Puppies

Hi, everybody. Claire here, from Van Isle Labradoodles. We’re here with a six week update for the blonde brownies litter. As you’ll probably remember from our other videos, this is a litter of medium sized, multi-generation Australian Labradoodles. It’s hard to believe that the kids are already six weeks old. You can hear them in the background. What we’ve done today is, we’re going to do things a bit differently. The puppies are all a little bit too big to all be together with me in one spot, where we can easily film them. So, we have them out in the background there, and Reynold’s just going to pass them to me one at a time. As we usually do, we’re going to a little bit of an update on each of the puppies.

This week, our assessment is going to be primarily from our kennel assistant, Taylor’s, perspective. When we do our assessments of these Labradoodle puppies, what we do is, we have the three of us who spend the most time with them, that being Taylor, myself, and Reynold, and we each do our own independent assessments of the puppies. Then, we take all of those together, combine them, see if there’s anything where there’s a big disparity, talk about it …

Sometimes we go back and we reassess the puppy if, say, for instance, one of us said, “This is a really confident, outgoing puppy,” and the other said, “This is a really quiet and shy puppy.” It’s a check for us, and it also gives us an opportunity to all compare notes. Once we’ve done that, then we do a more formal assessment, using a combination of different techniques. We’ll get into that more in next week’s video.

In the second half of this video, we’re going to tell you all about what the puppies are eating, what we recommend for you to feed them, how much to feed them, what it looks like, and also, a rundown on the treats. Feeding dogs and giving them treats can be a really tricky process right now. There’s so much choice.

We hope our families have all started on their homework assignments that they received earlier in the week. That also helps us with our allocation process. And as well as all of that, our families have had some extra videos, where they’ve seen the puppies outside. They’re just having the best time outside. They really enjoy being outside. They’re always asking us to be able to go out. They’ve all mastered the doggy door without any problem.

This week, we’ll move them out of the smaller outdoor area and into our larger backyard area, which is a couple of acres, where there’s grass and garden areas, and even more surfaces and new things for them to explore. I think they’ll do really well. These guys are pretty confident and really outgoing. And if you follow our Facebook page, you’ll have seen them outside in a couple of really short videos, where they’re playing on their slide and conquering the stairs.

So, you’ll have to listen to them all talking in the background there. They’re a little bit jealous that they’re not the one that’s going to be here with me, and a couple of them are playing, so we’ll just hear them in the background. Let’s get started with each of the puppies. Right now, I have Mr. Green Collar with me, and Mr. Green Collar is the most handsome black and white Labradoodle in this group. He is a doll. Now, if you’ll remember from our earlier videos, Mr. Green Collar used to be the one that was very vocal. He was the leader of the group. He was very outgoing. He was always trying things and he often got annoyed if he couldn’t solve a problem. He would get frustrated easily.

So, as you can see, he’s had quite a transformation in the past six weeks. He is now easily one of the most affectionate puppies that we have. He’s very, very attuned to people. He runs up to greet me every time I come in the room, and he’s just a cuddle bug. He’s also no longer vocal. I can’t remember the last time I heard him barking or growling in frustration. He’s learned how to manage all of that. He doesn’t get upset when he doesn’t get something solved right away. He’s very kissy, as you can see, super fun, and really friendly.

Mr. Green Collar is also one of Peyton’s favorites. If you’ll remember from our video a little while ago, Peyton is our four-year-old puppy socializer. She helps us know which of the puppies gravitate really well with children, and Mr. Green Collar is definitely one of those. You can see, he’s very affectionate, no longer vocal, super balanced now. He’s not a leader, but he’s also not a follower. He’s very independent still, which is great. He’s quite happy to be on his own.

Speaking of being independent, this week we have started taking each of the puppies individually into a different part of the house, where they can’t see or hear the rest of the litter, so that they start to learn to be on their own. This is really important so that they aren’t traumatized when they go home with you, and all of a sudden, being taken away from everyone else in their litter. So, we have them out and about, spending time with us. Also, that gives them the opportunity to have a lot of new experiences, explore more surfaces and all sorts of things, and usually get into some trouble, too.

Mr. Green is a real people pleaser, as you can see a definite cuddler, and a super love bug, and he adores water. He’s a great, well-balanced puppy. He would be suitable in pretty much every situation, and he’s one of the sturdier and larger puppies. I would anticipate that Mr. Green is going to mature to around the same size as Spirit. So, probably anywhere from 36, 37 pounds up to 40, maybe even 41 pounds. Going to be a really nice, good looking, handsome boy. We love our Mr. Green.

I’m going to give him over to Reynold now, and we’re going to switch out for our other black and white boy. Our other black and white boy is Fisher, and Fisher … Kisses. Come here, bubby. Oh, there’s a big battle going on over there with the others. Fisher, as you all probably know now, from our previous videos, is going to be a certified service dog. So, he’s off with his trainer. He’s going to be leaving us a little bit sooner than the rest of the puppies, and he’s going to go to a very intensive program.

