We are an active family with four kids that love animals and the outdoors. We share our lives with dogs, Horses, a huge bunny, and a fish. We are blessed to live in the land of 10,000 lakes in Minnesota! There are many lakes and trails right out of our back door, for all of us to play on.
I am a Certified Professional Dog Trainer and have trained dogs for obedience, therapy, and hunting. Some fun experiences include volunteering at sled dog races. The Race To The Sky, in Ovando, Montana, and the John Bear Grease, in Minnesota. Both races are qualifying races for the Alaskan Iditarod! The dog athletes were amazing to watch!
My own personal dogs have consisted of mixed breed rescues, a Lhasa Apso, a Labrador, Wheaton Terrier, Small Munsterlander (hunter and therapy), an Italian Spinone (Hunter), Anatolian Shepherd, DDR Shepherd (Trained therapy) and finally, Australian Cobberdogs (training for therapy and patiently waiting for Covid restrictions to ease).
How We Found Cobberdogs
My first love (and even my first word) was "dog". As a child, I read every dog book I could get my hands on. These were not story books. I read dog breed books, scientific books, books on how to train dogs. Everything important to me, was dog related. After watching the movie Love Leads the Way, about a dog trained for a man that was blind, I knew I wanted to train dogs to help people. Years later, I attending the Master Training Course at National K9 in Columbus, Ohio. My goal was to train service dogs and possibly work for Guide Dogs for the Blind in Boring, Oregon. I never went to Oregon to train, I ended up staying in Minnesota and training dogs from my home. My most rewarding experience was training "Abby" for Confidence Learning Center in Baxter, MN. Abby was trained in both verbal and hand signals. This allowed children, and adults, of various capabilities, to be able to communicate effectively with Abby. It was so sweet to see Abby's impact on all who met her! For me, this was what it was all about!
Eventually, family life got busy, and training took the backseat. But as my children grew, and I met other moms, I realized there are so many struggles that kids are experiencing these days! Anxiety and depression have skyrocketed. And the cases of kids on the Autism Spectrum has reached about 1 in 54 kids according to the CDC. This broke my heart, and my long desired goal to help people, through the unconditional love of dogs, was rekindled.
Unfamiliar with the use of dogs in relation to Autism, I began to research if there was a possibility of a dog helping in certain situations. What I found was encouraging! I read stories of kids being calmed by dogs in public, and even stories of children with little-to-no emotional responses, that showed great improvement with a calm-natured dog!
My search began for a breed that was an all around great family dog, that also had potential to be suitable for various therapeutic situations. I found the Australian Cobberdog! The Australian Cobberdog was specifically bred with characteristics suitable for family and therapy.
We received our first female, Rylie, from Spring Hills in Australia and quickly fell in love. She was exactly how the breed was described. She is calm in nature, connects deeply, and is a quick learner! We were so thrilled to have found this breed! We quickly adopted Ruby, our 2nd female from Tegan's Australian Cobberdog; the co-founder of the breed. Followed by our stud, Tegans Dream Chaser aka "Chase".
We are so proud to be breeding these wonderful animals. The hard work that the founding breeders have done by combining certain characteristics and traits, and protecting those traits through careful testing and breeding, is superb! We continue to build on their hard work and have been blessed to see the impact that these dogs have had in the lives of others.
