We approach life in a holistic, gentle, back-to-nature manner. Natural Rearing of our dogs harmonizes with this beautifully, seamlessly, in fact.
Through our Natural Rearing program, Highland Glenn English Shepherds have been producing sound, healthy dogs since 2012. Every decision we make — from the pairings we choose to the food we serve to the sounds we play in the nursery — is made with one goal: sending you home with a dog built to thrive for life.
Purposeful Breeding
Every Highland Glenn litter begins long before the puppies are born. We select pairings with careful attention to documented lineage, temperament, working traits, and multi-generational health history. Conformation matters deeply to us — it requires thoughtful, knowledgeable selection to produce a dog that is both beautiful and sound. Our dogs reflect 15+ years of careful, intentional breeding decisions.
Naturally Reared From Birth
Highland Glenn puppies are raised on a 100% species-specific raw diet from the moment they begin eating solid food. This means fresh raw meat with bone, organs, raw goat milk, and nutritional herbs — never commercial kibble, never processed food. We believe a dog fed the way nature intended is a dog whose body can innately remain healthy.
We support immune health through homeopathy, Young Living essential oils, and carefully developed in-house protocols — raising antibodies to dis-ease naturally rather than through conventional injections. We are happy to discuss our full protocol with you.
We use no chemical de-wormers, flea medications, tick preventatives, or heartworm drugs. Instead, we focus on building genuine resilience through nutrition, environment, and natural support. Our home and nursery are cleaned exclusively with non-toxic, natural products — Young Living Thieves Household Cleaner is our standard, safe even for newborns.
Raised Underfoot, Not in a Kennel
Our puppies are born and raised in the heart of our home. The nursery area is clean, warm, and full of life. Puppies hear the television, the vacuum, other dogs, and the sounds unique to ranch life. This is intentional — a puppy that grows up in a real home arrives at yours already comfortable with the rhythms of human life.
Imprint Handling and Scent Introduction
From the critical development window of days 3 through 16, every Highland Glenn puppy goes through a series of specific exercises performed daily – gentle, purposeful handling. These slight stressors have a positive effect on the developing brain and immune function.
During this same time, we introduce them to scents in order to stimulate the areas of the brain primed for development spurt.
These protocols build the kind of calm confidence that lasts a lifetime. This can only be done by the breeder during this narrow window. We do it with every litter, every time.
Puppy Culture
Beginning at around three weeks of age, our puppies enter a structured enrichment program based on the Puppy Culture protocol as well as some features from Avidog. They learn to face novel challenges, navigate obstacles, recover from startling experiences, and engage with positive training markers. They are never corrected with force or punishment — only redirected, rewarded, and encouraged. By the time they leave us, they are already primed to learn.
Sound Habituation
We run a daily loop of common sounds — doorbells, barking dogs, children crying, fireworks, crashing noises, city traffic — starting at very low volume and gradually increasing to normal levels over the course of the litter’s development. The result is a puppy that processes these sounds as merely background noise rather than threats.
Early Handling and Body Awareness
We begin handling our puppies’ feet and trimming their nails before their eyes open. By the time they go home, nail trims, ear touches, and full body handling are simply normal parts of life — not stressful events. We also introduce airline crates early so that puppies arrive already comfortable with the confinement that makes housebreaking easier.
Staying Longer, Leaving Better
Our puppies usually stay with their litter for 10 weeks. The social education a puppy receives from its mother and littermates during this window is irreplaceable. A puppy that has learned to communicate, share, and navigate a dog family arrives at your home with confidence and manners already developing.
Positive Training
We use positive reinforcement training. We do not advocate corrections. We never raise our voices. Science supports this approach and so does every puppy we’ve ever produced.
Every one of our practices exists for one reason — to send you home with the healthiest, most stable, connected English Shepherd possible!
