Guardian Homes
Join Our Extended Family
To ensure our breeding dogs are living their best life possible we depend on Guardian Homes. A Guardian Home receives one of our breeding dogs as a puppy (although we do have adult dogs available for the Guardian Program from time-to-time) to raise and love.
What is a Guardian Home?
Our Guardian Program is essential to our breeding program. It is our belief that dogs should not spend their life confined to a kennel: Dogs need a family to love and be loved by. In order to produce the healthiest Bernese Mountain Dogs possible we need a large breeding pack to choose pairings from, more dogs than we could properly care and love for in our home. Our solution is Guardian Homes.
Interested in Becoming a Guardian Family?
A Guardian Family welcomes one of our breeding Bernese Mountain Dogs into their home to give them the best "pet" life possible. When the guardian dog matures to breeding age and passes all health and genetic testing we will schedule breedings for the dog.
Female guardian dogs will come to our home about a week before they're due and stay here for about 7 weeks while they take care of their puppies and then ween them after the puppies move to our puppy room. After the puppies are weened the mother returns to her Guardian Family and back to the normal dog life.
Male guardian dogs are called upon as needed. If they need to stay at our home it is only for a few nights at a time. The breeding schedule of a dam in our program is much more predictable than the schedule of a stud. Studs are called upon on short-notice depending on when the paring female is ovulating.
Being a Guardian has many advantages but isn't for everyone. We pay all breeding related expenses for our guardian dogs and the guardian family covers all regular health, care and ownership costs. We require Guardian Families to have a yard with a physical fence to mitigate the risk of accidental pregnancies or injury. To be a Guardian Family you must live within a reasonable distance of Bernese Boutique in Waukesha, WI or our vet in Lomira, WI. As a Guardian you are ultimately responsible for bringing us the breeding dog when needed, but we are always more than happy to help with pickups and deliveries if needed. We love to receive pictures, videos and updates from every puppy we send home but from our Guardian Families this is a must. It's important for us know how our dogs are doing and share updates about our program and dogs on our Social channels on a regular basis. Guardian Families become an extension of our program and brand. It's not unusual for our Guardian Families to become close friends and our biggest fans.
A commitment to crate training and enforcing good house manners is necessary from our Guardian Families. Although we don't think a dog should spend its life in a crate we recognize there are times it is necessary to crate a dog for many reasons. The rhythm of our house is to crate our dogs at night and when no one is home. We want to ensure that when a guardian dog is staying with us they won't be stressed-out by being in a crate. Becky will work with you to help you crate train your dog and solidify good house manners; and is available ongoing for any dog-related question.
When your dog is staying at Bernese Boutique we will keep you updated with pictures and videos. Additionally, and this seems to be the best thing about being a Guardian Family if you ask the families that have children, Guardian Families are invited to meet, play with and snuggle their dog's puppies before the puppies go home.
We view Guardian Families as an extension of our family and value the relationships greatly. We couldn't do this without the support of our guardian network. Guardian families receive a perfectly-precious puppy from us to love as their own and we have the peace of mind knowing our breeding dogs are well cared for and loved. When a guardian dog is retired from our program full ownership of the dog is transferred to the guardian.