The reason why Fisher was chosen is because he is completely attuned to people. He doesn’t really have too much interest in the other dogs. He does play with them, and of course, then he interacts with them, but he will never pick the other dogs to be with over a person. He gets all of his gratification and all of his comfort in the world from people. He’s also, as you can see, incredibly calm, very, very balanced puppy, and just the sweetest guy. We know he’s going to do really well, and we’re so proud that we have one of our dogs going for the program. So, that’s Fisher.

Coming up, we have Brown Collar Girl … Or, not Brown Collar Girl. Purple Collar Girl, the brown dog. Hey there, sweetheart. Purple Collar Girl has always been pretty much of a confident girl. That hasn’t changed in the six weeks. She is still a very, very confident girl. She’s independent. She’s very happy to spend time on her own. She doesn’t always need to be with the other puppies.

She doesn’t always need to be with people, although she loves being with people. She’s always very adventurous. She’s always exploring the new things outside. She’s not afraid to go and look under rocks or behind corners and see what there might be there. She absolutely adores the water. She’s splashing it at all the time, having a great time. She has really good eye contact, and she’s very tentative to people when she’s with people. So, that tells me that she is going to be an easy to train puppy, and one that really enjoys learning.

She focuses strongly on the people and pays great attention to them, and that’s always a really strong and positive characteristic. But her best friends in the litter are Green Collar Boy, who we just saw first, and Gray Collar Girl. The three of them are often together. That’s our little Brown Collar Girl. Not Brown Collar Girl, Purple Collar Girl. I should have given her a brown collar. She’s one of the smaller puppies in the litter, so I wouldn’t expect her to get much more than between 34 and 36 pounds. And when I give you a weight, here sweetie, this is always just a guesstimate.

Now we have the real brown color puppy. Yes. This is Mr. Brown Collar Boy. Hello, baby, hello. Now you can see that this little fellow, this guy is affectionate. Brown Collar Boy, his whole world is people. That’s all he cares about as well. But other dogs are fine, and he does play with them, and he gets along with him well. But he prefers to spend all of his time with people. He’s very sensitive. He’s very gentle and he’s very cuddly. He’s also extremely intelligent, and he’s very intuitive. He’s a lovely, really well-balanced dog. He’s the type of puppy that will work really well with both older people and with younger children, because he does have the gentle way about him.

He’s confident, but he’s also quite reserved. He’s not at all loud. In fact, I don’t think I’ve heard him bark yet. I may have, but I don’t believe I have heard him bark. And he is best pals with Yellow Collar Girl. He, just as I said, does this for his human contact. That’s his favorite thing in the world. If you’ll remember from our other videos, he’s a chocolate sable. So, the dark color around his face is going to clear out as time goes by, and he’s going to be a caramel. He’s also right in the middle, in terms of size wise, to maybe a little bit smaller. So, I would expect him to be a little bit smaller than Spirit at maturity, probably closer to the 36, 37 pound mark.

You can see how well he sits here. He’s perfectly calm, perfectly fine. Hey, somebody’s holding me. Somebody’s touching me. I’m a happy puppy. He’s a lovely dog. We’ll put Brown Collar back now, and next little puppy we have coming up is Peach Collar Girl. Hi, Peachy. Peach Collar Girl is the other dog we have an announcement about today. Peach Collar Girl is going to a breeder in Spokane. She has been selected to be a breeding prospect girl. Part of the reason for that is her temperament, and part of the reason for that is her structure. Peach Collar is absolutely stunning, in terms of her looks.

She is also very affectionate. She can be very sassy, but she’s more likely to be a little bit of a reserved dog, very calm, even going. She adores people, loves children, loves the water. She’s just a great girl, and she has this really interesting sable chocolate coloring, which is just going to be stunning as she gets older. That’s Peach Collar Girl. She’s off to Spokane, and she’s going to be flying with Taylor, just about 10 days before everybody else picks up their puppies. So, she and Fisher will both be gone when when the families come to pick up their puppies. There you go, Miss Peach Collar Girl.

Now, coming up next we have Gray Collar Girl. Gray Collar is our little black phantom girl, and our little fierce and feisty little lady. She is the tiniest puppy in the litter, and she is just so outgoing. She is so confident. She’s very brave. Nothing deters her from ever standing up for herself. She’s very, very, very good at being independent and making sure nobody bosses her around. She tells the other puppies off regularly. She growls at them, and she can be quite furious about it when she’s deciding that, this is not how I like things. She doesn’t hesitate to let anybody know that, be they another puppy, or one of us.

She is also a huge lover of water, and she also adores kids. In fact, I would say she prefers children to adults, if she does have the choice. She loves people, but if she sees a child, she just goes and heads right over, and runs right for that child to make friends. As you can see, she’s very affectionate. She likes to give kisses. She’s just a lovely little girl, and she really enjoys being held and picked up. But she’s also independent and quite happy to be on her own. That’s our little Gray Collar Girl.

