Maple x Rascal Litter (4/12/26)

“Our First Rodeo” litter!!

6 males (birth weights & color)

❤️ Riggin: 6.4 oz, black/blue

🧡 Hazer: 8.6 oz, brindle

💛 Houston: 5.8 oz, black/blue

💚 Cinch: 6.7 oz, sable brindle

💙 Hooey: 6.4 oz, silver

🩵 Roper: 6.1 oz, black/blue

3 females (birth weights)

🩷 Dally: 6.7 oz, black/blue

💜 Loop: 7.4 oz, black/blue

💟 Quirt: 4.2 oz, black/blue

Watch their completed temperament tests!

We expect the adult sizes of these puppies to be between 25-45 pounds.

Apply for one of our puppies by filling out our online applications.

Please check out our contract, puppy buyers will be expected to sign.

Feel free to call or text us with any questions: 314-378-8716

Raised in Our Home

Our puppies are raised entirely in our home as part of our daily family life — never isolated in a kennel, garage, or basement. From the very beginning, they are surrounded by the normal sights, sounds, activity, and routines of a busy household. This constant exposure helps puppies develop confidence, adaptability, and comfort in real-life environments.

With five children ranging in age from 5 to 16, our puppies are lovingly handled and socialized by people of different ages, energy levels, and personalities. They become accustomed to everyday household noises, movement, playtime, laughter, visitors, and the general busyness that comes with family life. These experiences help puppies learn to remain calm, social, and well-adjusted in active homes.

In addition to household activity, our puppies are raised on our homestead alongside a wide variety of animals, including horses, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, cats, a cow, guinea pigs, parakeets, and a chinchilla, as well as our other dogs. Safe, supervised exposure to different animals, sounds, smells, and environments helps encourage curiosity and confidence while supporting healthy social development.

We believe these early experiences are invaluable in helping puppies transition smoothly into their future homes. By being raised in the center of everyday life, our puppies develop a strong foundation for becoming adaptable, resilient, and well-rounded companions.

Early Neurological Stimulation (ENS)

Our puppies are introduced to Early Neurological Stimulation (ENS) during their first weeks of life. ENS is a series of gentle, carefully timed exercises designed to support healthy neurological development during a critical growth period. These short daily activities help puppies build resilience and confidence from an early age.

Research and breeder experience have shown that puppies exposed to ENS may develop stronger stress tolerance, improved cardiovascular performance, enhanced problem-solving ability, and greater adaptability to new environments. As they mature, these puppies are often better prepared to handle training, travel, grooming, veterinary visits, competition settings, and the everyday changes that come with family life.

By incorporating ENS into our program, we are helping each puppy build a solid foundation for a stable temperament and lifelong success.

Early Scent Introduction (ESI)

We also utilize Early Scent Introduction (ESI), a program designed to engage and develop a puppy’s sense of smell during a key developmental stage. Beginning at just a few days old, puppies are gently introduced to a variety of carefully selected scents one at a time. These experiences encourage curiosity, confidence, and neural development connected to scent recognition and processing.

Because a dog’s sense of smell plays such a major role in how they interact with the world, early scent work can provide lasting benefits. Puppies exposed to ESI may demonstrate improved confidence in new situations, stronger problem-solving skills, greater adaptability, and enhanced focus. ESI is especially beneficial for puppies that may go on to participate in performance events, hunting, service work, therapy work, detection work, or other activities requiring concentration and environmental confidence.

Our goal is to raise well-rounded puppies that are mentally engaged, adaptable, and prepared to thrive in their future homes.

The scents we used in order for our Rodeo litter:

🍌banana

🍵peppermint tea

👞leather

🍃rosemary

🍋lemon

🟤Soil

🌲Pine needles

🎾Tennis ball

🐹Guinea pig

🦌Antler

🦝Raccoon skin

🍀Grass

🐐Goat

🐑Sheep wool

Early Grooming & Desensitization

Proper grooming is an essential part of lifelong care for a Poodle. Regular brushing, bathing, nail maintenance, ear care, and routine clipping are necessary to keep a Poodle healthy, comfortable, and mat-free throughout its life. Because grooming is such a frequent and important experience, we believe it is critical to begin positive exposure at an early age.

Our puppies begin weekly face shaves and nail trims starting at just 3 weeks old. Introducing grooming during this early developmental stage helps puppies become comfortable with being handled, standing for grooming, and experiencing the sights, sounds, and sensations that come with regular coat maintenance. Early, gentle exposure helps reduce stress and builds confidence, making future grooming appointments far easier for both the dog and the owner.

We also introduce puppies to the sound and vibration of grooming equipment using an electric toothbrush. This safe and gentle method helps simulate the feeling of clippers and prepares puppies for future grooming sessions before they are old enough for full grooming procedures. In addition, the vibration exposure can help puppies adapt more easily to the sensation of a nail dremel, which is commonly used for safely smoothing and maintaining nails throughout adulthood.

Our goal is to create positive early experiences that help each puppy grow into a calm, cooperative, and confident adult during grooming and routine care.

