hearts during the eight-week countdown from birth until going to new homes.

In "Genetics and the Social Behavior of a Dog," behavioral scientists John Paul Scott and John L. Fuller attribute 35% of a dog's ultimate behavioral makeup to genetics and 65% to the management, training, socialization, nutrition, and health the dog receives as a puppy. We have said it before - you can not raise a litter of puppies in a dark garage with no (or minimal) human interactions and then claim the dogs to be true German Shepherds. 

We handle puppies every day since birth and very closely monitor their growth and development. We utilize Early neurological stimulation (ENT) exercises with each puppy to ensure our puppies receive a head start in their development. Carman Battarglia, PhD, describes in his "Breeding Better Dogs" the U.S. military's "Super Dog" program that uses ENT of puppies. "These exercises help to kick in the neurological system earlier than normal," he says. "This helps to build a strong cardiovascular system with stronger heartbeats, stronger adrenal glands, greater tolerance to stress, and greater resistance to disease. These pups are more active, more exploratory, calmer and less distracted when working."

"Super Dog" exercises are done once a day with each puppy when they are as young as three days old! We perform ENT for the first two week of dog's life and they include:

~ Tactile Stimulation: tickling between the toes with a Q-tip

~ Head held erect stimulations: holding a pup in both hands perpendicular to the ground so the head is directly above the tail in an upward position

~ Head pointed down stimulations: holding a pup in both hands with the head pointed downward towards the ground

~ Spine position stimulation: holding a pup on its back in the palm of both hands with its muzzle facing the ceiling

~ Thermal Stimulation: placing a pup feet down on a cool damp towel.

 

    At age of four weeks all puppies are moved to the puppy pen that is located on the main floor in our house. This encourages early socialization of puppies that is enriched with physical and mental challenges. The more experiences puppies have during this period of early development the better they are prepared to move to their forever homes. Our puppies are provided with plenty of chew toys and tugs to develop strength, agility and coordination skills. They are experiencing different textured surfaces, such as carpet and wood floors inside our home, concrete and grass (if weather permitting) outside and are decentered to a variety of household sounds, such as a vacuum cleaner, television, kids running and playing, fire alarm going on, telephone and door bell ringing. Our four kids are each practicing a musical instrument, such as piano, flute and a saxophone and all our puppies are exposed to a a variety of music on a daily basis. 

As to nutritional considerations, we are proud to provide the best diet to our puppies and we speak of this in large on the PUPPY DIET page here. 

 All puppies are placed with families at age of 8 weeks after a full vet exam by our veterinarian. Puppies receive first set of distemper puppy vaccination and four rounds of de-wormer as recommended for the breed. We also microchip all puppies for permanent identification and extra protection with AKC-Reunite microchips.   All puppies come with AKC registration and families get to name their puppies themselves!  We provide signed contract and health guarantees.