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Containment first
Buy the crate before the puppy. On a rural place it is how a young dog learns to switch off, and it makes vet trips, camps and unfamiliar houses a non event later.
Walk your fence line before pickup and look at the bottom edge, behind outbuildings, and anywhere a washout has opened a gap. This breed digs before it climbs. Skip invisible fencing, which neither holds a driven dog nor keeps anything out.
The first week
Do less than you want to. Decompression matters more than socialisation in the first few days, and a puppy that has just left its litter and everything it knows is at its limit already.
Set the house rules from day one, because the rules you allow at nine weeks are the rules you are arguing about at nine months. Where it sleeps, whether furniture is allowed, and who feeds it are easier to establish than to change.
Vet decisions worth making early
Book the first appointment for within a few days of pickup, both for the health check and to start the relationship. Ask three things: do you handle large working breeds, what is your bloat protocol, and where do I go overnight.
Start year round heartworm prevention immediately and continuous flea and tick coverage. Price pet insurance before anything appears, because conditions become pre existing the moment they show.
Grow it slowly
The temptation with a working line puppy is to build the impressive adult as fast as possible. Resist it. Lean growth on large breed puppy food protects the joints you spent money selecting for.
What training looks like from week one · Why the testing mattered
On This Page
Working line litters from health tested DDR and Czech parents, placed from a waitlist.
Common Questions
Preparation questions
What should I buy before pickup?
A crate sized for the adult dog with a divider, a flat collar and a six foot lead, a thirty foot long line for recall work, stainless bowls, a slow feeder, and whatever food the breeder is currently using. Skip the retractable lead entirely: it teaches pulling and it fails at the worst moment.
How should I feed a large breed puppy?
On a large breed puppy formula, and deliberately not to maximum growth. Fast growth is a risk factor for joint problems in this breed. Keep the puppy lean enough that you can feel ribs easily, and ask your vet to tell you honestly if it is carrying weight.
How much exercise is safe while it is growing?
Far less structured exercise than people expect. Growth plates stay open until roughly fourteen to eighteen months. Free play on soft ground is fine. Avoid forced running, repetitive jumping, and stairs done hard. Mental work tires a puppy without loading the joints.
What should happen in the first week?
Very little. Let the puppy decompress, meet the household, learn the crate and the yard, and sleep. Delay visitors and outings by a few days. A puppy that has just left its litter is dealing with more change than anything else in its life so far.
Upcoming litters from documented working lines
Our recommended breeder is Companion Kennels, a small program breeding East German DDR and Czech working lines with published health testing and verifiable pedigrees. Litters are limited and placed from a waitlist.