APPLY FOR A PUPPY
Natural Rearing at Highland Glenn includes, but is not limited to, a raw diet and a chemical- and toxin-free environment:
DIET: Science supports the fact that, like their wild cousins, dogs are carnivores; thus, we feed our dogs exclusively a Prey Model-style Species Appropriate Raw Food diet. The meat is whole (as opposed to ground), medication/hormone-free/grass-fed as much as possible; key supplements given as needed. Along with their ancestral raw diet, our dogs enjoy spring water, clean mountain air, sunshine, ranch jobs, and lots of love. They have healthy teeth and gums, energy and stamina for any activity, and beautiful muscle tone. The satisfaction in seeing the bright eyes of our dogs eagerly anticipating their raw meaty meal is priceless! Our dogs rarely go to the veterinarian, further proof that Natural Rearing suits them well.
CHEMICAL-FREE ENVIRONMENT: We use no chemical products of any kind in our home or on ourselves, nor are synthetics, fertilizers, or chemical ‘cides’ used anywhere on the ranch. This is beneficial for the environment and wildlife, too.
We do not use flea/tick insecticides, heartworm medications, deworming drugs, etc. Chemical products simply are not used in, on, or around our dogs. Animals with strong immune function rarely have parasite overloads. If there is a concern, there are many effective natural therapies at our disposal.
Our evidence-based choice is that our dogs be vaccine-free (unless compulsory by law), allowing their bodies to build true immunity naturally through normal, mild exposure. There is no sound medical evidence that multiple vaccines as youngsters and then annual booster shots for life are necessary. To the contrary, research has revealed that they are quite harmful.
This is a decision each animal keeper must face and make for themselves, carefully weighing the risks of all options. Nature knows what to do and how. After all, the immune system was marvelously designed! A strong, healthy body is infinitely more resistant to all disease than one that has been repeatedly compromised by toxins.
HEALTH SCREENING: Healthy dogs and puppies are the primary goals at Highland Glenn, with temperament on equal par, along with correct type according to the historic Breed Standard and working traits. The English Shepherd is primarily a healthy breed.
Here are some conditions that do occur:
Heritable Cataracts: not a widespread issue.
MDR1: fairly common in the breed. This is a mutant gene resulting in a defect in the blood-brain barrier that allows certain drugs like Ivermectin, as well as some antibiotics and other commonly used parasiticides/insecticides, to pass through. Although we do not personally use such, we feel it is important to know the status of our breeding dogs for the sake of puppy families. Their MDR1 status is determined through lineage or DNA testing. All of our dogs are normal/normal for this gene.
NOTE: It is important to realize, however, that even an MDR1 normal/normal dog can be adversely affected by chemicals and drugs.
Canine Hip Dysplasia (CHD): is found within the breed. Science says improper nutrition, inappropriate exercise, and low hormone levels are the main culprits in the development of CHD, contrary to the commonly held view that it is solely genetic. Paying close attention to such in our holistic rearing methods, we have made the personal decision not to expose our dogs’ reproductive organs to harmful radiographs.
Limitations of Health Tests
It is important to understand that there are limitations to health tests with respect to genetics. Some health problems known in the English Shepherd breed are known to be influenced by genetics, but researchers do not yet know how many or which genes are involved. Proper joint formation of hips and knees, for example, is affected by several factors, from nutrition of the mother to whelping box surfaces to available hormones and appropriate exercise in a growing pup. Instead of exposing our dogs’ reproductive organs (and thus future generations) to radiation, we support every aspect of canine development through Natural Rearing.
Lifestyle, environment, and diet combined play the largest role in health. This field is called “epigenetics” and has shown that the expression of genes can actually be turned ‘off’ or ‘on’. Diet is the foundation that largely determines a dog’s state of health, in this case a biologically appropriate raw diet meant for carnivores, along with the avoidance of chemicals and toxins. Health certifications cannot predict the health of a particular dog’s offspring.
In any case, no human can guarantee perfectly healthy dogs. Barbara J. Andrews in her article at thedogplace.org stated: “Until we have solid statistical data to back up rhetoric, and until we can be assured that a test is definitive and not interpretive, we can only regard health certifications as a professional but personal opinion, not a scientific fact. Health certifications should be encouraged but duly noted and weighed as just one factor relating to overall health, temperament, and quality when breeding decisions are made.”
The health tests we perform on our English Shepherds are:
DNA Panel – Canine HealthCheck through Paw Print Genetics; this is done once at any age and tests for 250+ heritable genetic markers.