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Unfortunately, it’s a sad product of our times that stranger danger is a real thing in today’s world, even for adults. Here are just some of the reasons we no longer allow visits from people who are not yet on our reservation list.
Significant harm has come to breeders who work in environments where unknown people are routinely invited in.
We have health concerns for the puppies, who are still developing their little immune systems and not yet protected by vaccinations and maturity. (People can inadvertently—or even intentionally—carry diseases in on their shoes, hands, and clothing.) Information about parvo, canine influenza.
We have health concerns for our mama dogs. Activity and new people in their environment are a significant source of stress for nursing moms. Stress produces cortisol and other stress hormones, and those hormones go into mom’s milk and directly into the puppies, causing biochemically induced stress in the puppies. This is not healthy for moms or pups. Stressed moms also can get frantic and accidentally roll on or step on puppies if they panic. This is not an acceptable option for us.
Puppy theft is also a growing problem, so unknown traffic endangers the safety of our puppies due to theft. This means that seeing us or our parent dogs means that you are also seeing our residence and any puppies we have.
We are a real family, with a real life. We have home responsibilities, and also rely on any free time that we do get to allow us to relax and spend time with each other. Inviting strangers over on a regular basis is not conducive to a strong family life.
Our home is not a petting zoo, and it’s impossible for us to ascertain who is coming over to genuinely look at puppies and who is coming over because it looks like fun to bring the kids and play with puppies.
Some children (and even adults) are not able to behave appropriately around puppies. We may not realize which people these may be until it is too late and a puppy is hurt—or worse.
These puppies are also not ours to risk—they belong to the families that are taking them home and we are just their caretakers for a brief period of time.
We are happy to have our committed buyers over, providing we don’t have any concerns about current disease outbreaks or any other similar biosafety or puppy/dog health concern.
We consider these concerns as indicative of our reputability as a breeder—the safety of our puppies, dogs, and family will always be placed above a potential sale.
We understand it is deemed important to visit your breeder and see where the puppies are being raised. We do believe this to be true. Luckily, modern technology has a good solution for this modern problem. Videos! So although we aren’t able to allow the general public to visit, we do provide a significant number of videos that show where and how our puppies are raised.
We encourage you to follow our Instagram and watch our regular stories showcasing our puppy raising process and let us know any questions you may have. We also encourage you to check out our reviews, as well as frequent posts on our Instagram from very happy, satisfied families that have our puppies.
We appreciate your understanding of our commitment to the safety of our puppies, dogs, and family.
Visiting Policy for Families with Puppy Reservations
We welcome visits from families with reservations! We love to see families that live close enough to come get to know the puppies and select their puppy in person.
We have a very careful biocontainment program to protect our puppies from diseases that can be accidentally brought in on hands, shoes, and clothes, therefore, we do not allow walk-in visits.
We are happy to have you visit by appointment, please call or email us to schedule a time. Please note that for the safety of the puppies, we do not allow visits to litters until the puppies have had their first series of vaccines and if we have young puppies we may halt or place certain limitations on visits to ensure biosafety. This policy is altered at times when we know there are outbreaks of contagious diseases in our area, and we restrict or halt all visits in those circumstances.
Assuming there are no security, disease outbreak, or other health concerns, we will try to schedule visits as our time permits. Our priority, however, is the raising of our puppies so visits are not always available. We make a particularly strong effort to schedule appointments for puppy pickup. Puppy selection and pickup appointments will always take priority over other visits.
Please note that we do not allow visits with puppies that are younger than six weeks old. Visits are limited to immediate family residing in the household.
Before 4-5 weeks of age, puppies are still in the whelping box with their moms, and visitors can upset the moms and cause them to become protective. This can cause stress hormones to be released, which go into the milk and then into the puppies and with some moms they can get upset enough to accidentally trample a puppy. These are unacceptable outcomes for us. Puppies are at their most vulnerable before 4-5 weeks old, and in their fear period at 5-6 weeks. We put up as many videos and photos as time allows, so please feel free to view those for our younger puppies.
Once the puppies are 6 weeks old, their eyes and ears are functioning well and they have gotten steadier on their feet, so they are more interactive. We feel that families get the most out of visits with older puppies as they can interact with them more.
All visitors must be declared to us prior to arrival. If you bring your cousin, your neighbor's best friend, and your hairdresser's groomer we reserve to right to deny entry to unknown and unscheduled people. Children must remain under your control at all times. Please explain to your children that you are visiting baby puppies and that for the safety of the puppies they should be on their best and quietest behavior. Please also note that you are visiting our residence and we prefer that your children don't explore all corners of it.
Due to disease risks, no outside pets/animals will be allowed onto our property.
PLEASE ARRIVE ON TIME. We work from home, but that doesn't mean we aren't on a strict schedule. During visitation days we still have to care for our dogs and puppies. Additionally, we may have other families coming the same day, so please respect their schedule as well.
We schedule appointments so that we have time to care for our dogs and puppies between appointments. If you are more than a few minutes late (or early), that can mean that we may not have time to care for the puppies or for the arrival of the next family. Because of this, we may have to reschedule your visit.
We know that many of our families travel from a distance and more than appreciate the time and effort that takes. We understand that there are times when travel delays happen. Please text or call if you are delayed in your trip more than 15 minutes and we will do our best to try to accommodate that time difference into our schedule.
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