You may want to know how we decided to start breeding Australian Labradoodles. Here's a not-so-brief history!
Our family has always been a bunch of dog-lovers. We've almost continuously had one or more dogs for the 35+ years my husband and I have been married. Obviously, our kids grew up with dogs always being a part of their lives -- their playmates, their comic relief, their comforters, or whatever role the dog needed to fill at that moment. Somehow dogs always know, don't they?
Over the years, we've had Labradors, "Heinz 57" dogs, and even a mix between a Belgian Shepherd and a timberwolf! Needless to say, we've learned a great deal about dogs during that time.
When Mackenzie graduated from high school, she had no burning desire to go to college, and thus went looking for a job. Our dentist and his wife own Eden Valley Manor Labradoodles, knew how much our family loved dogs, and offered Kenzie a job as their assistant/jack-of-all-trades. She has now been working for them for about two years and has learned so much along the way -- grooming, breeding (both natural and artificial insemination), care of a pregnant dog, care of normal or sick newborn pups, running a business, and the like. Eden Valley has a program where their breeding dogs are put into homes with families (guardian families) so their breeding stock is never penned or treated like puppy mill dogs. These are dogs that are well-loved and cared-for and are cherished members of their guardians' family. Early on, Eden Valley needed a home for one of their future breeding stock, and thus we acquired Willow, our first Australian Labradoodle.
As you can see, Willow fit right in!
Kenzie has always been a bit of an entrepreneur, and the idea of running her own business was intriguing to her. Having a business involving dogs made that a huge bonus!
During these many years of child and dog raising, I was working as a midwives' assistant and over 25+ years, had the honor of attending approximately 1,000 births. As the years have passed and I've gotten older, handling all those late nights became much more difficult, and I decided to retire last year from that work.
At about the same time, Kenzie (with the encouragement of her mentor/boss) seriously began researching the possibility of having her own business breeding and selling Australian Labradoodles. After much thought, investigation, and prayer, we decided to go for it! And thus Llewellyns Grove Labradoodles was born.
We feel we have a good mix of talent to run this business -- Mackenzie with the skills she's acquired from working day in/day out with the McCarls' business, and me with the practical skills I've learned about birth and postpartum from my midwifery work.
All this to say -- last December we bought our own first breeding girl -- Eden Valley Manor's Aspen's Grove (otherwise known as just Aspen!)
At the moment, Aspen is nearly 9 months old and doing well with her obedience training -- most of the time! She's still a large, goofy puppy, and we love her to pieces! She will not be bred until we have completed all necessary testing of all hips, elbows, and eyes, and until she's in her second heat cycle. We anticipate breeding her some time next year and hopefully having our own official first litter two months thereafter.
In the meantime, our guardian dog, Willow, is currently pregnant and due any day now. I will be writing more about that in future posts.
If you've stuck around this far, thanks for reading. Please come back and check out our growing dogs and business!
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