Our first litter will be 4 years old next month. Time has flown by and I have gone from advertising on Craigslist to a waitlist of over 20. I am so grateful for the love that we have received. THANK YOU.

With this new attention, I have seen an increase in the amount of messages that I receive asking to come over and meet our dogs or play with puppies. I have also been surprised by a few random people that never even called me, they just showed up at my front door. Just to be clear, that is scary and I would never invite you in my house if you do that. The only downside to this home based business is that I don’t have an office or kennel outside our home for people to visit.

Unfortunately, it’s a sad product of our times that stranger danger is a real thing in today’s world, even for adults. I have tried my best to make everything about our lives and this business transparent but at some point I have to draw the line. Breeding dogs and selling what I consider to be my grandchildren is a different kind of business and I’m aware of that. I want to give people the opportunity to get to know us and see what we are about. I’m proud of the love and care that I show my dogs. I’m also married to a “personality” or an “influencer” so privacy isn’t always part of the package. I knew (mostly) what I was getting in to when my wedding announcement was a public YouTube video! As we grow and have more litters, with less down time in between, and as my husband’s business and fan base grows with 150,000+ subscribers watching him on YouTube and people seeing him on TV, I feel like I need to make some changes to way we have done things in the past. Here are just some of the reasons we no longer allow visits from people who are not yet on our reservation list.

1. Significant harm has come to people like breeders or real estate agents who work in home-type environments where unknown people are routinely invited in. Examples here, here, here, here and here
2. We have health concerns for the puppies, who are still developing their little immune systems and not yet protected by vaccinations and maturity. (People can inadvertently—or even intentionally—carry diseases in on their shoes, hands, and clothing.) Information about parvo and canine influenza
3. We have health concerns for our mothers. Activity and new people in the house are a significant source of stress for nursing moms. Stress produces cortisol and other stress hormones, and those hormones go into mom’s milk and directly into the puppies, causing biochemically induced stress in the puppies. This is not healthy for moms or pups. Stressed moms also can get frantic and accidentally roll on or step on puppies if they panic. This is obviously a concern for us.
4. Puppy theft is also a growing problem, so unknown traffic in our home endangers the safety of our puppies due to theft. So this means that seeing us or our parent dogs means that you are also seeing our home and any puppies we have. Examples here here and here
5. We are a real family, with a real life. We have home responsibilities and although we both work from home we are juggling other jobs and also rely on our home as a place we can relax and feel safe. Inviting strangers over on a regular basis is not conducive to a strong family life.
6. These puppies are also not ours to risk—they belong to the families that are taking them home and we are just their caretakers for a brief period of time.
7. We are happy to have our committed buyers over, after puppies are 4 weeks old, providing we don’t have any concerns about current disease outbreaks or any other similar biosafety or puppy/dog health concern.

We consider these concerns as indicative of our reputability as a breeder—the safety of our puppies, dogs, and family will always be placed above a potential sale.

I know I have said on my site in other posts that it is important to visit your breeder and see where the puppies are being raised. I still believe this to be true and still allow families of the current litter to come visit their puppy starting around four weeks old. Luckily, modern technology has a good solution for this modern problem. Videos and our Puppy Cam! Although we aren’t able to allow the general public to visit, we do provide a significant number of videos that show where and how our puppies are raised. If you search YouTube for PupsByTaylor you should find almost 150 videos from our daily snapchat stories. You will see and learn more about our program from these videos than you would from ten visits to our house. When we have puppies here I also have the Puppy Cam going 24/7 for you to watch and see puppies grow (if we have no puppies you were receive a message saying we are missing in action).

We encourage you to view these videos and give us a call to discuss any questions you may have. We also encourage you to check out our reviews on Facebook, as well as frequent posts on our Facebook page from very happy, satisfied families that have our puppies. If you just LOVE doodles and can’t get enough (I can totally relate) there is also a doodle meetup group that meets once a month in Seattle and they have over 1,500 members. They meet at a public park which would give you the opportunity to see the dogs play, maybe give them some pets and talk to owners.

We appreciate your understanding of our commitment to the safety of our puppies, dogs, and family.