Next, we have coming in is Blue Collar Boy, just switch out with Reynold there. Here is our beautiful, handsome chocolate sable blue. This fellow is absolutely the most affectionate and sensitive boy. He really, really is intuitive. He very much wants to cuddle. As you can see, when he’s here, he’s much closer to me and he snuggles right in, as compared to Gray, who’s more looking at me and enjoying being petted, but not quite as snuggled in as Blue Collar. Blue Collar is the snuggler out of the group, along with Fisher. Blue is very, very, very cuddly.

It’s interesting, the two biggest meals in the group are the two big babies. They just want to be cuddled and held by people. Blue absolutely adores children, as well. This is another one of Peyton’s favorites, because he is so cuddly. He’s also extremely gentle, and just an overall super sweet boy. He’s very good at understanding if it’s a young child or an older person, and that he needs to be a little bit more gentle and a little bit more calm with them.

He doesn’t hesitate to tell his brothers and sisters off. If something happens, he does tell them that that’s not something that he likes. He does bark a little bit, but not to any excess, just like a normal dog would bark. He barks when he’s playing. And he’s always one of the ones who tells me if he hasn’t had enough cuddle time. He’s always asking for more time. And his best friend is Miss Peach. So, when Miss Peach goes off to Spokane, Mr. Blue is going to be a little bit sad, I think. That’s our handsome chocolate sable boy. Also, he’s one of the bigger puppies. He’s going to be right around Spirit size as well. He’s not much different in size from Fisher.

And last but not least, is Miss Yellow Collar. Miss Yellow Collar is our little, petite, tiny little chocolate sable girl. This girl is very reserved. She’s very, very quiet. She never makes a sound. She doesn’t ever squeak. She doesn’t bark. She doesn’t growl. The other puppies all gravitate to her. I’m not sure if they see her being a rock for them, a little bit of a stability, because she’s always so calm. Maybe, but she is an extraordinarily calm dog. She doesn’t get rattled about anything. Very, very sweet.

She just gets along with everybody, all the dogs, every person she’s ever met, and she’ll always acquiesce to the other dogs. She does not push herself forward whatsoever. So, she’s not an outgoing dog at all. She’s not shy. She’s got lots of confidence, but she certainly doesn’t put herself out there. So, if the pan is out for food and everyone’s jockeying a position, she’ll just move aside and let someone else go ahead and have some. She’s really, really good with children, as I said, and with older people as well, because of her calm, gentle nature. And her best friends are Mr. Brown Collar and Fisher, and that is our little Miss Yellow.

That’s the puppies and their update for this week. As I said, they’ve all learned how to use the doggie door. They’re all doing so well outside. And we have started having them come into the house one by one, into the separate part of the house, where they can’t see or hear each other. We’ve also started their individual crate training. And later on this week, they’re off for their first wellness exam at the vet. So, next week’s video, we will tell you how that went, give you even more in-depth on their temperaments, and we’ll be getting pretty close to our allocation date. So, we hope that you enjoyed the update, and now we’ll give you a little bit of a rundown on our food and treats for the puppies.

All right, we’ve got the puppies put away now so that we can talk a bit more about food and treats. We have another video that you can find on our YouTube channel, where we discuss raw food in a little bit more detail. Now, what I’m going to do is, I’m going to tell you about raw food as it applies to your puppies going home.

Not only Labradoodles, but all dogs benefit from eating a fresh food diet. If you feed your dogs kibble, that is similar to if you ate a diet strictly of protein bars and crackers. Boring, not really healthy, and just not ideal. Dogs need fresh food, just like we do. They also need a variety. You know how there’s a lot of kids now who are allergic to peanuts, shellfish, or any other number of things. And a lot of the reason for that, doctors have determined, is because we don’t give them enough variety and exposure to food when they’re young. So, the same thing holds true for your puppy.

What we want to do is rotate the proteins regularly. Right now, your puppies are eating chicken, beef, and lamb. Those are the three proteins that they’ve have. They also have vegetables and they have bones and they have treats. So, we’re going to start off with what they’re eating for food. What they’re eating comes in this package here. This brand of food is called Crudo, C-R-U-D-O. It’s available in Victoria. I will send a link at the bottom of this video, that has the store that sells it in Victoria. It’s also available on the mainland, and I’ll have a link for those locations as well.

This is what Crudo looks like when it comes out of the tube. It’s a really nice, fine blend, and that’s why we pick it for the puppies. It’s easy for them to navigate. It’s easy for them to eat. They can almost lap it up, as opposed to having to have bigger pieces and bigger chunks, as they will have when they grow up and eat more of an adult raw food. So, there’s vegetables mixed in here. There’s lots of organ meats, and there’s bone dust in here. Bone dust makes it much easier for them with their immature digestive systems, so that they get calcium, but they don’t have big pieces of bone that will be too much for them to try to digest when they’re young like this.

