Bred with Love for Temperament and Health
Our Litters
We approach breeding with great care, research, and planning—selecting parents thoughtfully with health and temperament as top priorities. Because all of our adult dogs are certified therapy dogs, temperament is key for this important work and for producing calm, loving puppies. Our dogs are part of our family for their lifetime, and their well being of our dogs comes first, because of this, we have limited litters per year. We are not the breeder that has puppies available immediately.
Just as we hope you're selective in choosing a breeder, we're selective in choosing our families. We prioritize families within driving distance of the Raleigh area who are drawn to therapy work — whether that's community visits, clinical settings like animal-assisted therapy, or supporting a special need within your own home. Above all, every puppy we place must be a beloved family member first.
The families we approve are excited to be part of our larger dog community. Because our puppy trainer is local, we're able to offer an immense amount of hands-on support from day one — helping every family succeed not just in raising a confident, well-mannered companion, but hopefully, one day, a therapy dog that brings comfort, love, and joy to the community.
All of our families join our waitlist in advance, having taken the time to research responsible, ethical breeding practices.
All of our puppy families receive ongoing support long before bringing their new addition home. Local families leverage our support network, not only through connections with one another, but also through direct access to our trusted puppy trainer and therapy dog trainer for those who choose to continue on the therapy path. Visit our Puppy Training page for details on how we prepare our puppies for success and to learn about our discounted training bundle with our local trainer. Also visit Why Alpine Sky to learn what sets us apart from your average breeder.
Whatever your decision, please research any breeder thoroughly to ensure you’re making the right choice for your future family member. If you have questions, we invite you to contact us.
You can also visit our Adoption page for more details on the application process.
Puppy Care and Transition Preparation
While in our care, we follow Puppy Culture protocols. When the pups are 3-16 days old, we integrate Early Neurological Stimulation (ENS) and Early Scent Introduction (ESI) to help shape their neurological development. After 3 weeks, they are socialized with people of all ages, dogs, cats, and sound desensitization, which introduces various noises such as fireworks, thunder, construction noises, music and more!
We start taking our puppies outside to potty at 4-weeks-old and, by the time they go home, they have a strong concept of house training.
Our puppies learn to sit (called manding) at 4 weeks, which is a technique that teaches them eye contact and to sit before positive attention, food, puppy wagon outside, etc. The instills calmness, rather than jumping or barking.
The socialization protocols we have in place ensures that early human connection and emotional support are incorporated daily helping our dogs become confident family companions and therapy dogs once they are older.
Puppy Helpers: Local children love to volunteer as our “puppy helpers”. It’s a win-win for everyone. Socialization for the puppies and snuggles for the humans! You can find out more about how we condition our puppies on our Puppy Training page.
Mama Snoring While Her Newborns Nurse