Pawformance | Puppies

Puppy scams

In the last several months, puppy related scams have been on the rise. While some breeders are not allowing visits to their houses at this time, the safest option is to only pay for your puppy after you have met it in person, and if current covid restrictions do not allow this, consider putting your adoption plans on hold. If you must adopt a puppy during this time, we recommend asking your chosen breeder to video chat with you regularly.
All Finnish Lapphund breeders should be ANKC registered and have a membership number identifying them as such - to make sure you are buying a pedigree Finnish Lapphund, check their membership number and prefix on the ANKC website.
Our breeder's prefix is Pawformance and our membership number is 2100088743.

The most important 8 weeks

Puppies are born deaf and blind, and in just eight weeks, they go through an amazing amount of change, to become the gorgeous, cheeky fluff ball you will take home with you.
At this age, their bodies and brains are developing faster than they will at any other time in their life. The time and love that your breeder puts in to not only meeting your puppy's physical needs, but also enriching their environment, developing their confidence and trust, teaching them how to be groomed and handled, cultivating their ability to learn and socialising them to new people and experiences, actually effects how their brain grows and develops.
Litters should be raised in a home environment and exposed to everyday experiences like the sounds and smells of cooking, cleaning and family activity so they become a normal, accepted part of life.
Your role in these 8 weeks is to make sure you are prepared, not just with all of the equipment you'll need, but armed with knowledge to make your puppy's arrival into your home, a good one.

Thinking of getting a puppy during COVID-19?

Over the last few months, we have seen a HUGE increase in enquiries for puppies. People are spending a lot more time at home due to work at home arrangements and the cancellation of most normal activities so now is the perfect time to bring a puppy home right?
Wrong!
Unfortunately there are some major downsides to getting a puppy in the currently climate and they can have a big impact throughout your puppy's life. Here's why you SHOULDN'T get a puppy during the COVID-19 crisis.

More Information

The role of the breeder

Bringing a new puppy home is an exciting, daunting time but choosing a great breeder is one of the ways you can help set your future puppy up for life. It is as important a decision as choosing which breed to get and in any breed, there are breeders who are more and less ethical.
Your breeder should be there every step of the way for your puppy and should be someone you can call on when you need support, help or advice. They should take an interest in what you and your dog are doing, whether you've just brought your puppy home, or you're nursing them through an ailment as an elderly dog.
For this reason, we believe all breeders should only breed 1-2 litters per year, and should keep the dogs that they do have as pets, not in kennels. This ensures a great life, not only for their own dogs, but for any puppy that they have brought in to the world.
For more information on the breeders we recommend, contact us.

Our Future Puppy Plans

As with many things recently, the coronavirus pandemic has forced us to reassess any plans we had in the works. We were hoping to welcome Slinky puppies at Pawformance one day, however, for several different reasons, we have decided to take a support role rather than breeding from Slinky ourselves and, all going well with her first litter, we have offered a second litter to her breeder and co-owner, Jacq at Armahani.
Slinky's first babies, the Armahani Nacre Litter, to the handsome American Champion Lecibsin Suoritus "Tori", made their way into the world, safe and sound on the 1st February. While this litter is fully spoken for, if you are interested in trying dog sports like obedience, agility or flyball with your Lappie puppy, we invite you to get in contact. More information about this litter can be found on Jacq's website, or you can contact us.

Early socialisation

Puppy Culture is the gold standard of puppy socialisations programs. Developed in conjunction with a team of top veterinary behaviourists, veterinarians, breeders and dog trainers, it is scientifically proven to greatly improve outcomes for puppies (and the families who love them!). No other program we have seen has achieved such great results when it comes to early training and socialisation and we are very happy to have partnered with Puppy Culture.
The program includes early neurological stimulation and is designed to teach the emotional resiliency puppies need to take on the world when they leave us. Through early socialisation, enrichment, developmental/fear period, weaning and anti-aggression protocols, puppies are shaped to accept anything life can throw at them and the program's early training for leash walking, recalls, potty training, crate training and offering behaviours enables puppies to go to their new homes with a solid foundation for working with the humans who love them.
The program also offers a great foundation for the first 4 weeks new pet parents will have their puppy, teaching the puppy to work with you, to know what's expected of them, but also teaching you how to work with your puppy.
Puppy Culture is often imitated but because it has been developed with the help of the top professionals in their fields, it has never been duplicated.

Preparing to bring your puppy home

There are hundreds of resources that can be found online to help you prepare for your new puppy. You should look at the websites of your local vets, decide which training classes you're going to take your puppy to, look at awesome dog sports you can get your puppy involved with when it's older, research training methods (YouTube is brilliant for learning how to teach tricks), buy all the gear you will need, join breed groups (or any other interest groups!) on Facebook and generally do a lot of reading. There is no such thing as being over-prepared! We also recommend reading the two free e-books by Dr Ian Dunbar for all future puppy owners.