That’s why we picked your Crudo. And you’ll see, if you look at it really closely, there’s lots of orange through here, and the orange comes from pumpkin. All of our dogs eat pumpkin as soon as they start eating food, and they continue eating pumpkin with every meal until the day they die. Pumpkin is an awesome thing. It helps the digestive system better than almost anything. It’s wholly natural. The dogs like the taste of it. It’s inexpensive. It’s easy to serve in their food.

So, all you have to do is pick up any type of canned pumpkin. Just make sure you don’t get pumpkin pie. We don’t want to give them that but. Just any type of canned pumpkin. You can buy it in a smaller tin than this. We have lots of dogs, so we have a bigger tin. You can also put it into little zip locks and individual portions if you want. And mostly, what you want to do when you get your puppy home is give them a good generous teaspoon with each of their meals.

This is what the puppies eat out of now, is this communal pan. Right now, they’re eating about two and a half pounds a day for the eight of them. That’s at six weeks of age. By the time they go home, they’ll be eating more than that. But the general rule of thumb for a puppy for the first six months is, you want to feed them 10% of their body weight. So, it’s really easy to calculate. And if you’re working with these Crudo tubes, you can take them out of the freezer. You just let them thaw to the point where you can slice them. Then you can slice them into thirds, halves, whatever it is that you need for your puppy for the day, stick the other one back in the freezer, and let that one thaw out.

For us, as humans, we think we always want to have our food warm most of the time, except for maybe a salad or a nice shrimp cocktail. But for dogs, they really enjoy having their food icy. While we think well, we don’t really want to give them something cold to go in their tummy. That’s not very appetizing. Actually, your puppy’s going to prefer that, so don’t let it thaw all the ways out. What I do is, I take ours out just before I go to bed, and I have it in a part of the house that’s not particularly warm overnight.

Then, in the morning, it still has some iciness in it, but I can use it and I can use the spoon with it. And that works really well. They tend to like that temperature just just fine. Then, when I put their food out for the puppies, it stays out, they eat, it goes back in a really cold fridge. So, when I put it back down for them again, it’s really cold. It never gets warm, room temperature. They tend to not like it too much like that.

When they get older, what they’re going to eat is, something that’s more in this sort of format for raw food. This is a 1/2 pound block. And this is a chicken mix from Buddy’s. Buddy’s is a local Island company that we really like to work with. They’re excellent, in terms of customer service, and also for knowledge, and they have a really good selection of proteins.

For our dogs, for adult dogs, they eat a mixture of lamb, chicken, beef, tripe, duck, turkey, and that way they are always having a different protein. They also have pork available at Buddy’s. I just choose not to buy the pork for no particular reason, other than, I never have … The dogs do eat pork, but when they eat pork, usually it’s grocery store pork that we buy for them, and usually that’s when they’re pregnant, because they get a little fussy when they’re pregnant. But otherwise, this is what they eat. This half pound block, this is about what dog the size of Ripple and Smoochers and Peanut would eat.

When they get to be adults, you cut back from the 10% of the body weight down to about 2% of their body weight. So, at six months, I’ll give you all a reminder email and get you to lower down how much they’re feeding by some degree. But you can’t usually overfeed your puppy. True, you might get one that’s a real slug and turns into a fatty Patty, but not very often. You want your puppy to have all the food that they can absorb and that they’re happy eating.

So, as a general rule of thumb, what we tell everyone is, put down the amount that I’ve recommended. If they eat it all up right away and they’re looking at you going, “Well, have you got anything else?” give them some more. And if they don’t eat it all and they walk away and they’re not very excited at the next meal, then feed them less.

And while they’re puppies until they’re six months at least, you want to feed them three times a day. At six months, then they generally say, “Yeah, no. I only want to eat twice a day,” and then you switch them down to twice a day. Of course, as they’re growing, you’re going to increase the amount they eat all the time, because they’re gaining weight, so that 10% is going to go up, in terms of how much they eat.

For Spirit, Spirit weighs 40 pounds, so she eats more than this in a day. She eats about, I think it’s about 24 ounces of food a day. I have it all in my head, and I do it by eye sight now, so I can’t do the math right off the top of my head. But I’m sure if you ask Mr. Google, he’ll be happy to tell you what that exact amount is. But roughly, she eats about 24 ounces a day. Our dogs eat a little more than your average dog, because they are breeding dogs. They’re working dogs. So, we always give them a little bit of reserve, and having babies is hard work. Smoochers won’t have to work so hard, but even making babies does take a lot of effort.

The only other thing that we give our dogs, in addition to the raw food and the pumpkin, is marine phytoplankton. This, you can buy on Amazon. I will also give you the link to this in the comments below the video. This product is really terrific. It’s very inexpensive. Your dog only needs a quarter teaspoon a day, and it just does wonders for their coat, their nails, their eyes, and it also is extremely helpful in preventing ear infections.

I would not go a day without feeding this to my dogs. There’s not really a taste to it, so they’re happy to eat it. It’s a dark green colored product. And really, what it is, is an omega, but it is not … You don’t have to kill fish and then process it. So, if you buy like salmon oil or omega in a bottle, already, by the time you have it in that format, it’s lost most of its efficacy.

