Part 1: Why Environment Matters: Raising Puppies for Calm, Connected Futures

Kennel vs Home Raised

When it comes to raising puppies, the environment they grow up in plays a vital role in shaping their emotional resilience, behaviour, and long-term wellbeing. As breeders, we want to give our puppies the very best start. And while kennel-based systems can make day-to-day logistics easier—especially when managing larger breeding programs—the developmental trade-offs are significant.

Kennels offer practical advantages: they’re easier to clean, allow for strict management of large groups, and simplify routine care. But research and lived experience have shown that this setup can unintentionally encourage over-arousal and reactivity. In most kennel environments, human interaction happens at predictable times—feeding, cleaning, or handling. Puppies quickly associate people with exciting, stimulating events. Over time, this teaches puppies to become hyper-aroused in the presence of people: barking, jumping, mouthing, and escalating excitement become common patterns.

Kennels also amplify social facilitation — one dog’s excitement can trigger others, resulting in barking cascades across entire kennel rows. Research from Purdue University recorded noise levels in kennels between 85 and 122 decibels (Sales et al., 1997), contributing to chronic stress, hearing damage, and reinforcing aroused behaviours.

One study trialled a "Quiet Kennel Exercise" using counterconditioning — treats were tossed every time someone walked past. The result? A marked reduction in barking and reactivity (Herron et al., 2022). While effective, this kind of counter-conditioning requires intensive, ongoing intervention to manage what the environment has inadvertently shaped.

By contrast, home-raised puppies experience a natural, balanced exposure to everyday life. They see humans move about their day without every interaction becoming exciting. People walk past without always engaging. The vacuum cleaner runs. Doors open and close. Music plays. Visitors come and go. These micro-exposures help puppies learn that human presence doesn’t automatically predict interaction or excitement.

In a home environment, puppies have regular opportunities to observe, settle, and habituate to normal household routines. They develop self-regulation skills naturally, without requiring intensive counter-conditioning later on. They’re less likely to develop hyper-vigilant or reactive patterns when seeing people move, hearing sounds, or encountering new situations.

Importantly, home environments provide countless "neutral moments" — times where nothing particularly exciting happens — and these are extremely valuable for teaching puppies how to stay calm in the presence of stimulation. This kind of low-arousal exposure is very difficult to replicate in busy kennel environments.

Of course, raising puppies in the home isn’t easier for the breeder. It often involves smaller litter numbers, more hands-on work, more mess, and higher costs. But the reward is a puppy who transitions into family life with far less reactivity, stronger emotional resilience, and better long-term behaviour.

💡 Want to raise calmer, more connected puppies? Start with the environment they’re born into. Give them time with their littermates. And build purposefully through that critical first year.

References:

• Sales, G., Hubrecht, R., Peyvandi, A., Milligan, S., & Shield, B. (1997). Noise in dog kennelling: is barking a welfare problem for dogs? Animal Welfare, 6(4), 321–342.

• Herron, M. E., Shofer, F. S., & Reisner, I. R. (2022). The Quiet Kennel Exercise: Using classical counterconditioning to reduce barking in kenneled dogs. Animals, 12(2), 171.