Our Premium Puppy Program
Every dog deserves the best start.
Adding a puppy to your family should be more like adopting a child than shopping for a new pair of shoes. When you invest in a Blackwood Acres puppy, you are investing in your dog’s future, the same way you’d invest in a private school or college education for your child. You can rest assured that your puppy is being raised to be the best version of themself: confident, resilient, and empowered.
Your puppy will be raised on our premium puppy program, where they will participate in 8 weeks of an advanced service dog curriculum, because every dog deserves the best start in life. Before being chosen, they will complete a temperament evaluation, so you can match yourself with the best fit for your family. Adding a new family member isn’t something you take lightly, and at Blackwood Acres we don’t either.
See the difference for yourself.
Neonatal Care
When our mama dogs are giving birth, or whelping, we are there every step of the way, allowing her to follow her instincts and stepping in when she needs assistance. Your puppy will be gently handled after birth, weighed, checked over, and identified with a collar color. Handling is minimized at this time so Mama can nurse as she’s able. This helps establish a bond between Mama and her puppies, which is so crucial for their development in the early days.
As your puppy grows, we will continue their care with daily checkups and weigh monitoring. Your puppy will also begin the first part of their schoolwork during this early stage. When they turn three days old, they begin Early Neurological Stimulation and Early Scent Introduction. These two things have been proven to produce happier, healthier, stronger and more resilient puppies and dogs, and we believe it gives your puppy the best start in life.
We opt to minimize handling during these fragile first weeks, something that is not always easy when they are so adorable! Puppies can easily startle and we don’t want to stack stressors for them. If your puppy is struggling to thrive, we do not work through curriculum with them until they are improving. Our goal is for them to know that the world is safe and people are kind; by limiting their stress we hope to give them this foundation. When we do handle your puppy, we do so slowly and carefully, and always hold them close to face and heart.
the first few weeks
Delivery assistance, including resuscitating puppies, keeping them warm after birth, and clamping cords as needed
Gentle handling for health check, gender check, weight check, and collar identification
Meticulous record keeping on each puppy
Daily checkups and weight monitoring
Early Neurological Stimulation
Early Scent Introduction
Minimal handling and always with care and love
Preschool Curriculum
As your puppy nears the three week mark, their ears and eyes will open and they’ll be able to explore the world around them even better. Their footing becomes more sure and they will become curious about their surroundings. It’s vital that they are desensitized to things that could cause fear later in life during this stage. This is also when they will be introduced to potty training with a litter tray separate from their sleeping area. Dogs don’t use their “den” as a bathroom if given the choice, so we instill this idea from a young age.
We consider this time a sort of “preschool” for them - gentle and mild, a small taste of what is to come. Your puppy will have “graduated” from ENS and ESI and is ready for the next step. In our program, that means they begin noise exposure, a gentle handling exercise and whelping box exposures. Noise exposure is introduced as soon as their ears open to begin that crucial desensitizing to loud noises. Too many dogs hide under the bed during a thunderstorm or cry when the vacuum runs. Our goal is to raise your puppy to be confident in the face of something that could cause fear. We also play classical music to signal time to sleep and encourage you to do the same after your puppy comes home.
Your puppy will be taken through a very gentle 10-step “puppy massage” every day. This begins the process of getting them familiar with all sorts of touch, all while enforcing the idea that the world is safe and people are kind. The goal of our handling exercise is to increase their resilience to all kinds of touch - from young children, groomers, vets, and anyone else they may be unfamiliar with.
Your puppy will also begin a gentle “puppy school,” which we call whelping box exposure. Your pup will be introduced to safe and gentle items while still in the familiarity of their whelping box. Small stuffed animals, various textures, a story-reading Mother Goose and random household items are all things your puppy will be introduced to. By placing these items directly in their whelping box, where they are familiar with the sights and smells, we bridge the gap between spending all their time with Mama and doing “big kid school.” It gives them a nice and easy transition in a time when they are still quite small and unsure of themselves. The goal of whelping box exposure is to introduce your pup to safe items they can investigate without fear. They will be able to sniff, look at, mouth, nudge and crawl over these items in the safety of their home. This will help develop their brains and also instill confidence.
three weeks old
Loud noise exposure
Classical music to signal time to sleep
Gentle handling exercise - “puppy massage”
Weekly weight checks
Introduction to potty training
Whelping box novelty item exposure
Handling always done with love and care
Kindergarten Curriculum
After your puppy has completed a week of “preschool,” they slowly transition to “kindergarten” with more challenging situations. We still proceed gently and at their pace, but the goal of our school curriculum is to get them to gain confidence, overcome obstacles, and meet challenges without fear. School will take place outside of the whelping box now. In fact, your puppy will move from their whelping box to their “big kid” space where Mama can visit for nursing sessions. They will start eating soaked kibble a few times a day as they begin weaning.
