Puppies Available Why you should consider a Rigel puppy
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We are Border Collie enthusiasts in Southern California who are striving to improve the breed through careful breeding for excellent health, conformation, working/herding ability, athleticism and temperament. Our Border Collies are family members first and foremost, not kennel dogs, and visitors are always welcome to meet them. We only breed occasionally, and always with a reason. We are not breeding to make a profit or for the money, and you will find our prices comparable with other breeders of quality border collies. Note that If you are shopping for a puppy primarily based upon price, you get what you pay for. A "cheap" Border Collie puppy that you may find on Craigslist coming from a backyard breeder probably has minimal health testing performed on its parents, and your long term costs may be significantly higher. While Border Collies are one of the healthier dog breeds in general, there are a number of genetic health conditions that affect the breed. We know our breeding lines and and have done everything we can to avoid these in our breeding dogs. The vet bills to treat hip dysplasia in a "cheap" Border Collie can easily be $5000.
The parents of the upcoming litter come from the best Australian show lines, have proven themselves in both the conformation show ring and in performance events, have full health clearances, and they have great temperaments. While having moderate levels of drive, they are all biddable and all have "off" switches that allow them to settle when resting making them perfect companion dogs. You can see details of our dogs on their individual pages. Our litters are the result of a careful breeding program that has been over 10 years in the making on our part, and many more years on the part of the breeders we obtained our dogs from or whose dogs we bred to. We are fortunate to have been mentored by these old-time breeders who know their lines going back many years. Our foundation girl Chloe's mother Tinkerbell had proven to be a great mother in the care she gave to her puppies, a trait commonly passed from mother to daughter. We have been delighted to observe that this was passed on to Chloe, who could not be a better mother, and she in turn passed it on to her daughter Star who had her first litter in 2022. The mother - puppy relationship comes during the key formative first 8 weeks of life that will shape the temperament of the puppy for the rest of its life. If you are considering a puppy from elsewhere, be sure to ask the breeder about how good the mother has been at caring for her pups.
Our top priority as a breeder is to raise every puppy to be as physically healthy and mentally stable as it can be, and to match it to a home where both dog and owner thrive. As previously mentioned, this starts with carefully selected breeding stock, and it continues with extensive education. We are therefore proud to be Associates of the Avidog Breeder College, led by the acclaimed canine researcher Gayle Watkins, PhD. This program provides vast resources covering the latest techniques and scientific research into virtually every aspect of breeding healthy, well-adjusted pups and preparing them for a lifetime of success. Benefits of the Avidog program include:
- Guidelines for whelping and socializing pups to produce brave, healthy dogs.
- Guidelines for early neurological stimulation (ENS). This develops the senses during the first weeks after birth when the brain's synaptic connections are still being formed, and has been shown to improve performance in adult dogs.
- Tailored vaccination schedule for each litter, avoiding unnecessary excessive vaccination while providing optimum protection for the pups.
- Insights into optimum nutritution for the pregnant mother and newborn pups.
- Provides tools to find the best match between puppies and puppy buyers for a lifetime of success.
We also incorporate Puppy Culture techniques in the raising of our puppies that you may see other breeders mention. We take great care in matching puppies to buyers, and try to avoid against the temptation that buyers sometimes have in picking the "cute" looking puppy with perfect markings that may have the wrong level of drive for that family situation. A final evaluation occurs at 8 weeks old to match puppies to buyers. While we breed for moderate levels of drive to suit an active family looking primarily for a companion dog, some Border Collies have a lot of drive that would be best suited to an experienced Border Collie owner. To use a car analogy, we try to avoid placing a Ferrari with a new driver since accidents would be inevitable!
When breeding, we are always looking for a puppy to keep for ourselves that is better than both its parents in order to improve our lines. While most of our puppy buyers are active companion (pet) homes, some of our puppies go to homes that are looking to compete with their new puppy. These homes looking for a competition puppy prospect also have specific requirements that we strive to meet through our evaluation process. The selection for both ourselves and competition homes is not made on markings and how "cute" the puppy is, but rather on a careful unbiased evaluation of structure (anatomy), temperament, and drive. Our puppy evaluation process assesses these, allowing us to select the most suitable puppy to keep for ourselves or to go to a competition home, and this cannot be completed prior to the puppies reaching 8 weeks old. It is therefore generally not possible for prospective puppy buyers to visit the puppies prior to 8 weeks old with an expectation of picking out the puppy they will be going home with when the time comes. Our evaluation process also allows us to assess where each puppy is at when it is 8 weeks old and duly note each pup's strengths and weaknesses. This helps us determine which home is best suited to help each puppy thrive. This being said, all of our puppies are of exceptional quality, so you will not get a second-rate puppy from us. This process has worked well for those who have obtained a puppy from us. A commercial breeder that allows you to pick your puppy when it is 5 or 6 weeks old is therefore not looking to improve the breed, and the puppies they sell are therefore probably of lower quality.
Once it is confirmed that you are on our waiting list, we keep you informed on the progress of a breeding and the puppies once born. We strongly recommend visiting the puppies while they are with us once they are old enough (around 5 weeks). As the time nears for taking your puppy home, we provide lots of information in order to prepare you for your new arrival, and we provide as much follow up support as you want for the lifetime of your puppy, including help with training. We even provide a professionally designed basic puppy obedience package to help get you started with basic puppy manners. We hate seeing untrained reactive pet dogs when we take our well behaved dogs for a walk in our neighborhood, and we do our best to help our puppy buyers not be one of those reactive dog owners.
If you are interested in getting a puppy from us, please first read the information on this website. Border Collies are amazing dogs and we wouldn't be without them, but living with a Border Collie is not for everyone. Adopting a Border Collie pup is a big ~15 year commitment, so please do your homework if you have never owned a Border Collie and feel free to contact us if you have any questions. If you still believe that a Border Collie is for you and are interested in getting a puppy from Rigel Border Collies, then please contact us using the link below.
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