Our 2022 High Desert Family Doodle Year in Review
As the sun sets on 2022 and we roll into 2023, we at High Desert Family Doodles want to reflect on our journey over this past year, and share some of our highlights with you. We’ve got to see our Goldendoodle and Bernedoodle puppies brighten people’s lives up and down the west coast, and share our journey with countless people who are curious about our High Desert pack. So here are a few of our favorite things from 2022!
Our first litter of Bernedoodle puppies
Yose’s National Park litter - our FIRST LITTER OF BERNEDOODLE PUPPIES - went home the week before Christmas! The majority of these Bernedoodle puppies stayed in Oregon, calling Bend, Redmond, Corvallis, Sisters, and Sherwood home. However two of puppies went out of state, to Boise Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah.
I made a fun road trip to drop off these two Bernedoodles to their families from Central Oregon. While the weather wasn’t the best, the trip went smooth. Plus, it was great to go to a couple of our puppy families. The Bernedoodle puppy headed to Salt Lake City was a Christmas surprise for their children, so it was fun to be a part of that. Speaking of surprises, we also had one spouse surprise the other by driving out to us on puppy pick day, giving them a chance to pick a Bernedoodle puppy and make some dreams come true.
He did a good job at keeping that surprise, although the cat - or puppy - almost got out of the bag. Long story short, when preparing a surprise for someone, make sure that they don’t get notified when you make changes to shared notes on your phone!
Yose’s litter was raised and trained by our friends and neighbors, the Comer family, and it has been beautiful to journey with them as they lovingly nurtured this litter of beautiful puppies into confident and thriving puppies. As with all of our puppies, they get a huge helping of human - especially little human - exposure!
The first hopeful HDFD Doodle Momma
Another thing to note from Yose’s National Park litter is that Ms. Shenandoah - now Nellie - will be our first hopeful HDFD puppy to be a future Bernedoodle parent for us. Nellie - a female merle standard Bernedoodle - is close with a guardian family in Sisters Oregon, and has become quick friends with her basset hound roommate. We also share a mutual friend with this guardian family, so its great to have a connection there. It feels like a God-led fit, and we are excited to see Nellie flourish in the days, months, and years ahead.
Like all of our other hopeful Bernedoodle and Goldendoodle parents, Nellie will have some health screenings to see if she meets our criteria for her to be one of our parents. She will need to pass hip testing (OFA/Pennhip), along with elbow, eye, cardiac, and DNA testing. This standard has been established by GANA (the Goldendoodle Association of North America), and we also use this standard for our Bernedoodles since there is no established Bernedoodle breed club standard.
While we’ve said this elsewhere, it’s important for us to be subjected to a third-party standard because this helps to keep up accountable and hold us to a high standard which is above reproach.
Nellie has such a wonderfully balanced temperament, where she is both calm yet confident. We are hopefully looking forward to the day when she’ll nurture this same outlook in her Bernedoodle puppies in the years ahead.
Sharing joy over thirty times
Almost forty High Desert Family Doodle Goldendoodles and Bernedoodles have gone to loving homes all over the west in 2022. From Pheonix, Arizona and Salt Lake City, Utah, to San Diego, California and Seattle Washington, we’ve seen wonderful relationships flourish with the families of our Goldendoodle and Bernedoodle puppies. A lot of this groundwork is because we strive to be transparent with our program and our philosophy. Plus, we have connected with almost all of our puppy families even before the litter is born. That way, these families can follow along with us on our social platforms, and see how we nurture out Goldendoodle and Bernedoodle puppies with care and intentionality.
Over two-thirds of these Goldendoodles and Bernedoodles are living in Oregon. It brightens our hearts to see so many of our puppies this close to us, and to hear updates from these families about how their puppies are beautifully maturing, and how they’ve brought joy to their lives as well!
Inspiring through a Dog’s Love
It’s been overwhelming to see how our little effort as raising joy has touched people of all ages.
We see it in a variety of ways. People continually tell us that “it’s evident your Goldendoodles and Bernedoodles are shown so much love” or that “we can tell that this means so much to you”, which is stirring to know that our hearts shine through what we do.
We’ve had rich conversations with people where they share how our little vocation has kindled visions and passions within them, where they are able to connect people and puppies so that they can both grow in love. It’s been so fun to dream with people, where they yearn to see healing, freedom, and compassion flourish through the unconditional love and care of a Goldendoodle or Bernedoodle.
We have people encourage and edify us in our path, telling us that there is a sweet truth and goodness in what we are doing, and that they’ve experienced the beauty.
We’ve witness the joy of families who are welcoming a puppy for the first time. Many of these families have yearned for a dog for so long, but where canine allergies have gotten in the way of this. However, our low-allergy Bernedoodles and Goldendoodles have allowed this dream to become a reality.
One of the sweetest things has been to see our children come to life as they’ve nurtured and cared for both our Doodle parents and puppies. It’s brought a passion out of them which has really caught me off guard, and I revel in discussing this zeal that they are experiencing. Our daughter has even said that she wants to breed Goldendoodles and Bernedoodles when she grows up!
Who knew that the journey we felt like God put on our hearts would kindle the vocational embers in our own children?
Raising Joy One Doodle at a Time
In short, 2022 has filled us at High Desert Family Doodles with a tremendous sense of gratitude for the life-giving joy. We’ve been overwhelmed by how refreshing and satisfying this past year has been, where we’ve just followed our call to raise joy one bernedoodle and goldendoodle puppy at a time.
Has it been perfect or euphorically enjoyable all the time? Far from it. However, we’ve been deeply thankful for this path and passion even in the toughest times, and especially lack the words to describe our gratitude for the many people who have shared this path with us.
We’ve been utterly blown away by how much doodle beauty we’ve been a part of in 2022, and we are looking forward to the brightest and glory of 2023.
And we will continually strive to raise joy, one doodle at a time.
Grace and Peace,
Erin and Jay
