How our puppies are raised
Cadenzahgold Golden Retrievers is set on 20 picturesque acres just south of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. With the land predominantly used for our much loved arabian horses, we have lots of space around our house as well as long paddock laneways for our adult golden retrievers to run and explore in and 2 large dams for them to swim in on warmer days.
The main house area is set on approximately 2 acres and is fully fenced for the safety of our dogs. All our adult dogs have free range of the house area during daylight hours and love to spend their time running, playing, and lounging around under our many trees and garden shrubs and swimming in their various swimming pools (plumbed stock troughs plumbed up to dam water.) We have a large outdoor area with bistro blinds that doubles as the boudoir for our dogs so they can be close to us at all times. Our adult dogs are all very much family pets who shadow us throughout the day, who enjoy assisting in meal preparation and family cooking as well as always provide assistance on any projects we are working on (often known for our 'reverse fetch' with Damians tools... Yes Golden Retrievers are thieves!) . They also enjoy camping and fishing as much as we do.
All our ladies are carefully managed through their pregnancies with a high attention to health (both mental and physical) as well as careful management of their diet ensuring they receive a lot of additional support through the use of all natural products such as fermented vegetables, fermented milk (kefir) seaweed meal, cod liver oil, apple cider vinegar and oily fishes for omega 3's and 6's. We do not undertake the common breeder practice of x-raying our pregnant females to find out puppy numbers to reduce the risk of cancers developing in our dogs and puppies.
All our puppies are born inside our home for the safety of the mother and the puppies. Every puppy is carefully welcomed into the world, dried, warmed, weighed and given an individual collar colour for their ongoing identification through to microchipping. Puppies are then handled and weighed daily for the next two weeks, then weekly from 2 weeks onwards so we can carefully monitor their growth and development.
We include the five Early Neurological Stimulation (ENS) exercises in our puppies daily routines between days 3 and 16 of their lives to provide the long term benefits of:
- greater tolerance to stress;
- greater resistance to disease;
- faster adrenal systems; and
- stronger heart rates and stronger heart beats.
When we are sure our puppies are doing well, they then start spending time both inside the home and outside in our custom built puppy room. Our puppy room allow the mother dogs to come and go around our property as they please for their own health, socialisation with us and our other dogs and ultimate happiness. The puppy room is fully lined, with insulated walls and roof, has a large whelping box with pig rails for puppy safety and is fully heated with thermostatically controlled heat lamps for the puppies. When not in use for puppies, our puppy room is utilised as warm, comfortable, weatherproof kennels for our older dogs, who enjoy the comforts of these rooms as well.
As our puppies grow, they are exposed to many Puppy Culture protocols. This means they are exposed to a variety of sounds, textures, toys, environments, people, animals (horses, dogs, chickens, cats) to ensure solid socialisation foundations are established prior to leaving Cadenzahgold. From about 4 weeks of age, our puppies are given access to a large, purpose built safe play area that provides lots of enrichment activities and opportunities for safe socialisation with other puppies and dogs. This safe area includes a large indoor dedicated play room for the puppies as well as a large grassed outdoor area. The indoor area has a ballpit, puppy swing, play gym, wobble board, obstacles and lots of beds and potty training trays. The outdoor area has lots of toys, a play gym, club house (puppy cubby hut), splash pool, sandpit and lots of different textures for puppies to feel including aggregrate concrete paths, stone garden beds, synthetic turf and fresh grass.
Older puppies from 6 weeks onwards are also given regular periods of time in our driveway area to experience other things such as cars driving up and down the driveway, heavy machinery running, horses cantering by, house doors opening and shutting, and meeting our cats. They are also encouraged to spend short stints of time in a crate, being spoiled with meaty and cheesy treats and lots of different toys to start preparing them for their next life stage - going home with their new owners.
Video footage of Cadenzahgold property and grounds
Cadenzahgold Golden Retriever puppies playing a musical instrument
