This episode’s question is from a breeder who’s frustrated by puppy seekers who seem to be just shopping for the lowest price:

"I'm a small breeder, one or two litters a year. I'm in a rural area so most of my puppies travel to their homes, but because of how I raise them I have people happy crossing the country for them. But for every person who sees the value, there's 30 that don't… I find myself spending way too much time justifying [my pricing]…If I'm going to continue, I need to find a better way of dealing with the pricing issues…"

Plot spoiler, if we want more puppies raised in a forward thinking and humane way, we have to support the breeders and caretakers who are raising the puppies that way.  And by “we,” I mean the puppy buying public.

There is a cost and a value to raising puppies this way, and if we as a society value it, we need to be willing to pay for it.

But it falls to the breeders to communicate that value, and we could do better in that area.

In this episode I explore those issues and also share some truly awesome suggestions for how breeders can help educate puppy seekers about the value proposition of a puppy that’s been raised with the “meaty” training and protocols in Puppy Culture.

Visit our website www.madcapradio.com for further reading.

We Hit 100K Downloads 🎉

Thank you, listeners and all the folks who write in with the great questions that keep us curious! We could not produce such a great podcast without your insightful and interesting questions. Here’s to the next 100K downloads!

To celebrate, I’m re-releasing our runaway top episode - “Dogs Eating Poop: One Species Evolutionary Meat is another Species Evolutionary Poison”. Somehow, that hit a major cord with everyone. Not sure if that says more about dogs or us, but it’s for sure a hot topic🐶 🍽️ 💩😅

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So, your dog eats poop.  Is it deviant?  Or an elegant evolutionary solution?  

In this podcast, Jane and Mark look at the research and talk about the possible functions of poop-eating, what works and does not work to stop it, and why.  

We won’t say you’ll come away happy that your dog eats poop, but for sure you’ll see it in a different light.

This episode is about when and if you should use vitamin and probiotic supplements for raw fed puppies and dogs.

One of my students asked me what supplements were necessary when weaning puppies onto raw. Another student in the same thread said she had read that raw diets are often deficient in vitamins D and E and asked if she should be supplementing those vitamins.

The answers to these questions strike at the heart of what it means to be a raw/natural feeder, and why breeders often struggle with this. Natural feeding is not an ideology, but it does require us to release some deep-seated ideas that are based on presumptions that are not relevant to raw/natural feeders.

Visit our website www.madcapradio.com for further reading.

“I have a question that has come up from some of my puppy parents, and I am not sure how to answer. How do I phase treats out and use the clicker exclusively? I was thinking clicker every time, but treats sometimes until there are no treats, and at what age would you fully remove treats? Do treats ever get fully removed? Many of my parents reported that many of the pups are really food motivated, and I'm not sure that is my goal ... I would like them to be clicker motivated at some point.”

This podcast uncouples:

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This episode answers a question we get on almost a weekly basis:

“How do I introduce my puppy to my adult dog?”

This podcast looks at:

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The question comes from the discussion group for our With Open Arms puppy owner course:

“Looking for a podcast - Hello! Our 15-week-old puppy is presenting some potty training challenges…While he's reliably house-trained for bowel movements, he frequently urinates on rugs, likely because they resemble the puppy pads he's familiar with. More puzzling that even when we take him outside at the recommended intervals, he'll pass small amounts of urine and then refuse to empty his bladder fully, even after 10+ minutes. Inevitably, within 20 minutes of coming back inside, he'll urinate on a rug.

He's very able to stay in his kennel for a full 2-hour nap with no anxiety or accidents. So he certainly is physically capable of holding his bladder.

We are not sure what we are doing wrong or if this is just to be expected and to be patient. It does seem like he thinks that the rugs is the place to pee. Let me know if you have any tips! ”

This podcast covers:

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A new study was published this week, showing that a specific strain of probiotic found in kimchi is extremely good at binding up and carrying microplastics out of the body.

We, and our dogs, are surrounded by plastic, it’s inescapable, and the accumulation of nanoparticles of plastic in our bodies is also inescapable - and very bad for our and our dogs' health.

So the student question this episode is:

“Should we be giving our dogs kimchi?”

In this episode I serve up:

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This episode’s question comes from the discussion group for my new weaning and early puppy nutrition course, “Weaning For Life: From Gut Biome to Behavior, A Whole Approach to Early Puppy Nourishment”.

“Some of my puppies go home on raw, others to healthy kibble with whole‑food toppers. Historically, I always include at least one kibble meal—often from toys or snuffle mats, sometimes mixed with whole foods. Is there a more refined or appropriate protocol?”

In this episode, we dig into the real‑world question breeders face every day: If, and how, to transition raw‑weaned puppies when their future homes will be feeding mostly kibble.

This podcast covers:

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We got this question about breeders sending their puppies to “camp” before going to their new homes:

“[a friend] has a litter of puppies 8 weeks old and she is placing them out to her friends until they are 10 weeks old. They decided it would be good for socialization and to prevent separation anxiety for the puppies until they go to their permanent homes at 10 weeks. That doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. Anyone have experience with this?”

This episode discusses:

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This episode’s question is from one of our Killer Free Stack show training students, but my answer is equally applicable to anyone training a dog:

“Hi all, I have a 10-week-old Labrador puppy. I have the Killer Free Stacks video… when I try to get a moment of stillness to mark, she auto-sits. If I hold the food in front of her, she digs at it hard and will sit. Any tips for teaching a stack would be great!”

In this podcast I cover:

Visit our website www.madcapradio.com for further reading.