What is a Badass/Empowered breeder?

Empowered breeding is a term that is used to describe a method of breeding dogs that emphasizes the importance of the physical and mental health of the animals. This approach to breeding focuses on ensuring that the dogs used for breeding are in good health and have the necessary genetic traits and characteristics to produce offspring that are also healthy and well-adjusted.

In empowered breeding, breeders carefully select the dogs they use for breeding based on various factors such as their genetic history, physical health, and temperament. They may also use genetic testing and other tools to reduce the risk of passing inherited conditions to their offspring.

The goal of empowered breeding is to produce dogs that are healthy, well-adjusted, and able to thrive in a variety of environments. It is a proactive approach to breeding that aims to reduce the occurrence of inherited health problems and improve the overall health and well-being of the breed.

Both terms are tied to Badass Breeder, a breeder-education program, and Empowered Breeder, its breeding-management software. At Stokeshire, we breed and raise our dogs under our own documented system, The Stokeshire Method™, which covers our protocols, our records, and the systems around them.

Our puppy-raising curriculum involves the intentional daily handling of puppies after 3 days of age and exposure to new stimuli, including new scents, sights, sounds, textures, people, and places during their critical socialization periods. It helps puppies grow into confident family pets and working dogs, and it helps each puppy build resilience.

Puppies are temperament tested at six to seven weeks of age, before Match Day. The temperament testing assesses energy level, confidence, motivation, toy/prey drive, assertiveness, resiliency, sight/sound sensitivity, touch tolerance, and human focus. Knowing these traits allows us to honor each puppy's unique needs and match each puppy's temperament to their family's lifestyle and preferences. This system helps families select their puppies with a holistic approach that goes beyond beauty and aesthetics.

Our standards

Our standards are published in our Code of Ethics. To check any breeder, including us, read Dog Breeder vs Puppy Mill and How to Find a Reputable Dog Breeder.

  • How comfortable a puppy is with humans. Do they try to impose their way (high) or naturally submit to human authority (low)? To test this, we observe if the puppy comes to the tester on their own initiative without the tester interacting with them.

  • How confident is the dog in its own abilities in new environments? When entering the testing area, how does the puppy respond to the unfamiliar place and objects?

  • Does, the dog naturally want to work for humans? This portion of the test involves asking the puppy to do something like play fetch, tug, and engage with the person. Is the puppy following what the tester asked them to do or is the person having to work really hard to get the puppy to do what they've asked?

  • How does the dog handle stress and react in different situations? Low is easily stressed, and high means they are able to adapt more easily in stressful situations. Nerve strength is observed throughout the test and we watch to see how the puppy handles stress and if they are able to overcome their fears.

  • How does the puppy react when they are roughly touched (have their tail tugged, toes touched, etc.) Low scores mean the puppy doesn’t handle unwanted touch well, and high scores mean the puppy wasn’t stressed and enjoyed being touched the whole time. Many of the puppies will enjoy this portion of the test.

  • How energetic is the puppy moving throughout the test? Do they take breaks and rest or constantly run around?

  • Does the puppy startle easily with loud, unexpected noises? Low scores mean the puppy has a high tolerance for loud noises, and high scores mean the puppy is sensitive to loud unexpected noises.

  • How stressed is the puppy when there’s an unexpected movement? Low means they are not stressed by visual stimuli and high means they are more easily stressed and may hide when they see something surprising, like an umbrella open.

  • Prey drive involves five different behaviors: searching, stalking, chasing, biting to grab and bite to kill. Among the dog breeds with a high prey drive, these behaviors manifest differently according to breed. Herding breeds, for example, have a strong chase instinct, while hounds like to stalk and flush out prey. How interested is the puppy in chasing, stalking, and pouncing small animals? Low means the puppy doesn’t have an interest in hunting and high means they can be trained to hunt and should be watched around small pets (birds, ferrets hamsters, etc.)

  • Pack Drive is a dog's natural desire to be part of a group. A dog with a low pack drive is referred as an independent. On the other extreme, dogs with a high pack drive often suffer from separation anxiety.

  • How interested are they in ‘following the pack’ and giving attention to the human? Low means they want to discover on their own, and high scores mean they are attentive to people and focus on them.

  • How overwhelmed is the puppy by human emotions when they have an emotional outburst? Not tenderhearted scores mean the puppy is not affected by the person's emotional state. Extremely tenderhearted dogs will “feel” with their humans and can’t handle emotionally charged environments. An extremely tenderhearted dog should not be an emotional support animal because it will be as overwhelmed as a human. The best emotional support dogs are moderately and highly tenderhearted.

  • Is this dog assertive (confident in greeting) or submissive (hesitantly waiting for a dog to approach) when meeting a new dog? The tester introduces a dog they haven't met before and we rate the puppy's interaction.