Why we breed

A Bit of Background

I'm Gina Stewart, and these beauties are two of my five daughters. Now. After several years of heartbreak and pain. Counseling. Prayer. Hopes, dreams, tears, and several episodes of cursing. They are mine now. 

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Ron and I met in 2012. He has two daughters and I have one. His oldest had two children, and the three of them were living with him when we met. They moved around several times a year, sometimes with only a few weeks between moves. His daughter is an opioid addict with mental health issues. We now understand that some of that was inherited through her mom's family, and her sister blessedly did not get those same genetics.

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In 2016, they moved across the state to live with me. I'm in a more populated area in southwest Michigan and offered to help her start a new life where her bad influences and addictions could be left behind, and where she could find the resources she needed to heal. Sadly, she didn't recover. We tried accountability, medication, counseling, rehab, church, working hard at a job, and on and on. Eventually, Ron and I took her girls into our home and she moved across the state yet again. 

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Over the years, since we've married, Ron and I have faced:

• Multiple health issues (cancer, a cardiac issue, rheumatoid arthritis, my father's stroke, and a grandson born with a cleft palate who needed three surgeries before his first birthday)

• Time marching on (a daughter graduating high school and moving out on her own. A daughter graduating college, who got married and had a child. And, a daughter we had to battle in court to gain guardianship of her children. And, my parents moving in with us because they just couldn't make it on their own any longer.

• A mental health diagnosis for one of "the littles" that means she may choose the same path as her mother if we don't work very, very hard.

• Terminating our daughter's parental rights in court.

• And, finally, we got to adopt our grand daughters!

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Through all of that, we had a family pet. A calm reassurance in the evenings after a hectic and chaotic day for me.

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In the beginning, it was my Westie, Zoe. He was my partner when I couldn't sleep, when I was lost and floundering in a hopeless marriage, when I had to deal with my daughter going to her dad's for the weekend and leaving me alone, and even when I started dating Ron. Zoe traveled with me to Ron's, and his daughter and her girls adored him. Zoe passed away in 2017 at the age of 14. He had been my daughter's sidekick for nearly her entire life. And it nearly undid her.

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Her anxiety and depression skyrocketed after the divorce. After I remarried, she asked for another dog. "A big dog, that will lay on me to help me calm down when I can't do it myself," was her specific request. So....we got the biggest dog we could find, a Bernese Mountain Dog. She named the puppy Sapphire (her birthstone.) And that little heart healer when straight to work!

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I have always had a dog in my life and home. But I never realized what an Emotional Support Animal could do for damaged children. Sapph calmed my daughter, helped her sleep, got her through college, boyfriends, job changes, etc. But when it was time for my kid to move out, no one would let a 90 pound dog live with her. So, Sapph stayed with us.

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Our grand-daughters took up the challenge of helping to care for Sapph, and close bonds were developed once again. They lay on her when they're crying, they hug her when the past reaches out of nowhere and traumatizes again, and they are healing. It's seems incrementally slow at times, but when we think about how far they've come, we can see the miles they've traveled. Our now-daughters still struggle at times, but Sapphire is there with them through it all. And that bond of child and dog made us realize that more children need this opportunity to really thrive. 

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We started our breeding business as a way to eventually retire and be home more with the girls. But in the back of my mind, I was thinking, "what if we could produce more of these dogs for children of trauma? That would be so cool!" 

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Bernedoodles are part Bernese Mountain Dog and part Poodle. They shed significantly less than the Bernese (which is a LOT!) and they live longer than a Bernese....because a child of trauma shouldn't have to have another loss while they are still a child. The Poodle genetics help the doodle to live longer. But, the Berner shines through the hybrid breed and creates people-oriented, family dogs that are low shedding, loving, easy to train, and easy to love and be loved.

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As we work through our program's startup challenges, our goal remains to be able to donate puppies to children of trauma. (Hopefully at least one from every litter very soon.) And the most rewarding, full circle-of-life aspect of this desire, is that our girls want to do it too. They help with cleaning the house extra well for the new puppies, taking shifts for days at a time to help watch the new mom and puppies, train the new pups, and help temperament test them.

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They don't realize it yet, but they are about to be capable of giving the love of a dog to children who have lived through terrors only they can relate to. They will now be able to stand in the gap for these kids and pick heart healers for them. What a joy it's going to be to see them make that connection and see how far they have come on their own journey!