When looking for a puppy, it’s important to look beyond buzz words such as “health tested,” “genetic tested parents,” “AKC registered,” “sweet,” “cute,” and “socialized.” So much more goes into ethical breeding and thorough health testing than these common buzz words. I’m ASTONISHED by what I see every day online and on social media with supposedly “ethical” Bernedoodle breeders who are in fact NOT holding to ethical health and dog/puppy care standards.
It has been so incredibly discouraging over the years to see so many Bernedoodle breeders tout that their dogs are “health tested,” only to find that they are doing the bare minimum or actually misrepresenting what the necessary testing is to unknowing families and individuals.
I am passionate about educating forever homes so they know what to look for. My hope is that through education, ultimately other doodle breeders will have to raise their standards and ethics in order to meet the reasonable expectations of savvy puppy parents.
Don’t Be Fooled
It’s easy for someone to share an adorable photo of a Bernedoodle puppy on social media or on a website, but not raise that puppy or his or her parents in an ethical manner that includes full health testing, a loving and caring environment, and socialization. These breeders often charge top-shelf pricing for a puppy that didn’t come from top-shelf parents. They’ll lead you to believe that genetic testing is enough, or that if one parent is tested, the other parent doesn’t need to be tested. Or they’ll claim to have done the testing but have no proof because most people simply do not ask.
I’ve seen it far too often on the Bernedoodle Facebook groups where a forever home is devastated to learn that their puppy has a genetic or crippling disease that could have easily been prevented with proper health testing. Moreover, scammers are getting more and more sophisticated in taking advantage of trusting individuals who just want a Bernedoodle to love. It’s so sad! 😦
The Beloved Bernedoodles’ Difference
At Beloved Bernedoodles, we are a small, family breeder with high standards for temperament, conformation, and health testing (genetic and OFA hips, elbows, cardiac, thyroid and/or patella, as well as CBC blood chem and protein creatinine ratio for kidney and liver function) for our breeding males and females. We sometimes do PennHip as well to get another view/opinion of the hips. We raise our puppies in our home with care and personal attention, Early Neurological Stimulation, early socialization, many Puppy Culture protocols, and personality/temperament assessing. We have never wanted to become a kennel or an operation that is producing tons of puppies each year.
See our currently available puppies here: https://belovedbernedoodles.com/puppies/
What to Look For
Do you want to know the first thing that stops me in my tracks whenever I’m looking for a puppy to add to my own program? First, too many breeding dogs and too many puppies available. That tells me they are cranking out puppies and do not breed to a wait list…that they instead breed first and try to find homes after. This is not ethical! Ethical breeding is knowing all or most of your puppies have homes ahead of time before breeding. Second, displaying photos and cute descriptions of their breeding dogs on their website and social media, but NO health information listed and NO info on temperament. Often they’ll at least include an Embark link for genetic testing, but when I see a breeder is not doing full OFA testing as well, that’s my cue to RUN in the opposite direction. For the amount that Bernedoodle breeders charge, the can surely invest the time and money in properly and completely health testing their breeding dogs.
Since we don’t have enough puppies for everyone who comes to us, we want to help you ask the right questions when looking for a reputable, ethical breeder. This includes:
- a communicative breeder who answers your questions.
- vetting families and individuals through a thoughtful puppy application.
- transparency on their website or social media account on how their dogs are treated and spend their time and how the puppies are raised (not just nice, professional photos after a bath and blow dry).
- proper, thorough, and complete health testing of diseases common to poodles and Bernese Mountain Dogs.
- IMPORTANT TO NOTE: Many Bernedoodle breeders use Embark’s Dog DNA test because it’s less expensive, but Embark does NOT have a test for Degenerative Myelopathy Bernese Mountain dog type, which is a disease that affects the spinal cord in dogs, resulting in slowly progressive hind limb weakness and paralysis. This means it is quite easy to breed two Bernedoodles together that are carry the disease and will pass the disease on to 25% of their offspring. Paw Print Genetics (now Orivet) and Animal Genetics are the only two dog DNA companies that test for this terrible disease!
- temperament, conformation, and pedigree in sires and dams
- doodle generation and temperament that is right for the individual or family’s lifestyle
- coat type that is best for family’s desires and/or allergies
- raising puppies with an early socialization curriculum such as Puppy Culture or Badass Breeder
Educating Yourself and Asking the Right Questions
Our FAQS page is a great place to start and compare with what other breeders have to offer. I would encourage everyone to look at our Meet the Parents Page as well to see the full health testing that all Bernedoodle breeders should be doing.
Additionally, we put together some helpful slides on Instagram called: “10 Important Questions to Ask a Bernedoodle Breeder,” and you can find it here:
We hope that helps!
Above: Ted, formerly Thor, from our F1b Ruby + Charlie standard-size Bernedoodle litter in 2021. He is a brown, tan, and white phantom.
