Cattledog puppies will not be sit at home backyard dogs when they grow up since they are pretty busy and create trouble if bored, they will have the brains and desire to DO things with their owners for more than an hour or two a day - afterall, they are Australian Cattle Dogs! Family homes are wonderful for cattledogs and giving them something to do like weekend lessons at your favorite dog training facility is absolutely necessary (and fun!) to raise a happy forever companion. Can you take your puppy with you to work a few days of the week, maybe in a crate in your car on cooler days for lunch time runs and playtime? Or take your puppy to doggy daycare for socialization a few days a week to assure a strong bond, good manners, and a trustworthy adult cattledog in the future? Do you like to go jogging or bike riding and take your best friend with you? If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us. Not everyone has the ability to honestly train a cattledog puppy for 2 years to adulthood - those that take on a cattledog puppy and DON'T spend lots of training time with them and taking them out to play with other dogs can end up giving them up to rescue or the pound by 9 months of age. There are easier breeds to raise if you just want a house dog, so please do be honest with yourself about the amount of time you'll have available to make your smart puppy into a very talented adult that you'd be proud of! But if you are active, have the need to learn even more ways to spend grea ttime with your cattledog, then this might be the breed for you. We help you with the right choice of the best puppy for you, we support our puppy owners for the life of your puppy!
At this time we're still in the planning stages. We are looking for puppies with outstanding athleticism and herding aptitude, so are carefully examining pedigrees and accomplishments. Hopefully there wil be a litter arriving this summer or fall! We have 3 people on our waiting list, if you'd like a talented puppy, please feel free to email us for our puppy questionaire.
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Please note: we do not try to have spring/summer puppies here at Silveraurora, nor do we have a litter very often at all. It's been a year and a half since our last litter, unless we are needing something for ourselves we just don't need to produce more puppies, right? We are farmers/ranchers in lifestyle evn tho we also are in the show ring with either dogs or livestock, and it takes time to care for our livestock properly as well as working with our dogs and training, something we LOVE to do! We are busy with stockdog training, herding and obedience lessons, and herding trials held here at our farm in the spring, summer, and fall, calving and lambing in the spring, and tending to our hayfields and garden all summer until the snow flies. I also have a dairy goat herd and milk twice a day, 365 days a year, by hand, and also provide raw goats milk for the dog breeding community up here. I am Vice President of one of our state's AKC clubs and like to give back to the community, so our time is well-filled here. Summers usually find me teaching herding lessons at least 4 days a week, and working with my dogs doing ranch work here. Don't worry if you email us and don't hear right back - just send the email again, especially since it can often go in the spam box nowadays!
Most people are too busy in the summer for a baby puppy, if they stop and think of their normal schedules. Although it seems like a nice time of year for some folks, we prefer to raise puppies in the winter, IN the house, and have them old enough and trained enough for going for walks on lead now so they are ready to go out on lead in the summer, going fishing and camping with their families when they have their basic obedience training already well underway. 2nd best is to have a litter born in the summer so that they are ready for their new homes in the fall, when people often return to their normal home lives and set their puppy up for a successful future - thanks to 'normalcy'. Don't you spend lots of quality time in the house in the fall and winter which would also be a good time to train your new puppy? It's just a thought - much easier to housebreak and leash train a puppy in the winter when we're all not so busy enjoying the summertime outdoors!
Please remember - a number of our puppies are reserved in advance of a litter being born. We feel that most people who really want a cattledog from us are willing to wait for the right puppy. We DON'T make our income off our dogs - FAR FROM IT! HA! My other jobs on the farm produce the income to support our dogs and we have a litter when we ourselves would like a puppy, as well as you, the caring cattledog owner, are wanting to add a puppy to your household. This isn't a shopping mall for instant gratification, it's a serious committment to raise an Australian Cattle Dog puppy to maturity successfully, but I sure do understand what it feels like to wait for that next special puppy. So, if you're truly interested in a quality ACD with plenty of my personal support to make sure you and your puppy are happy together for many years to come, then email us and we'll send you our puppy questionnaire and work with you. While waiting for your puppy, we can help you get everything you need ready including yourselves! Our puppies aren't meant to be backyard pets, they are active members of your family and devoted to you. In turn, they look to you for consistant guidance in the form of training, rewards, and challenges both physical and mental. They don't have to herd sheep or cattle to be happy, but they DO need active people who do lots of fun things to exercise and create mental stimulation that keeps their ACD happy!
A word of caution - If you can't take 2 years to train a cattledog puppy, perhaps another breed is better suited to your needs. Too many cattledog pups end up in rescue by a year or 2 of age because their owners took them to one set of puppy classes then didn't bother to keep training and working with them in some sort of formal manner. We have done rescue for 11 years now and have seen and heard it all - so be prepared for a working relationship to make your cattle puppy become the best adult ACD possible. In return though for your 2 year committment, you will have an extremely loyal and devoted companion for the work and training that you put in. This is a very smart breed and some times that also means they outsmart their humans too easily, so please do make sure you're ready to make that long-term committment. There is great reading about the breed at www.cattledog.com , including a section titled 'Is a cattledog right for you' as well as the Cattledog FAQ's, definately worth reading!
If you're not sure a cattledog is the right choice for your family, please give us a call in the afternoons when we're most likely around the phone, Alaska Time Zone, and we'll be glad to help answer your questions. 907.373.2687. Thanks! :-)
Our puppies have been placed all around the US, Canada, and Europe. We raise them in our home right under foot, not outdoors or in someone else's home. We know each of our puppies' personalities LONG before we decide which puppy might be best for you. It's really important to us to match the right puppy to you, and you to the right puppy! We're not in a hurrry for our puppies to leave. We and other breeders have found that cattle dog puppies are best socialized with their littermates and mother for as long as possible, and as such, our puppies begin leaving our home at 10 weeks of age. They are fed Blackwood 2000, a premium kibble, as well as goats milk, and raw beef and bones starting around 3 weeks of age for the best nutrition. They've been exposed to lots of visitors by 10 weeks, they've been outdoors with the sheep and ducks to see if they have interests in the stock from a herding point of view, they've also been to the vets for their shots and microchipping, and for rides in the truck and on the 4-wheeler in our lap, or on the seat of the Kawasaki Mule. We also have a very experience apptitude tester go over every individual in each of our litters. We must fly up a BAER hearing tester from UC Davis Veterinary College to test our litter's hearing - cattledog puppies as well as other breeds are born with full hearing but occasionally one goes deaf, and the ONLY way to be sure is to have the testing done around 7 weeks of age. There are few BAER testers in the US, and there are none in Alaska at all, so we go to great expense to ensure the puppy you're getting actually can hear!! Our puppies are ready to go to their new homes with self-confidence and, of course, some good bite-inhibition training already in place.
Our puppies are sold on a spay/neuter contract with only a few exceptions. Our prices start at $750 with a refund for spay/neuter by 8 months of age. Show quality puppies start at $1000.
If you feel you might be interested in one of our pups, please feel free to email us for further information including our contract and health guarantee. Puppies are reserved in advance. We welcome working homes, show and competition homes, and family homes. We're not looking to put the most champions out there, even though we have many champions here at our home and around the world now. Rather, we are looking for the best home for each puppy - that is, afterall, most important to us! Feel free to email us with your inquiry, and we'll be happy to discuss if we might have something for you in the near future.