So, it’s really not doing much, other than putting money in somebody’s pocket. It’s also destroying the fish population, and that’s not very good for our whales. I’m particularly worried about the whales here. As you know, our resident Orca pod is being depleted because they don’t have enough food. So, if we use the phytoplankton, then we’re helping the whales, and it’s awesome for our dogs.

One thing that’s really important, especially for puppies, is calcium. They have to have extra calcium as growing puppies. We want their bones to be developing and be nice and strong, so they need to eat bones. There’s bone in the raw dog food, but there is not enough calcium enough for a growing puppy.

The other thing about bones is, it’s hugely important psychologically for dogs. That is what they would do if they were in nature. They would be chomping away on bones and eating whole carcasses. And by the way, if you really want to go the raw dog food route and do exactly what your dog would eat, were he not being fed by you, you can, at some dog locations, by whole carcass food. So, you can buy a whole rabbit, a whole chicken.

I don’t think you want to buy a whole beef, but you can buy the smaller prey animals that they would naturally be eating, were they just out foraging for themselves, and you can feed it to them that way. That would be really ideal. I choose not to do that, just because, to me, that’s a little bit more than I’m comfortable with. This is good for me, but if you can tolerate that and you’re happy with that, that would be just the ultimate thing to give to your dog.

But anyways, if you’re not doing that and you’re going to feed bones, this is what the bones are going to look like. What you’re going to start off with, with your puppy, when you get your puppy home, is chicken bones. Lots of people get really confused about bones. They think, oh my goodness. My dog can’t possibly eat a chicken bone, because it’s going to splinter and hurt his stomach or his throat, but that’s not the case. Dogs can eat any type of bone whatsoever, as long as it’s raw. You have to always feed the bones raw.

You never feed any type of bone cooked. I don’t care if you’ve had the best porterhouse steak and you’ve got this wonderful juicy bone. Yeah, your dog would love to eat it. But no, that’s not going to be a good idea. Those are the bones that can splinter. Those are the bones that can impact in your dog’s digestive system. And those are the bones that are going to rack up a big vet bill, or even, in some cases, kill your dog. So, never feed any type of cooked bone whatsoever.

Same as if you’re feeding … When you’re feeding a raw, if you happen to have forgotten to take out enough and you’re left with this, be very careful when you’re thawing this out in your microwave, that you don’t cook it, because there is big hunks of bone in here, and you do not want those bones to be cooked at all so that they can splinter. So, you’re much better off to have it half-frozen still, and no sign of it being cooked. If you make a mistake and it’s in your microwave too long, and it does get a bit cooked, throw it out. Much better to be safe than sorry.

Anyways, bones for your puppies. The easiest ones for them to start off with are the chicken bones. They’re small, they’re soft. They’re easy for them to negotiate and manage. Chicken wings, those are awesome, and chicken necks are really good. This is an example of what we call a small chicken neck. This is from Buddy’s. Anywhere that you can buy raw dog food will have a huge selection of bones for you. And chicken necks come in small and large. This is the small size. This is perfect for your puppy when they go home and they can continue eating this through adulthood.

Our dogs get one of these every three days as part of their meal. So, when our dogs get this, they don’t get as much of their raw food. With your puppy, don’t worry about that. They can use the extra calories. It won’t hurt them. These are really rich in a lot of nutrients, a lot of vitamins, and a lot of calcium, and dogs just love them. Nothing is more fun for them than chewing on a bone.

This bone is frozen. It’s just come out of the freezer, and this is how I feed it. Usually, the dog will look at it, they’ll lick it, they’ll mouth it a bit, probably leave it, and they’ll wait for it to get to be a little warmer, where they can negotiate it better. Raw bones can be messy, so you do not want to feed this to your dog on your white carpet, or on any carpet, for that matter. This is when it’s really great to have your dog in the crate, give them that bone in the crate, perfect. Easy to clean up the crate. I would take their bed out. Just leave them on the floor in their crate there. That’s really easy to wipe out and clean up.

It makes them realize, “Wow, my crate is so much fun. This is something special. I only get it in my crate.” So, you got like, killing two birds with one stone this way. You got your dog learning how happy and excited he’s going to be to go into his crate, because, “Oh, I get this super good treat.” You’re giving them wonderful nutrition, and you’re also satisfying them psychologically.

If they don’t finish the whole bone, usually, with a puppy, I let them have that bone for about an hour if they’re in the crate, half an hour if they’re not in a crate. Then, I just pop it back in the freezer. Dogs don’t have the same problems as humans do, where you thaw, freeze, thaw, freeze. So, don’t worry about it. You can put it back in the freezer.

A chicken neck like this, for your little puppy when they come home at nine weeks, that’s probably going to last them a couple of times. Some of them are going to be big chewers, and some of them are going to be not so much into the chewing thing. So, some of these dogs may go through it right away, and some of the puppies may have this for a couple of days. That’s true for Labradoodle and any breed of dog. The larger breed dog, the faster they go through the bones. So, you can have a chicken neck, chicken wings, chicken backs. Those are all terrific starting ones.

