How can I get on your waitlist?

The first step is submitting an application. The application includes a TON of adoption information that will likely answer many of the questions you may have about our program and adoption process. Once your application is received, Jessica (breeder) will reach out to schedule your phone interview. This interview allow us to collect more information that we use to pair each family with the right dog and gives potential puppy buyers (you!) more time to ask questions. After these steps are completed, families are welcome to submit a deposit to get on our Master Waitlist. WE DO NOT TAKE DEPOSITS WITHOUT HAVING A PHONE INTERVIEW. 

 

Do I get to pick which litter I will adopt my puppy from?

The short answer, is yes! The long answer, is sort of. We function off of one Master Waitlist. When you submit your deposit, it is a two step process. The first deposit secures your spot on the master waitlist. The second half of your deposit is paid when you decide which litter you would like to adopt a puppy from. The nice part of having one Master list is that you get to dictate when you come off of the list! This is beneficial for families because if certain litters don’t take and there is one that is available sooner, you have the flexibility to choose a puppy from a different litter than you initially indicated/desired. When we begin filling a litter, we start with the first family on the waitlist and reach out to every family in order until the litter is filled. Sometimes this process can take a while and we may only reach out the first handful of families, and sometimes we work through the entire waitlist to fill one litter! We try to give our families a GENERAL idea of when they will anticipate adopting from us prior to taking the initial deposit. 

 

How do you accept payments?

For deposits, we accept Venmo and Credit Card payments. Since this is never done over the computer prior to "meeting" in our phone interview, this is done via the breeder and not available on the website anywhere. The final payment (remainder minus the deposit paid) is due on Homecoming Day when families come to pick up their puppy. Only cash or credit card (CC plus 3.5%) are accepted at pick up. Unfortunately, checks (even Cashier's) can too easily be fraudulent and other forms of payment such as Venmo/PayPal can be reversed by the buyer at a later date. For these reasons, we can only accept Cash or CC at pick up. 

 

Do you have available pups?

Most litters are filled with families on our waitlist, but occasionally we have puppies available for adoption. If there is a puppy that is available, we will post him/her on our Facebook page as well as here on the website on the Puppies page. If you do not see puppies listed in either of those locations, we do not currently have any puppies available for adoption. 

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Where is your pricing information located?

We intentionally leave put our pricing information in our application, because we've found "window shoppers" do not typically adopt and often miss out on the value of adopting from a reputable breeder. By putting ALL of our adoption information, including what added values you get when adding a CWB puppy, families can gather all the pertinent information, including price, in one centralized location. Anyone who has adopted before knows this all too well- there is so much more to consider when adding a dog to your life than just purchase price! We want families to know everything that adoption fee includes. 

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Why should I adopt from a breeder?

In a world with SO MANY available puppies, it's understandable that families will ask themselves why would they want to adopt a CWB puppy vs any other that they can find online. And that's a great question and one that I'm VERY proud of answering!

1. Healthier Puppies: Ethical breeders have stringent health testing and will only breed healthy dogs to produce healthy offspring. They raise their puppies indoors with adequate nutrition, in a clean space so they do not have underweight and sickly puppies.  Breeders also have the knowledge, financial means and desire to ensure ALL their puppies are properly dewormed, vaccinated, and seen by a licensed veterinarian prior to leaving their home. 

2. Top Notch Socialization: Breeders have a puppy-raising curriculum that sets their puppies (and their families) up for success in life! I may be bias, but I think our program is one of the best in this regard.  Our puppy curriculum begins when the puppies are 3 days old and builds into a comprehensive program that includes early sight, sound, and scent exposure and desensitization protocols. Each new object/exposure is a opportunity to help build confidence and give puppy the skills needed to not only adapt but also THRIVE in his/her new home. 

