Guide Dog Puppies

Born to Guide

Our puppies are born in the Breeding Centre in Brisbane and from the moment their eyes open they are encouraged to learn in a positive and stimulating environment, and are slowly introduced to new sounds, objects and experiences.

CDs of noises play in their temperature-controlled whelping room, there's hanging mobiles and soft toys for them to play with as they get older.

As they grow and become more adventurous, pups are encouraged to develop psychomotor skills, confidence and coordination. They begin by venturing to the outside run of their whelping room, and then move to a bigger kennel area and eventually they start going on grand adventures around the Breeding and Trainig Centre, visiting staff in their offices, and going out to visit nearby train stations and shopping centres.

Our specialised Puppy Development Program nurtures each individual pup and helps to draw out their genetic potential.

Puppy Raisers

At 10 weeks of age the puppies are placed with volunteer Puppy Raisers and stay in the community until they are 12 to 14 months old.

Our Puppy Raisers help socialise the puppy and are vital to producing confident, well-mannered, socialised young adult dogs ready to undertake formal Guide Dog Training. Puppy Raisers must meet special criteria, which includes living within 90 minutes of Brisbane.

More information is available at Raise a Puppy here.

Our Breeding Centre

 In our 50th Anniversary year, Guide Dogs Queensland also hopes to raise funds for an urgently needed new breeding centre in Brisbane. Our current breeding centre has reached maximum capacity, but we need to grow our colony.

A new breeding centre will cost $1.5million and is a major undertaking for the association given we rely on the community to fund the vast majority of our services. 

The new centre will be double the size of our current breeding centreand will provide four dedicated safe and state-of-the-art whelping areas for the litters’ arrival and six additional boarding rooms.  A socialising area, which is critical to puppy development, is also planned and would incorporate education space for visitors/tours and an interactive viewing area.

Support facilities in the breeding centre will be a kitchen area, laundry and office space for staff. There will also be a reproductive laboratory/mating area and room to house broods and studs when in season.

General requirements for the new breeding centre incorporate both sustainable development measures, related to water conservation and waste management, as well as a high standard of material and design to ensure optimum hygiene for breeding stock and puppies.  You can help Guide Dogs Queensland achieve this goal by clicking on the following link and make a donation online.