The other thing you can do is, at Superstore, in their Halal section, they usually have a bag about this big of lamb neck bones. They’re small, they’re only about like this. Those are really good for the puppies too, because they’re small for them to handle. Once they get to be about six months old, you can move to a regular lamb neck bone, and that’s what this is here. So, you’ll see there’s, of course, the center bone, which is the vertebrae, and then there is all the meat around it, and there’s a nice little layer of a good fat for them.

This will last one of our adult dogs for about 45 minutes to an hour. A six-month-old dog, this is probably going to last them for a couple hours. Same thing. You want to put this in the crate, let them chew away on it. And once they’re over a year, this forms part of their daily caloric intake. Until they’re a year, don’t worry about it.

The third type of bone that we use is more of a recreational bone, and this is a femur that’s been cut. You can see, this part here is all the marrow, and then outside is the harder bone. There’s a bit of meat and there’s some fat. These bones are really rich. These bones are really high in calories. Once your puppy is an adult, this, you want to monitor, for sure, that you’re reducing some of their normal caloric intake when they have a bone like this. Bones like this last our dogs about four days. They would last some longer, but I take them away. Because, as they dry out, they can sometimes splinter. We don’t want that to happen. But they get huge psychological pleasure out of these bones, because they try to get the marrow out.

When I go to the dog food store, I look for the ones that are split like this, as opposed to the ones that are around like this, because it’s easier for them to get the marrow out, and that’s where all the benefit for the dogs are, in terms of vitamins and otherwise. Whoops. Our marine phytoplankton went for a a nosedive there.

Also, when you have the round bones, you always run the risk that a dog can put his mouth through it and get his jaw stuck on there. We don’t want that to happen. So, look for this shape of bone. You can also go to the butcher and ask them for a femur bone, ask them to cut it to about three inches, and ask them to split it.

Those are the bones. And just like with the raw food, you want to switch the proteins up. So, chicken, lamb, beef. Those are what you’re going to use most of the time. You can use pork bones too, if you like. Again, any type of bone is fine, provided it’s raw. That’s the most important thing. With the puppies, it’s essential that they have a bone every day to chew on and to get the calcium from. So, be sure you don’t forget to do that and give them that.

Another good way to give them calcium, if you wish, is you can still give them goat’s milk. They’re eating goat’s milk now, and they’ll have goats milk pretty much until they go home with you. You can buy that pretty much at every grocery store, so you can get them some goat’s milk as well, if you wish to give them some extra calcium. They love it. It’s good for them. And if you want, you can give them the goat’s milk and put the pumpkin in the goat’s milk. And that way, you’ve got the pumpkin requirement in there, as well.

What the pumpkin does is, keep their digestive system operating properly, because of the fiber. If your dog happens to ever get diarrhea, you give them extra pumpkin. If they happen to get constipated, you give them extra pumpkin. It works both ways. So, it’s a really great product. So, that’s what they’re eating and that’s what we recommend that you keep feeding them. I’ll give you some links down below the video for raw food sources on the Island, and also on the Lower Mainland, so you know where to get them. If you live in places other than that, just Google it, and then look to see what the brands are, and I’ll let you know if the brands are good, medium, or poor.

There’s some brands that are not good at all, and there’s some that are ridiculously priced. So, we don’t want to have you spending more than you need to. Now, you may be wondering, what am I going to do when I want to go travelling? What if I want to go camping in the summer? I don’t have anywhere in my camper or in my fifth wheel to keep all this raw dog food. You can easily buy dehydrated raw dog food. It’s available at pretty much every pet store. The brand that we recommend is called Primal, P-R-I-M-A-L. It is American. There isn’t a Canadian-based dehydrated raw dog food. It’s great. You don’t have to rehydrate it for your dog. It comes in little pellets.

If any of you have ever had horses, when you travel with your horses, you can get cubed little alfalfa pellets, and it’s very much the same thing as that. You can either rehydrate it with water, or you can just crumble it up and feed it to them like that. It’s a great thing to use when you’re traveling.

Then, when you get to wherever you’re going, if you’re staying there for a week or so, then you can find somewhere to buy some fresh raw, if you prefer. But it’s not hard to feed raw. It’s so much better for your dog. We used to feed kibble before we knew better. Our two dogs that we’ve had, who have passed away, both ate kibble. One of them a kibble for her entire life, and she passed away when she was nine, way too early. And Checkers had a combination of kibble and raw. Once we moved him over onto the raw, it was night and day, the improvement in him. He suffered from arthritis, and he had a pinched nerve in his back.

When he was on the raw diet, we didn’t have to give him any medications. He didn’t require hardly any treatment for it. It was really almost miraculous. Their coats change. They don’t get ear infections. They’re just so much healthier overall. And the big change in Checkers really inspired me more than anything to take the canine nutritionist certification program. Then, once I took that program and learned more about kibble and labeling for dog food, or mislabeling, more accurately, that convinced me readily that, there was no way I would ever feed my dogs kibble again.