For school, your puppy will encounter more challenging obstacles than they did in the whelping box. We begin with things that have no movement, such as stuffed toys and ropes, then move to items with gentle movement, like ping pong balls, and finally to objects with larger movements like big balls. If puppies are hesitant to explore new items, we gently coax them with our voices and hands. We never put a puppy into a situation that causes them fear or “do” an activity for them. It’s very important for a puppy’s development to do things for themselves. We always strive to empower puppies, never enable them.
four weeks old
Loud noise exposure
Classical music to signal time to sleep
Gentle handling exercises increase in pressure
Weekly weight checks
Weaning begins
Kibble several times a day
Continued potty training
Puppy “kindergarten” outside of their home
Handling always done with love and care
Empowering, not enabling
Elementary School Curriculum
After two weeks of a mild puppy school, your puppy will likely be ready for something more challenging. Now is the time the fun really starts!
We will begin to ask more of them during the last few weeks that they’re with us. Your puppy will be encouraged to walk over a grate, investigate things with wheels (like a bike), complete an obstacle course, try out balance pods, explore dog brain games, and work through overhead distractions. They will get exposure to all sorts of fun things like a ball pit, tubs of water and toys, car rides, meeting new people and expedition walks. When they’re not in school, they will play with their siblings and a variety of toys in their kennel. But let’s be honest - they will still sleep a good part of the day!
five to eight weeks old
Loud noise exposure
Classical music to signal time to sleep
Handling exercises increase in pressure each week
Weekly weight checks
Kibble twice a day
Continued potty training
Advanced puppy school
Exploring new locations
Handling always done with love and care
Empowering, not enabling
Temperament Evaluations
The #1 reason dogs are released to rescue groups and shelters is that the dog and family were not a good match. It’s so important that your puppy is placed in a home where they will be respected and their needs met. We believe doing puppy evaluations is the best way to accomplish this. Based on each puppy’s individual scores, we can provide recommendations on which puppy would be better suited in a home with young children, with an active owner, or as a service or therapy dog. This allows us to give your puppy a voice and place them in the best home for them.
Your puppy will take a temperament evaluation at 7 weeks of age. This will give us the best window to gauge their personality. Your pup will continue to change after they go home with you, but by evaluating them at 7 weeks, we can at least see a snapshot of the personality they’ll have for the rest of their lives.
Jessica is a certified Badass Breeder Puppy Evaluator and has taken over 10 hours of training in how to evaluate puppies. We follow the Badass Breeder Puppy Aptitude Test which presents the puppy with various situations and gauges their responses on a scorecard. This evaluation includes things such as testing the puppy’s confidence level, their motivation to work for a human, their reactions to someone fake crying on the floor and sudden movements and sounds. Your puppy will be tested and recorded individually and you will receive their videos and scorecards, along with their siblings’.
We take the temperaments of our puppies very seriously when we select breeding pairs. Because both parents can pass down characteristics to the puppies, it’s important that they balance each other out. We will stay in contact with you and ask for feedback on your puppy to help us determine the success of a particular breeding pair. This kind of information, along with the evaluation test results of the litter, can help us determine whether we want to breed that pair again or not.
temperament traits tested
Assertiveness with humans
Confidence level
Motivation level
Nerve strength & resiliency (ability to handle stress)
Touch tolerance
Sight sensitivity
Sound sensitivity
Energy level
Prey drive
Human focus or pack drive
Stress by human emotion
Friendliness to other dogs
Breeder Support
When you take your puppy home, that isn’t the end for us. We will continue to stay in contact to make sure you are all adjusting well. If your situation should ever change and you’re unable to keep your dog, we will gladly take them back, no questions asked. We never want our puppies to be a burden.
As a way to make the transition as smooth as possible, we wrote a book, Preparing for Puppyhood, just for you. It has 50 pages of helpful info, tips and tricks, and general guidelines to ensure you and your puppy the best start together. You will be mailed a copy of this book before adoption so you can be fully prepared. No more searching Google at midnight to figure out how long puppies will sleep before needing to use the bathroom.
Preparing for Puppyhood
Before and after Adoption Day to-do lists
Feeding
Gear & supply list
Puppy proofing checklist
Temperament evaluations - what they are and how to interpret them
Pet insurance & online puppy school
Flying your puppy home
Go-Home instructions
Potty training & crate training
Socialization & exposure checklists
Puppy massage instructions
Exercise for puppies
Biting / nipping & obedience training
Lots of helpful charts and infographics
Fun treat recipes
Client incentives & benefits
Go-Home Package
Your puppy will come home with a big bag of goodies to make the trip home as easy as possible. We’ll leave choosing all of the fun bling for you and instead focus on necessities for traveling home. Your puppy will also get their own folder of paperwork, which includes their health record, their report card from school, birth certificate, AKC registration paperwork, and more. It will have everything your vet needs to see, so you can simply take the entire folder to your puppy’s first visit and have them look over all of their records.
custom go-home bags
XL zippered tote bag
Snuggle Puppy®
Blanket scented with littermates
Puppy chew toy
Basic leash and collar
Roll of poop bags
Small bag of food
Water for puppy on the way home
Travel food and water bowls
Pet wipes
Puppy pee pads