Health & Safety
Visitation Policy
The health of our breeding dogs is the first thing of importance for insuring happy and healthy puppies. Our dogs share our home and live with us as family members on our 12-acre ranch. To expand our breeding program, some of our dogs are in loving guardian homes. This ensures that all of our dogs have a normal family life with love, attention and companionship.
Before mothers are due to give birth, they settle into our Nursery Barn. It gives the moms a safe, quiet place away from our other dogs where they can have privacy and stay calm and relaxed. The nursery barn has all the conveniences of home where I stay before, during and after whelping to insure that mom and babies are doing well. The barn is equipped with an apartment, reception area, grooming facility and laundry. The building is fully monitored with cameras for watching from any location as well as security to ensure the safety of our dogs. The nursery is a climate controlled, fully sanitary area where our puppies can thrive and play no matter what the weather. Health is our main priority and the puppy nursery allows us to ensure that our puppies are consistently surrounded by a clean, safe and comfortable environment. The nursery barn includes indoor and outdoor play and training areas as well as a large outdoor play field to run, romp and play so moms can get plenty of exercise in between caring for their babies. We have installed an ERV Ventilation System that provides the Nursery Barn with healthy indoor air quality. This system regularly exchanges and provides clean fresh air to greatly minimize the dogs exposure to humidity, dust, odors, and other indoor pollutants while maintaining a controlled temperature for mom and babies.
Visitation Policies
Deposit holders: Families that are currently on the deposit wait list may schedule a visit prior to picking up their puppy. This must be scheduled in advance.
Those not currently on a wait list: The health of our dogs and puppies is important to us so we take every precaution to protect them. We are often asked why we don’t allow people to visit our facility. This is not surprising given the number of “what to do” websites that advocate for visiting the breeder and meeting the pups parents first. The problem with these websites is their priority is the buyer, not the pups or breeders health and safety. Please remember that our facility is our home. We ask that you “visit” us online rather than in person, look at photos of current and previous litters and read our website testimonials and comments on Facebook to learn more about us. Thank you for helping us protect the health of our puppies.
The following are some if the reasons we don’t allow visits from families that have not placed a deposit.
1. Young pups don’t have fully developed immune systems and are susceptible to life threatening illnesses. Unsuspecting visitors can carry germs on clothing, shoes and even car tires and bring diseases and parasites including parvovirus, distemper, giardia etc. with them when visiting pups, the results can be the death of the entire litter.
2. Stressed out Moms create stressed out pups. A new mother is emotionally charged and in hyper protective mode. When a stranger comes to visit, Mom becomes stressed causing her body to create cortisol which goes into the milk. The puppies consume this cortisol rich milk and become stressed themselves.
3. Panicked Moms hurt pups. When a stranger comes to visit Moms state of mind changes rapidly. She feels threaten and moves quickly to assess the threat. Moms can unintentionally step on or crush a pup in their urgency to get out of the whelping box to access the threat.
4. I don’t “own” the pups. All the pups are sold to families and I am simply the guardian. I have been entrusted with the care of their pups for the first critical weeks of their lives. As the guardian of other peoples dogs, I must do everything I can to protect them. If one of the puppies was yours, I’m certain you would expect me to do the same for your pup.
Alpine Bernedoodles is a Licensed breeding facility with the Colorado Department of Agriculture.