Does it cost more? A little bit. But really, at the end of the day, it costs you less, because you don’t have that bills that cost a fortune, and your dog is going to live longer and be much happier. So, if you weigh all those things, I think you’ll agree with me that it’s much better to feed raw.

And if you live somewhere where there’s no raw available, we have a couple of families who live at the far north end of the Island, and and raw is not easily available for them. They only have one pet store and they don’t offer it. You can make your own. I will also give you a link for that, for a recipe for how to make your own. It’s not complicated. It doesn’t have a lot of strange ingredients.

It’s just a bit more work for you. If you do have access to raw that’s already made by someone, I would highly recommend that you go with that, as then, you know for sure it’s a 100% balanced. When you make it yourself, if you follow the recipe, you should be good. But any of the dogs that we ever have problems with being itchy or maybe having a little bit of a loose stool, it’s usually people who are making food themselves and haven’t quite got the balance quite right.

Everybody likes to tweak recipes and be a chef, and sometimes they take something out or or add something in. So, I would really urge you to go with on already made product with a company that is established and has everything balanced.And I would also really recommend you don’t change from that, at least for the first year. And then, if you want to do a little experimentation and try things on your own, go right ahead.

You can add things to these diets. Dogs like fruits and vegetables, some more than others. So, blueberries and apples are great things for dogs. Some of them love bananas with peanut butter on them. Just try, see what your dog likes. They might be thinking that this is something that they really enjoy. You can also give them carrots. You can get them kale. You can give them zucchini. You can give them broccoli. Pretty much everything. When you pick your puppy up, you’ll get a list of foods that are toxic or fatal to dogs, and you’ll know not to include those, such as grapes and garlic. So, that’s your food.

Now, we’re going to talk about treats. Treats are equally as important as the food, and treats are as overwhelming, if not more overwhelming, in the marketplace than food is. There are so many to choose from. We’ve had a lot of people ask us a lot of questions over the years. And what we have everybody take for their dogs, and the only thing we feed our dogs for treats are from Puppy Love. Puppy Love is a 100% Canadian company out of Alberta. We know the owners. We’ve been to the plant.

We know where everything is sourced from. We know the whole process, and it is the only treat company we feel comfortable recommending 100% to you. There is nothing added to Puppy Love treats. It’s all 100% whatever the item is that you’re having. There’s no sugar. There’s no flavoring. There’s no coloring. There’s no garlic, which is not good for dogs. There’s nothing at all, other than 100% beef, lamb, chicken, whatever the item is.

We have partnered up with Puppy Love, so we have all of these treats available for you, and you will get a listing of all of the treats after this video, so you can decide what you want to order for your puppy. I’m just going to go through the things we have, and these treats that I’m going to talk about today from Puppy Love only relate to puppies. We have other things for adult dogs, but this is what we recommend for puppies.

One of the things for chewing is antlers. These are mini antlers, so that puppies can handle them. You’ll hear some people tell you that antlers can be dangerous, that your puppy can break your tooth or chip their tooth. Perhaps. Very unlikely. You would have to have an extremely aggressive chewer for that to happen. When puppies are this age, they’re generally not that aggressive. And if they happen to break one of their baby teeth, it’s not the end of the world. The tooth is falling out anyways.

But these last for a long time, they’re clean. They’re great to have in the main part of your house, because they can’t damage anything. They’re great for in the car. Don’t put them in the crate when you’re putting them to bed, because they make a whole lot of racket. Same on your hardwood floors. If you’ve got someone living below you, you might want to not use those on that.

The other thing we have is what we call bully bits. These are sticks, bully chews, that come in a size about like this for a adult dogs, and they’re chopped up into littler sizes for puppies. So, you can see that they’re twisted. They’re all wrapped around each other. That makes them last longer for the puppies. They’re a good size for them. They’re just right for them to negotiate. These, they eat the whole thing of, they swallow it. Don’t worry about it. It’s all good for them. It’s 100% beef. It’s Canadian beef. It’s all locally raised in Alberta. Nothing to worry about, nothing added to it.

These are great to throw into the crate with them at night when they’re going to bed. It will occupy them for a little bit, settle them down, not make too much noise and disturb you. These here, are mini bully sticks, again. They’re a littler size, because you have a littler dog. Your Labradoodle is just a baby. So, your Labradoodle needs a smaller baby treat. Again, 100% beef. Nothing added.

They’re not smoked. They’re not anything that’s bad for your dog. Your dog can eat 100% of this. One of these is going to last them for a little while, and it’s hugely important that they have something they can chew on, rather than your Chesterfield, rather than your shoes, rather than your cell phone. You want them to be chewing on something that helps bring their adult teeth in, that’s good for them nutritional-wise, and is what you want them to chew.

