Belle; From Ohio to Oregon -A Bernedoodle Puppy Momma Journey

Hey everyone, meet Belle!

She’s a budding culinary influencer, babysitter, and scientist; she loves sampling some ground elk meat, intercepting as many pets as she can, and getting as many training sessions as she can.

She’s also one of our planned future Bernedoodle mommas at High Desert Family Doodles.

Belle came to us - along with her sister Yosemite - from a good friend and breeding mentor in Ohio, Berns and Doodles. This is one of the many reasons why we feel led towards breeding puppies. We already had a relationship with this breeder, and we share the Christian faith, along with a heart for sharing a puppy’s joy with people.

You’ve guessed it; Berns and Doodles primarily concentrates on breeding Bernese Mountain Dogs and Bernedoodles. While Belle began as the largest girl in her litter, she didn’t like weaning from her Bernedoodle mom’s milk to solid food. So her growth began to slow a bit, and other Bernedoodle puppies passed her up. We find this ironic, because currently Belle loves all food, and would now eat as much as possible. She is getting better at respecting her Goldendoodle and Poodle sister’s food bowls. However, she is still highly food-motivated.

Her and Yosemite flew with a couple flight nannies to Portland, Oregon. Throughout their journey, Belle and Yosemite were able to stop by one of Oregon’s most iconic sites; Multnomah Falls. This gave us a chance to show her flight nannies a bit about why Oregon is the best state - and the Pacific Northwest is the best region - in the United States.

SInce there isn’t a Bernedoodle breed club at this point, we believe it’s important to have a health-testing standard that keeps us accountable. So we require our Oregon Bernedoodle parents to pass the same testing as our Oregon Goldendoodle parents, which has been established by GANA. So that means that Belle would need to pass a genetic test, along with hips, elbows, eyes, and cardiac testing.

Since both Belle and Yosemite came from genetically clear parents, we could assume that they were both clear of potentially harmful alleles. Nonetheless, these tests can make mistakes. So we did a Canine Health Check panel on her to test for any harmful heritable traits, and both Belle and Yosemite passed; they are genetically clear!

Belle is also tri color (kyky atat) and a parti carrier (s/sp). Since she is an F1, she has a wavy coat, and is furnished - or “bearded” - although she does carry the flat-coat allele.

Since she is a standard-sized Bernedoodle, we are planning on doing hip, elbow, heart, and cardiac screening. Belle has currently passed her Pennhip/OFA prelim hip and elbow exams with a Mountainview Animal Hospital in Redmond, Oregon. We are waiting until she turns one before finishing her eye and cardiac screening.

She is currently around 60 pounds, which currently makes her the largest dog living with us. However, she's also the cuddliest doodle with us as well.

Belle is a lover, and even to a fault. She can get really excited, so we’ve been devoting training time to working around her stimulation threshold, and helping her focus on the tasks that she has to do in the moment. Belle has picked up clicker training quite quickly, and has been growing leaps and bounds - pun intended - with controlling her excitement and becoming more serene in new circumstances or with new people.

We’ve been especially excited with her growth on a leash as a Bernedoodle puppy. She is becoming a stronger loose-leash walker, and maintains focus on us in more and more stimulating situations.

Belle also enjoys exploring Oregon’s high desert, and growing in her recall skills as well. She loves to work out her nose; sniffing her way through the day - along with the occasional taste!

Belle’s current Bernedoodle training goals are to become more reliable on loose leash walks, and to maintain focus on us, especially when more distraction and distance are added into the equation.

If Belle passes her remaining eye and cardiac screening, we are planning to pair her with either Remi or Brownie this fall. A Remi x Belle litter would be standard sized F2 Bernedoodle puppies, all either tri-color or tri-merle. Since that would be an F2 cross, the puppies would have a wide-array of coat-types (curly, wavy, straight, and flat coat). A Brownie x Belle litter would be an F1b medium litter of tri colored curly, wavy, and straight-coated Bernedoodles.

Belle enjoys playing with both Remi and Brownie at their guardian homes here in central Oregon, so we will probably make the pairing call on the Bernedoodle puppy pairing closer to her season. We expect her to come into season around Sept/October, leading to a Bernedoodle litter around December.

There is also a chance down the road to pair Belle with our Goldendoodle stud Luca for Golden Mountain Doodles, a hybrid between a Goldendoodle and a Bernedoodle.

We love having Belle around, her quirky hippy spirit encapsulates the temperament that drew us towards Bernedoodles, and our desire to share Bernedoodle puppy joy with Oregon and the rest of the Pacific Northwest. Seeing her play with Honey and Luna, along with other puppies in our neighborhood gives us life, and we look forward to Belle’s journey as a Bernedoodle puppy momma here is Oregon’s high desert.

Warmly,
Erin and Jay