Early Socialization & Sensory Enrichment

We place a strong emphasis on early socialization and sensory enrichment to help our puppies grow into confident, adaptable companions. During their critical developmental stages, puppies are safely introduced to a wide variety of experiences designed to encourage curiosity, problem-solving, and confidence in new environments.

Our puppies are gradually introduced to water in positive, age-appropriate ways to help build comfort with bathing, grooming, wet surfaces, and future water experiences. Early exposure helps reduce fear and creates positive associations with new sensations.

We also incorporate different textures, surfaces, and sensory experiences through the use of sensory mats, obstacle activities, and supervised outdoor exploration. Puppies walk across grass, rubber, gravel, soft bedding, uneven surfaces, wobble items, and other safe materials that encourage body awareness and confidence. These experiences help strengthen coordination, adaptability, and resilience while teaching puppies that new environments are safe and enjoyable.

In addition, we utilize the Puppy Culture/Avidog-style adventure box concept to introduce puppies to a constantly changing variety of objects, sounds, textures, and challenges. Items placed in and around the adventure area may include tunnels, crinkly materials, moving objects, platforms, toys, safe household items, and novel surfaces. Regularly rotating these experiences helps prevent puppies from becoming overly sensitive to unfamiliar sights, sounds, or situations later in life.

This type of early desensitization and enrichment has long-term benefits that can include increased confidence, reduced fearfulness, improved recovery from stress, better problem-solving ability, and easier adjustment to grooming, travel, training, veterinary visits, competitions, and everyday family life. Our goal is to provide each puppy with a strong developmental foundation that supports success in a wide variety of homes and activities.

Early Crate Training, Travel Exposure & Potty Foundations

From an early age, our puppies are gently introduced to crate training in a positive, low-stress way. Crates are never used as punishment, but rather as safe, cozy spaces where puppies can rest, relax, and feel secure. By gradually increasing short periods of crate time, puppies learn early that settling quietly and independently is normal and comfortable. This foundation helps make future crate training in their new homes significantly smoother and less stressful.

We also begin early exposure to car rides. Puppies are safely introduced to short, calm trips so they can experience the motion, sounds, and sensations of travel. This early introduction helps reduce anxiety and builds confidence in new environments, making future vet visits, grooming appointments, and family travel much easier. Over time, puppies learn that riding in a vehicle is a normal part of life rather than something to fear.

For early potty training, we utilize turf litter boxes within the puppy pen. This provides a consistent, clean, and easily recognizable surface for elimination from a young age. Puppies naturally begin to associate the turf area with potty habits, which helps establish early cleanliness and structure. As they grow, this foundation makes the transition to outdoor potty training much quicker and more successful for their new families.

Together, these early experiences create a strong start toward well-mannered, adaptable puppies who are prepared for the routines of everyday life in their future homes.

Inter-Variety (vs Moyen) Poodles

Our puppies are produced from an intentionally planned inter-variety pairing between an oversized Miniature Poodle and a full-sized Standard Poodle. This combination is designed to produce a wonderful medium-sized Poodle that offers many families the best of both worlds — larger and sturdier than most Miniatures, while remaining more compact and manageable than a large Standard.

Many people refer to medium-sized Poodles as “Moyens,” which is a term commonly used to describe a size that falls between Miniature and Standard. However, it is important to understand what a true Moyen Poodle actually is. The Moyen Poodle originated in Europe, particularly in France and Germany, where medium-sized Poodles have been recognized for many years within certain international kennel club systems. In Europe, Moyen (also called Klein in some countries) is considered an established size variety with specific bloodlines bred consistently for that medium size.

In the United States, however, the AKC recognizes only three sizes of Poodles: Toy, Miniature, and Standard. The AKC does not officially recognize “Moyen” as a separate size classification. Because of this, many dogs marketed as Moyens in the U.S. are actually inter-variety crosses between Miniature and Standard Poodles rather than true imported European Moyen bloodlines. There are relatively few true European Moyens in the United States compared to the number of dogs advertised under the name.

Our focus is not on marketing terminology, but on producing healthy, well-structured, family-oriented Poodles with excellent temperaments and an ideal medium size for companionship, performance, and active homes. We carefully selected our dogs for temperament, health, intelligence, trainability, and overall quality to produce versatile puppies that thrive in a variety of lifestyles.

Temperament Testing & Puppy Placement

As the puppies grow, we carefully evaluate each one through structured temperament testing (Volhard Puppy Aptitude Test) at 7 weeks old, to better understand their individual personalities, confidence levels, energy, social tendencies, and problem-solving styles. These assessments help us see how each puppy responds to new experiences, handling, sound, movement, and mild challenges in a consistent and fair way.

Our goal is to place each puppy in the home where they will thrive long-term. While many families may have preferences for specific colors, we prioritize personality fit above all else. A successful placement depends far more on temperament compatibility than appearance, especially in a breed as intelligent and emotionally attuned as the Poodle.

We do our best to honor color preferences whenever possible, but final selection will be guided by the results of temperament testing. This allows us to match each puppy with a family whose lifestyle, activity level, and expectations align well with that puppy’s natural disposition.

By focusing on temperament first, we aim to set both puppies and families up for long-term success, ensuring a smooth transition and a strong bond from the very beginning.