Specializing in Beautiful & Stunning European Bernedoodle Puppies

Both Chris and Sharon grew up with dogs, and their parents were instrumental in fostering a love for these incredible animals at a very young age and have continued to be blessed to have a wonderful dog loving family.  We had our first litter 32 years ago (AKC golden retrievers) and then made the jump to bernedoodles due to our love for standard poodles and bernese mountain dogs but looking for a non-to-low-shedding mixed dog breed to work with. Sharon and I have been married for 34 years (as of 2023) and have 11 amazing kids (and 11 grand kids) that we homeschool or have homeschooled (Brianna and our son-in-law Ben, a high school math teacher, live in Ohio and have 4 kids, Brenden is in the Army and is a K9 police officer and rising in the ranks and married to Kara, who finished her Wildlife Management degree at Clemson University. Kara is a Great Dane breeder (Legacy Danes) and her and Brenden has 3 kids. Brogan served in the AirForce after college and worked as a state trooper and now serves as a police officer in the Greenville County Sheriffs Office. Brogan is married to Meredith and they have two sons and have our original boy Bernese mountain dog Ryder who is still going strong.  Brooke played a big role in helping to get our bernedoodle program off the ground and is married to Abe and live in Ohio.  Brooke and Abe have two children and Brooke is spearheading our minibernedoodle project.  The rest of the gang enjoy life as homeschoolers doing school and playing high school and club and college soccer, skateboarding, hiking, fishing, and anything else outdoors.  We love hanging out with our dogs and just goofing around.  Because of our lifestyle as homeschoolers, we are always at home and have all of our dogs with us in our home.  This means that we have the unique opportunity to be with our puppies as well, your puppies, 24/7 which assures close monitoring, learning their personalities, socializing them to lots of kids of different ages, giving them a family-based environment, and getting them used to being in a crate.  We also start exposing them to basic commands during the first 8 weeks (sit, down, stay and come, as well as potty commands) as they learn really fast and inherit the intelligence gene from the poodles. We also complete the bio-sensor program with all of our puppies who also go thru a Puppy Culture program and an additional program we use to get crate training and housebreaking started (see link above for more information about this program).

 

Dr. Chris Carmichael has a B.S. degree in Zoology from Eastern Illinois University, M.S. degree in Biology from Central Michigan University (worked with his major advisor, Dr. Jim Gillingham, on an animal behavior project with the tuatara in New Zealand through a research grant his major advisor obtained from the National Geographic), and a Ph.D. degree in Biology/Animal Behavior (with a research tool developed in molecular genetics) from The University of Southern Mississippi and worked with his major advisor, Dr. Brian Kreiser, on a project looking at patterns of geographic variation in various Indonesian pythons using behavioral, morphological and molecular character states.  Dr. Carmichael has published much of his work in various scientific journals and textbook chapters and still actively pursues behavioral research. Dr. Chris is a Professor of Biology (Animal Behavior, Ecology, Zoology) and the Head Women's Soccer Coach at Bob Jones University (dually affiliated with NCAA DIII and NCCAA DI) where in 12 years he has won 6 National Championships and has been awarded the 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2023 NCCAA Regional Coach of the Year and the NSCAA and NCCAA National Coach of the Year in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2023. His teams have been consistently awarded the All-Academic Team Award by NSCAA (for maintaining a team grade point average of 3.4 or higher, in our team, we have been consistently 3.5 or higher) and the NSCAA College Team Ethics & Sportsmanship Award in 2015, 2016, 2017 & 2018 which is given to just a handful of universities throughout the USA. His ability to lead championship teams has also helped him to build a program that produces high quality Premier Bernedoodles that are exceptional in every way.  A Premier Bernedoodle is a hybrid that we produce from very carefully researched and selected bloodlines of Standard Poodles and Bernese Mountain Dogs.  We select for beautiful conformation, sturdiness, but mostly super friendly and jolly personalities and intelligence.  We want to only produce Premier Bernedoodles that will be a real joy to their newly adopted families.  Dr. Chris has also spent many years teaching his students how to train dogs as a component in his upper level Animal Behavior classes he teaches besides his own personal dog training he has done for many years. He has also collaborated on classes taught at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in Zoo Management.   He was a former Zoo Keeper at Brookfield Zoo working with the legendary Ray Pawley in the Reptile House and as a swing keeper where he got to interact with baby gorillas and as a Curatorial Advisor at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and helped in the RainForest exhibit.  Although Chris considers his professional life as a hobby that he really enjoys, he is also an accomplished acoustic and electric guitarist and bassist and plays in his church's contemporary worship band.

 

His wife Sharon attended Eastern Michigan University and Central Michigan University (where we met) and was raised with horses and dogs her whole life and plays a hugely important role in our breeding and training program and helps in the early training of our puppies.  Our puppies are partly housebroken and crate trained by the time they leave our home at 8 weeks of age and have been very well socialized with people...lots of people and other dogs as well.  We have already started some basic command familiarity (sit, down, stay, come, and two potty commands for #1 and #2).  The puppies are exposed to different aged kids throughout the day and we are with our puppies 24/7.  They are very well socialized when they leave our home. Sharon is the primary person that helps with delivery of the puppies and sleeps with them around the clock to make sure each one is nursing well and gaining weight.  My son Brenden and Kara breed Great Danes and you can find them at www.legacydanes.com.  They breed for beautiful colors and patterns and temperament.  All of their Danes are AKC registered.   If you're ever in the market for one of the best Danes in the market place look no further. They are absolutely stunning. 

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Most importantly we have peace, love, joy, grace and mercy that only comes thru our relationship with Jesus Christ...we are born again Christians and although not perfect, not even close, we do try to run our breeding program based on these biblical principles.  We truly love our furry kiddos and they are an important part of our home life.  John 3:16 says "For God so Loved the World, that whosoever (that's all of us) shall believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life."  Biblical faith and salvation is a matter of faith in Jesus Christ....we ask for His forgiveness of our sins (past, current and future), and by doing so, are born again.  We then spend the rest of our lives trying not to screw up but do!   We are not better than anybody else except that we have assurance of our salvation thru Jesus Christ (as we repent directly to Him of our sins and ask for His forgiveness) as He died on the cross for sins, took our punishment, so that we could be seen righteous in the eyes of God.  This is justification.  Sanctification is what we as Christians go thru the rest of our lives as we try to live biblically.  Something humans tend to screw up pretty badly as well.  Never hesitate to ask us for prayer or if you have questions we would count it a privilege to talk more about this.