Spring Starts off with a Bang

Here at High Desert Family Doodles, we’ve been busy this spring!

The past few weeks have been full of raising some litters of puppies, settling in to a different location here in Central Oregon, hosting a number of families looking for a puppy, getting to know potential guardian families, connecting in person with people we’ve only known online, and sharing the joy of puppies with the people we’ve come across. It’s been nonstop, but also full of a tremendous amount of life and vitality.

Over the past couple months, we’ve been loving on puppies from Yose, Maple, and Klaire. Yose’s standard F2 bernedoodle puppies were the first to arrive out of the bunch. However, Maple’s mini goldendoodle puppies were born a week after Yose’s puppies. There’s a considerable projected size difference between these two litters - Yose’s are 60-80 lbs while Maple’s are 30-35 - so Yose’s standard bernedoodle puppies were larger than Maple’s mini Goldendoodles puppies, the size difference wasn’t as large as I would expect. So Yose’s puppies must just grow faster during their growth spurt season. Plus, it does take larger dogs a longer amount of time to reach their mature size than smaller dogs. As Maple and Yose’s litters have been growing, playing, and thriving, Klaire’s litter of mini bernedoodle puppies also arrived. These little treasures are just starting to become vocal and mobile. No matter how many times we see puppies enter this phase, it always seems beautifully miraculous. As Maple’s puppies head home this weekend, we get to spend some solo time with Klaire’s puppies.

We have also spent much of March settling into a new location outside of Madras, Oregon. It’s been full of wonderful surprises and challenging quandaries as we’ve been exploring how to best nurture our litters at this new location. We’ve recently wrapped up the installation of over 1000 feet of fencing to create a wide open dog-friendly space over an acre in size, along with a separate outdoor space for our puppies to play and explore. Our ladies enjoy the chance to explore the new space, taking in all the new sights, sounds, and smells. Our neighbors have also jumped in and helped lovingly socialize our puppies. It’s so special to see people experience the joy and love of these puppies for the first time; it’s such a bright experience and we revel in seeing it over and over. It’s been fun to dream about this space, and what it could become down the road too. At this point, we’re deeply grateful for this chance to bask in the beauty of this space, and the beauty of these beloved animals.

Throughout this month, we’ve had the opportunity to host hopeful guardian families to get to know them, and share a bit of our approach and philosophy. Guardians are an important part of our program, and a win-win-win for everyone involved. The dog wins by being part of a loving and caring home, enjoying the attention and celebration that comes from being a companion. The guardian families have the awesome opportunity to have a pick of the litter for minimal cost. This allows us to continually develop our breeding program as we retire previous mommas. We have a few moms who are now on their retirement litter, so we are looking to the next generation of High Desert Doodle mommas. We have guardians throughout central Oregon, and the Portland area. We are also still looking to place a couple upcoming puppies in guardian families, so if you’re interested then go ahead and send us an email about it!

We also have some particular highlights from sending these past two litters home. We’ve had the opportunity to send puppies home with some people we’ve known for over a decade. It’s fun to look back on photos from over ten years ago, thinking about the winding path that brought us from those points to this wonderful moment of providing them with their companions for the next season of their life. Along with sharing lengthy personal history with some of our puppy families this season, we also were able to place a couple puppies in families who already have a High Desert Family pup. it’s a deep privilege and honor to be held in this kind of esteem by our puppy families, so we are amazingly grateful to have another opportunity to provide these families with another companion.

While this has been a growing season for us, and we’ve been running wild with sharing our puppy joy, we also find ourselves in a season of deep gratitude. We’re thankful for so much trust from so many people, and strive to hold that in high esteem. It’s a beautiful thing to witness these puppies go from their first breath, to see them playful, curious, and thriving as they head to their homes all across Washington, Oregon, and the rest of the Pacific Northwest. As we wrap up this season of sending our mini Goldendoodle and Bernedoodle puppies home, we are ramping up planning and preparation for our next season of Belle’s bernedoodle puppies, along with Chloe and Rosie’s mini Goldendoodle puppies. So stay tuned for more joyful puppy noise!

Warmly,
Erin and Jay