Our dogs are a mix of home bred and imported, usually from overseas kennels, but they are all part of our family and live with us in the house, first and foremost they are our beloved pets and showing and working them is an additional bonus. We take our dogs with us on holidays, in the UK and overseas, and our lives are completely organised around our dogs. Our dogs all have outstanding temperaments and love people, dogs, children etc and are always happy and confident. They all have very individual characters and habits that make us smile every day.
In terms of breeding over the years we have always been restricted by our work commitments but since Jeanette’s retirement (from 2016), and Steve’s semi-retirement (from Jan 2020) we are able to use our knowledge and experience to plan to breed more often now we are not restricted with work. We discuss and research our matings at great length and have long term plans for our lines with health issues as a great influence .
As you can see above we have several Bernese living with us, but because we want to be able to have a full life with the dogs, we cannot keep as many as we would like at home. Therefore we have some special families where the dogs live great lives but still remain part of our breeding programme.
Over the years we have shared our lives with many Bernese and they have all been special members of our family. Like everyone else we have had our share of heartaches and sadness but most of our dogs have enjoyed a long healthy life. We are very conscious of breed health and it is a major consideration for us in breeding choices.