River & Walker

Choosing a breeder is an important decision when adding a puppy to your family. Here are a few of the things we do to ensure the welfare of our puppies and parents.

Health & welfare of the parents

• Regularly exercise the parents
• Feed them high quality food they enjoy
• Genetic & health testing
• OFA testing

Communication

• Always available for a phone call or FaceTime video call
• Send puppy photo updates (and videos upon request)

Family screening

• Don’t accept deposit without approved application
• Match families with puppies using the BAB temperament program

Welcome & transparent

• You are welcome to come visit the puppies and parents

When investigating your breeder ask for a face to face meeting or a video call. It’s often easier to get an accurate picture of the breeder this way instead of relying on text messages and voice calls alone.

BAB (Badass Breeder) is a program created by Jeanette Forrey to help breeders empower their puppies and give them a voice in what they need. It also makes a big difference in finding the right families for each puppy and the right puppy for each family.

Here’s what Jeanette has to say on why she created her program:

Puppies are raised to believe in themselves and be the best they can be through guiding emotional responses, meeting their innate needs in order, building confidence through intentional and purposeful curriculum and handling that aligns to their sensitive developmental benchmarks, and lastly, evaluating each puppy prior to placement to ensure their voice is heard and they are honored and respected not only with their breeder but with their new human as well.

Jeanette, founder of Badass Breeders

Here’s summary of a list of benefits for puppies raised on the BAB program.

Better Stress Handling

When the puppies are a few days old we start with Early Neurological Stimulation (ENS). This improves their stress responses later in life. 

Improved Confidence

Early Scent Introduction (ESI) is also started at a few days old. It is a procedure to help with nose awareness and confidence. 

Puppy/Family Temperament Matching

At 7-8 weeks we do temperament testing. This is a test that helps us place a puppy with the right family, and helps you pick a puppy that will thrive in your home. 

This is something we have been working on over the last couple years. It’s not something that happened overnight because it takes a lot of time.

We love our puppies and parents, and we always try to do our very best in raising and training our puppies. The BAB program has helped us so much because it’s a proven, structured approach to raising confident puppies. It has made such a difference in our puppies and how they transition into their new homes.

Better stress handling

We start when they are a few days old with Early Neurological Stimulation (ENS). This improves their stress responses later in life. We do this is by applying gentle stressors like gently pulling on their tail, rubbing between their toes, gently rubbing a hand over their eyes and face, turning them upside down. We do this all with great care and with much love.

Improved confidence

We also do Early Scent Introduction (ESI). It is a procedure to help with nose awareness and confidence. It enhances their ability to identify and react to scents. Similar to ENS this is introduced at days 3-16 of a puppies life and is very beneficial to their development.

We introduce the puppies to many new things each week starting at week 4. New toys in the whelping box and exposure to many sounds. When they are older they go outside to the play area to experience even more.

Puppy/family temperament matching

At 7-8 weeks we do temperament testing, this is a test that helps us place a puppy with the right family and helps you pick a puppy that will thrive in your home. This way everyone gets a voice in the placement process.

All of this takes a lot of time and energy, but the benefits have been so amazing since we have started that it just makes sense to keep doing it all– better placements, fewer problems, and fewer puppies that need to be re-homed.