Bernedoodles

[Peaches Lee]

From my experience with the various "doodle" breeds I've encountered, they are timid and very scared. I would not expect them to handle farm life. Farm life is not for the doggy faint of heart and the coat of the doodles, not conducive as well. Having owned English Mastiffs, I would rule those out as well. Have you considered looking at Australian Cattle dog? We have one and she is good with my chickens, cats, goat and horses. A good farm dog too. Good luck in your search.

 

[canesisters]

Another option to look into is the many, many, many pure breed rescues.
Most of them go into shelters and pull out the breed (or sometimes even dogs of their particular breed mixes). These dogs usually go into foster homes for weeks, months or years. They are usually available for a minimum cost that covers their care and provides money to be able to take in the next one. Since these dogs have been living in homes (usually with other dogs, cats, children, etc) they foster 'parents' can give you an honest and fairly accurate idea of the dog's temperament, strengths and issues.

I did a quick google search for Bernese Mountain Dog Rescue and got these off the very first listing.

 

[Doubleyolker]

Have to agree. Ive shown for years and also own a groom shop. We see many of the so called designer dogs. Just breed anything ane give it a cute name and people will buy. We find that the goldX poodles are hyper,huge and for the most part unsound. I have standard poodles and Portuguese water dogs and do every test known to man and can only shake my head when I see what they will pay for a hyper crippled dog with a cute name.

 

[Doubleyolker]

oh and as an added note ... I refuse to refer to them as doodles or puggles. They are lab x poodles or pug x beagles. ( which is a terrible mix. Very shy and fearful and master shedders)

 

[punk-a-doodle]

Please let us know if you get a Tornjak! They are my first choice right now for an LGD. I only know of three people in the US and one in Canada with Tornjaks. They seem to run at about $900.

My best dog ever came from the shelter (but required a lot of work as she was an adult with several issues), but so did my worst dog owning experience in which a young Australian shepherd mix eventually had to be put down due to worsening epilepsy with petite mals that caused violent and random aggression. He was an adorably sweet dog when not having episodes, which made the whole thing even more heartbreaking. But, I will still adopt dogs from shelters and rescues. I will not however get another Aussie until the high rate of epilepsy (usually does not lead to aggression, but have met way too many Aussie and Aussie mix owners with our dog's same problem...all were eventually euthanized) is bred out. This issue crops up in purebred Aussies from breeders, and is not just a shelter issue. I do think our dog was brought to the shelter due to this issue though. He was 3, which is the typical age symptoms begin to show. His symptoms were probably mistaken for dominance aggression, and we received a lot of poor advice along those lines from professional trainers and vets, even though it was obvious (to me and my husband at least ) that this was something neurological.

I have seen well run shelters. I have seen shelters with poor practices in place. That would include adopting out severely dog aggressive dogs to families looking for their first dog, and telling them, "oh, Sparky here will be just fine if you just show him who is boss"....not likely to end well. I've been both happy and horrified with rescues. Same with breeders. Adopting older dogs is nice as you can often get a pretty good feel for how they will act, especially if the rescue or shelter has a trial period. I'd just say, know the sources you are considering buying a dog from as well as you can before deciding.

 

[she-earl]

I know of a breeder in VA and MI. Where are the other two that you made reference to? Could you email me contact info on them?

 

[punk-a-doodle]

I'm a bit hesitant about those two just because their websites are so sparse...but they may just need a web designer!
http://www.facebook.com/AZTornjak/photos_stream is in AZ.
The other is in Canada, in Calgary. http://m.youtube.com/user/chrisaxani
I was pretty surprised to see how not a headache it seems to bring dogs from Canada to the US. There could be a lot more to it than what I read though!

Hmmm, this person says there are two Canadian breeders now:
http://sgilmank9101.blogspot.com/2012/09/tornjak.html
Will have to ask them who the other breeder is.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

PS. Have you read about these dogs doing better on a low protein diet? It is said that a high protein diet will ruin the coat. After seeing several tornjaks on a breeder website (not US) that have died from kidney failure, and learning that some recommend a low protein diet for dogs with kidney disease, I wonder if Tornjaks have a tendency for kidney issues? They generally seem to be long lived for large dogs, but I am curious if that might be health issue with the breed.

 

[Oregon Blues]

[[[[[.........Will a dog from a shelter come with a lot of "issues" that you don't know about. .....]]]]]]]

Absolutely. You can depend upon it.

The issues 99.9% of the time will be lack of training and a bit of patience and a bit of training will fix the issues. Perfect beautiful dogs with excellent manners do not end up in shelters. If they have to be rehomed, someone who knows them will take them, or else will know someone who will take them, because they are so wonderful and well behaved.. With most training issues, nobody has ever shown the dog what is wanted and with most dogs, if you show them what you want and give a little praise, they will do their best to please you.

Just count on the shelter dog not being reliably house trained, being a chewer, probably will jump on you. Give them some hard exercise to burn off energy, 3-4 days to house train, 5 minutes to teach not jumping, a couple of chew toys and 1-2 gentle corrections about what to chew and you can have a great dog from the shelter. An improve diet will help with behavior. A good fence will stop roaming. A couple of days to teach the dog to come when called. A secure crate to prevent unwanted behavior when you can't be watching them.

I would allow a shelter dog a minimum of 2 weeks to adjust and fit itself in and to get over mourning for it's lost family. Don't hold it against the dog that nobody ever taught it any rules. There are plenty of really good dogs that need homes.

 

[badkittyamy]

Absolutely. You can depend upon it.

The issues 99.9% of the time will be lack of training and a bit of patience and a bit of training will fix the issues. Perfect beautiful dogs with excellent manners do not end up in shelters. If they have to be rehomed, someone who knows them will take them, or else will know someone who will take them, because they are so wonderful and well behaved.. With most training issues, nobody has ever shown the dog what is wanted and with most dogs, if you show them what you want and give a little praise, they will do their best to please you.

Not necessarily, almost all the shelter dogs I have run across were house broken, plenty of dogs end up in shelters that even already have basic obedience done. Well mannered dogs end up in shelters ALL the time especially in savannah, army people deploy and can't take their dogs and apparently didn't think ahead enough to find someone to watch their dog or whatever and you end up with a humane society full of purebred trained housebroken dogs. Not everyone with a dog has a vast network of people that possibly want a dog when said owner no longer wants it. Not only that but not everyone knows someone in a position to take in a dog even if they did want it, money, time, family, housing rules etc kind of play a big part there.

Of course I'm not saying adopted dogs are ALL well mannered but.. honestly most I've come across are pretty normal and transition after those first 2 weeks to being a normal dog.