This here, is what we call a junior ribbon chew. Again, it’s smaller than the adult size. It’s twisted. It’s a little bit larger than the other item, so it lasts a little bit longer. Same thing, 100% beef. They love these. This one here, this is called a beef slim bit. A smaller one, thinner, more crunchy. A little bit of a shorter chew time. Another good thing to throw in the crate when you’re putting them in to bed. You wouldn’t want to put this in the crate with them when they go to bed. It’s too big, and if they decide they really want to get going on it, you’ll listen to that rather than listening to them snoring.

These slim bits are really good to throw in the crate. They’re good to stick in their food as a little extra bonus. And you can give them to them. You can see you can’t break them. So, they’re really good for chewing even though they’re small. They’re a good thing for them to have while you’re watching TV, and you want your dog to be a little quieter so you can actually see what you’re watching on TV.

These are duck feet and a duck wing. Again, these are awesome for them. They love these. They get a lot of satisfaction out of them. They’re quite long-lasting. These, even for our adult dogs, takes them … It takes them a couple of hours to get through these. They’re quite chewy, really good for them, again. Lots of vitamins, lots of extra bonus things in here for them.

And by the way, all of these, as well as the raw dog food and the bones, these are nature’s toothbrush. You don’t need to brush your dog’s teeth. Nobody pushes a dog’s teeth if they were living without humans. This Is how they brush their teeth. They eat raw food. They eat raw bones, and they have treats that are natural like this. Then, the final one that we have here for you from Puppy Love is freeze-dried liver. The freeze-dried liver comes in little cubes like this. It’s nice and small. It doesn’t smell. It doesn’t break easily. These are perfect for training.

They work absolutely ideally for training. Dogs loves them. They go crazy for them, so they’re going to do what you’re asking them to do because they want this treat. You can throw them in your pocket. Make sure you take them out before you do your laundry. And you can throw them on the floor. You can throw them into the crate when you want them to go into the crate, if they need some encouragement. These are really, really handy to have. So, that’s the Puppy Love items.

The other thing that we have, and the only other company we really deal with, is Sea Chest. Sea Chest is also a local company. They’re from Vancouver Island. They make anchovies, squid, and sardines, and these are what the sardines look like. They’re all, again, 100% natural. Nothing has been done to them. They’ve been dried in the sun. I know it’s hard to believe there’s enough sun on the island, but there is. They just dry them all that way, and then they package them. These little sardines are really super sources of calcium and omegas, and the dogs love them as well.

When they’re puppies, you want to break them up. You want to twist them and just break them up into little bits, so they’re more like that. These take a little while for your Labradoodle to get through, but they will get through them. Your puppy may not like them initially, so that may be something you want to wait for a while for.

The last thing I want to talk to you about is treats that you don’t want to buy. Lots of times, when you go to the store, you’ll look for something, and you’ll see that it says, “Made and sourced in the USA.” Sometimes there won’t even be that, and then you can be guaranteed that the source of the product is highly suspect, probably from somewhere in Asia, without any controls. But this one says, “Made and sourced in the USA.”

It’s chicken with blueberry. You think, “Wow, that sounds great. Wouldn’t that be good for my dog.” And you look on the back and it says, green and gluten-free, and it’s cage-free, USA sourced chicken, no glycerin, hormones, and so on and so forth. But if you read the ingredients, the third ingredient is cain molasses.

We don’t want to give our Labradoodle or any dogs cane molasses. The last thing they need to eat is sugar, just like kids. You don’t need to give them sugar. That makes this product really not something I would ever recommend, and certainly not something we feed our dogs. It also has mixed tocopherols. I probably said that wrong, which are synthetically produced artificial vitamin E. And that’s a preservative. So, it may be made in the USA and family owned, and all the other things they advertise, but that’s not something you want to feed your dog. Lots and lots of treats have garlic in them. Garlic is not good for your dog.

Lastly, I want to show you this one, which is jerky. One ingredient, all natural, USA, so on and so forth. It’s a jerky. Never feed your dogs jerky. Nothing smoked, nothing that’s a jerky, no pigs ears or pork hawks, or any of those things. Those are all carcinogens and really bad for your dog, and also contribute to kidney disease.

That’s it. That’s everything on the treats and the raw food. I hope that was good information for you. I hope it has helped you make some decisions in your feeding and your treat selection for your little Labradoodle puppy from Van Isle. Like I said, I will send all of the families the listings of the treats that we have available, and you can let us know what it is you would like to order. Once you’ve ordered and you pick up your puppy from us, then we’ll give you your treats, obviously. Then, you can just order them thereafter, and we’ll mail them out to you.

Most of our families do that on a regular monthly basis. So, it works quite well. Same with the sardines, anchovies, and squid. We can mail those out to you on a monthly basis, or however often you need them. You’ll find out what your dog likes the best, and what works the best in your family. And these treats and this food, this is not just for Labradoodles. Any dog will benefit from this sort of a diet. We hope you liked the video today. Make sure you give us a thumbs up if you enjoyed it. Please make any comments you wish, ask any questions. Happy to answer them. And, if you get a minute, subscribe to our channel, and you’ll learn even more about Australian Labradoodles, and dogs in general. Thanks so much for watching.