3. Community: At CWB, we offer our families a variety of ways to stay connected. Our main Facebook page is a place where everyone, including new and past adoptive families can interact, comment, and share updates/pictures. We do our best to be as transparent as possible by posting on our CWB page frequently with updates on our adult dogs, current litter and updates we receive from families post adoption. Most of our breeding dogs also have Instagram pages that families can follow and we love to follow back past CWB puppies! However we take this one step even farther and create a PRIVATE Facebook group for each litter we produce. In that private group, families can network with littermates' families and remain connected. We have families share the emotional and physical rollercoaster of adding a new puppy, sharing in the joys of potty training success and commiserating during those teething months! They bounce ideas off each other and have remained friends over the years, even meeting up for puppy play dates and staying connected over non-puppy related milestones. These relationships are one of my favorite parts about breeding- being welcomed into my families' lives and getting to know them on a personal level. This community is one that I take great pride in and my past puppy buyers would likely tell any new prospective family they feel the same way about the CWB family, as we like to call it. 

4. Breeder Support: When you buy from a breeder, that breeder should be there to help you 100% of the way and I can promise you I will do just that. From the minute you submit a deposit, I (Jessica) will be here to answer any questions you may have, help guide you through how to set up your home for the new puppy, when to vaccinate, at what age to do the spay/neuter surgery, what to do if puppy eats a sock, how to manage diarrhea, etc...the list goes on an on. I will always be here to help my families, regardless of time/circumstance. There is tremendous value in having a knowledgeable breeder who you can bounce ideas off of and come to for support. Too often, this attribute is undervalued and overlooked. 

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Can we come visit?

As much as I would love to welcome everyone into our home, sadly we are not able to allow home visits prior to coming to pick up your puppy. This is our home, not a pet store, and the logistics of coordinating those meet and greets has not been successful in the past. Our children keep us very busy, making scheduling very tricky and many of our adult dogs reside in guardian homes so they are not here for families to meet, unfortunately. We do our best to be as transparent as possible behind the scenes so that families can get to know us, our dogs and our puppies without ever having to "set foot" on site. All of our guardian dogs have their own Instagram pages (linked to in their bios on Our Dogs page) and we share updates of our own dogs on our main Facebook page as well. Puppy Homecoming is done at our home, so prospective puppy buyers will have the opportunity to meet us and our dogs when they come to pick up their puppy. 

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What health testing do you do?

All of our breeding dogs MUST pass stringent health testing prior to being used in our program. We start by running a full DNA analysis on our dogs as puppies. Embark is a comprehensive DNA test that looks at a variety of diseases for all breeds, and then often times breed specific testing is done in addition to Embark. Once our dogs are a year old, we do a cardiac and patellar examination and send out Preliminary OFA hips and elbows to ensure there is no hip or elbow dysplasia in the dog. We periodically check all our dogs Thyroid levels. Prior to being bred, our females have a full laboratory work up to ensure they are healthy to be bred and sustain a pregnancy. If at any point the dog is not healthy enough to be bred or we do not feel it is safe for the dog to remain in our program, we will skip that heat cycle or make the decision to retire the dog. All of our health testing is connected to the dog's Embark profile and linked to on Our Dogs page in their bios or is available by request. 

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What is a guardian home?

We utilize Guardian homes in order to keep the number dogs we have in our home at a reasonable number. Because our dogs are only actively in our breeding program for roughly 3 years, we place a number of our dogs with Guardians who receive the dog free of charge to love on for that dogs entire life! If it is a male dog in our program, he comes to visit when his stud services are needed and is more than happy to come visit often. ;) Our females come to stay with us when they whelp litters and are retired young, usually by the age of 3. All of our dogs are welcome to come stay with us when their guardians are away on vacation, which allow us time to bond with the dog as well. We couldn't be a successful program without our guardians, because the quality of life for all our dogs is a BIG priority for us! We want our dogs to live fulfilling, happy lives and our guardians are ambassadors in that mission and a huge part of the CWB team!

 

How can one avoid being scammed?

All too often I have someone reach out who lost their deposit to a scammer. Sadly there are WAY too many out there in today's world and they're getting better about looking legitimate at first glance. However, more often than not there are obvious red flags that should caution you before ever sending over a deposit or giving you the confidence necessary to trust a given breeder.

1. HUMAN CONTACT: The biggest red flag seems obvious to me but I am always blown away by the number of people who will submit a deposit online without ever having talked to the breeder. DO NOT EVER SEND MONEY WITHOUT TALKING TO THE BREEDER! If you talk to the breeder, ask A LOT OF QUESTIONS. Scammers do no like answering questions, because they don't have honest answers to give. Do your research and be informed. If they're legit, they will be willing to spend time walking you through all their answers. 

