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HevnSent – building better dogs
Using the latest science to breed and raise dogs that excel in assistance, therapy and companionship roles
About Us
At HevnSent, we combine almost 30 years of hands-on breeding experience with a deep understanding of the latest science in puppy development and human-dog relationships. We breed and raise our ANKC-registered puppies with great care, preparing them to thrive as assistance dogs, therapy dogs, or loving family companions. To learn more about our backgrounds, please visit our ‘About’ page.
Our Dogs
We’ve been exclusively breeding Lagotto Romagnolos for a long time. More recently, we added a small number of Golden Retrievers and Havanese to our team. Please keep reading to find out why.
Golden Retrievers
Gentle, loyal, kind and excellent as larger assistance, therapy or companion dogs
Lagotto Romagnolos
Active, intelligent, versatile, non-shedding medium-sized dogs who live to please
Havanese
Joyful, small, non-shedding dogs that get the importance of living in the moment
Our Approach
What our dogs do
Assistance Dogs
We’ve sold over 70 Lagotto puppies to people wanting to train them as assistance dogs. What we’ve learned is that they can be very good at this, but aren’t always. It takes a lot of careful training and familiarity with the sensitivity of the Lagotto breed. We added Golden Retrievers and Havanese to our breeding program to cater for those who need dogs suited to specific assistance roles. Time will tell if our careful choices were good ones.
Companion Dogs
The vast majority of our puppies are sold to families wanting a pet. All three of our breeds are very well suited to this role – whether your family consists of just you, or a couple of adults, or a houseful of kids. They work well on large or small properties and in apartments. We’ve even sold puppies to grey nomads travelling around Australia in a caravan. We are always happy to discuss the characteristics of our chosen breeds and why they may or may not fit your lifestyle.
Therapy Dogs
We receive a lot of enquiries from health professionals, including psychologists, speech pathologists and occupational therapists, who want to include a specially trained therapy dog in their practice, to address specific therapeutic goals. Finding a suitable puppy to train for this work is difficult. Our three breeds are ideally suited to these roles, and our unique puppy rearing practices ensure that our puppies are as confident and adaptable as we can make them.
Detection Dogs
Lagottos were bred to detect truffles and are highly skilled at this work. We’ve sold quite a few to people who cultivate truffles and need help finding them. One of our girls, Daisy, works with her handler Nick at Zoos Victoria, where she’s been trained to sniff out a bunch of endangered animals. Lagottos love to have a job to do so we highly recommend scent training, even if it’s just for fun. Playing hide and seek can keep your dog, and your kids, amused for hours.
How it works
Check out our ‘Puppies‘ page to learn more about our puppy raising and matching process. To summarise:
Step 1: Get in touch to discuss your needs, lifestyle and the type of dog you are looking for.
Step 2: If we think we can help, we’ll add you to our mailing list and let you know when we have puppies on the way.
Step 3: Once a litter of puppies has arrived, we’ll take deposits from families who want to reserve a puppy. At this stage, we won’t make any promises about which puppy it will be.
Step 4: If you are able, plan to visit the puppies at least once and preferably several times while they are growing up. We’ll also update you regularly on their development.
Step 5: We’ll be spending a lot of time with the puppies, providing structured socialisation experiences, lots of love, and just a little bit of early training. Once they are 6-7 weeks old, we’ll start matching with available homes – working down our waiting list in the order in which deposits were received but focusing primarily on which puppy we think is the best match for which home.
Step 6: Once you are matched with a puppy, he or she can be collected from our farm, or we can arrange transport interstate. Puppies can go to new homes once they are at least 8-weeks old. We’ll provide a comprehensive puppy pack with food, basic equipment, an interim health insurance policy and lots of written advice.
Step 7: Most of the time, there is no Step 7. If necessary, though, we’ll support you for the lifetime of your dog. We’ll even take it back or help you find another home if required. And when it’s time for your second or third or even fourth canine companion, you know who to call…
Available Now
Our puppies are often reserved long before they are born, but we occasionally have some available. We also sometimes have adult dogs looking for a new home, for various reasons. To see if anything is available, or when puppies are expected, please click here.
Our Partners
While we were breeding dogs as a hobby, we were pretty much self-sufficient. When we decided to get serious about meeting the unmet demand for really good dogs, we knew we’d need help. Ron’s adult daughter Lisa relocated to a farm just down the road and joined our daily care team. We also recruited a bunch of people to provide homes for some of our breeding dogs. These partners essentially own their dog, returning it to us for breeding purposes until he or she retires to live with them permanently. This has allowed us to expand our breeding program. We can focus on rearing puppies whilst ensuring that our adult dogs get plenty of one-on-one love and attention. We also parter with lyka, who provide the nutritious natural food our dogs enjoy, and with PetsOnMe, who provide interim health insurance for our puppies. To find out more about our partner programs, go here.
Contact Us
Our social media presence is limited to what we can fit into our days, but you can contact us easily by phone or text (0427 700 260) or by email (pauleenb@hevnsent.info). We also welcome visits to our farm in Central Victoria, but by appointment only.