2. Social Media presence: So many times scammers steal pictures from a large number of breeders so their pictures do not coordinate and follow an entire litter. Do the pictures make sense? Do they have videos they can send you that are current/new by request? How many followers do they have on Facebook? Scamming pages are only going to have a small following. Sometimes they will even steal and re-use watermarked photos, so look around and see if it "looks right" and ask educated questions. 

3. Ask for references! If they have happy customers, those happy customers will be more than willing to tell you about their experience adopting through them! 

4. Transparency: This is a tricky one, because this encompasses home visits as well as how much information a breeder/scammer is willing to offer a potential buyer prior to purchasing the dog. Just because someone isn't allowed to come visit a person's home prior to pick up, that doesn't mean they're a scammer. (See my explanation above regarding home visits.)  HOWEVER, if that person wont allow a prospective puppy buyer to EVER come visit the breeding facility, THAT might be a red flag in some cases. Often times people use Brokers to sell dogs. Brokers are not breeders, but rather middle men, and likely have no invested interest in the health and well-being of the dog. If the puppy is coming from a breeder who does not want buyers to see their facilities/they are using a Broker, I would HIGHLY caution everyone who is looking one of their puppies to question "What else are they hiding?"

 

What breed is right for me?

Everyone has a different idea of what the right dog is for their lifestyle/family needs. I am more than happy to talk with my prospective families about the breeds that WE produce here and help them discern if a bernedoodle will be the right breed or not. From there I help families decide between the generational crosses, taking into consideration the desired size as well. I made a Facebook post discussing the basic differences between our F1 and F1B puppies. You can refer to that post by this link to our Facebook Page HERE.  

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Can I see some past CWB puppies?

I try my best to keep the website updated, but Facebook is easier to update on the go. As a fun giveaway, I asked families to share pictures of their past CWB puppies so new families can compare/gather pictures. You can refer to that post by this link to our Facebook Page HERE. 

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Why do we have to use Breeder specific foods and vitamins?

We offer a one year health guarantee on all our puppies against any testable genetic diseases and conditions. In order to ensure our puppies are able to develop properly, they must receive adequate nutrition. A well balanced diet starts with a quality dog food and is supplemented with a quality vitamin. I have spent countless hours researching foods and supplements that are SAFE and produced by reputable companies. In our program we feed our dogs and puppies a combination of TLC Dog Food and Royal Canin. We also feed a NuVet Plus Canin Wafer daily to all our puppies/dogs and add the NuVet Joint formulation to our Bernese dogs after they turn a year old. Like humans, dogs need supplements too and giving our puppies adequate nutrition throughout their lives, especially during their developmental years, is of utmost importance to me. Due to supply chain issues and boredom with being on one food at a time, we use both TLC and RC and encourage our families to do the same for at least the first year of puppy's life. If after a year of age families want to switch, that is ultimately their choice, but I have found that our families love these foods as much as we do! It is important to me that our families to have options, but having these products purchased through me as the breeder allows me the opportunity to track purchases in the rare event that an issue comes up with their puppy regarding the health guarantee. TLC and Nuvet are not sold in stores and RC has limited availability in some retailers, but we set all our families up with accounts to purchase DIRECT and TLC will always ship FREE. NuVet and RC offer quantity discounts that qualify for discounts.

 

How often do I get to see pictures of my puppy/litter and can I see extra pictures and videos of the puppies?

We take professional weekly photos of each litter individually and post those on Facebook. We also take regular candid photos from life in the nursery while puppies are developing and as they advance through our puppy curriculum. Our public Facebook page offers a variety of pictures and videos for everyone to enjoy, but after a family chooses to adopt from a specific litter, they go into a PRIVATE Facebook group with additional access to the litter. Once the puppies are around 3 weeks old, pictures and/or videos are shared almost daily to allow families to see the puppies grow and develop. Families that are not on Facebook, can have those same opportunities via text/Facetime/email by request!