My love of Rottweilers began at a young age when I was first introduced to the book, “Good Dog Carl”. I fell in love and later researched the breed tirelessly, only to confirm that I wanted a Rottweiler to always be part of my family.
While I spent great lengths of time researching dog breeds, training ideas and basically anything dog related, Troy was researching animal nutrition. In 2007, he completed his Ph.D., and we were finally able to get our first family dog.
Troy's unfamiliarity to Rottweilers made him a bit hesitant to own one without being better informed. We looked at many dogs and discussed the pro and cons with each one, but when we met our sweet puppy Cooper, a Bullmastiff/Boxer, we were in love and we knew instantly he needed to be ours, we had 12 1/2 awesome years with him as a loyal part of our family, he passed away November 2019.
Although we loved Cooper when he joined our family, I still wanted a Rottweiler and our family felt we had more love to give. So, Troy began learning more about the breed and in 2008 our first beloved Rottweiler, Roxee, joined our family; she was a handful and we loved her dearly! I remember as I would walk my two power breed dogs nicely by my side, many people were intimidated, but I also heard many people tell me how much they loved that I was being a great breed ambassador and example of positive powerful breed ownership. These comments stuck with me and began to be a source of pride and purpose to me.
Unfortunately, Roxee was the result of irresponsible breeding which led to a life of health and behavior problems. She passed away much too young, due to cancer. This experience with her gave us firsthand experience of the importance of responsible breeding.
After Roxee, our first Rottweiler, passed away, our family life felt incomplete without a Rottweiler in our home.
Despite the difficulties we encountered with her, we loved her loyalty, protection, playfulness that lasted her whole life and the deep loving companionship and connection that she, as a Rottweiler, had with us.
A few months later we began our search for the next Rottie to join our family. We had a much better idea of what to look for from a responsible breeder and temperament of a puppy for our family and when we found our sweet girl, Josie, we knew we had found our perfect fit.
Right away I could tell that she was different, in addition to the qualities that Roxee had, Josie's temperament was calm, eager to please, and obedient with just the right amount of Rottie sass and goofiness to keep us on our toes and laughing!
I started training her right away and she eagerly took to everything I asked her to do, the more she pleased me, the happier she was! She is happiest when she is making others happy or better yet laugh (her very favorite thing!)! She has in incredible innate ability to comfort when needed and is simply a devoted, faithful companion who goes everywhere she can with me.
Josie's companionship and love of life has opened doors and created many new experiences for me. Her sweet disposition and happiness is ultimately the reason for starting our breeding program. Her temperament is calm, confident and happy, she's eager to please and is really nothing short of amazing! She most definitely has changed my life; her nuturing heart truly loves her puppies and instills this love in them, to teach them and change the lives of their forever families too!
Josie's calm and loving temperament naturally led me to start training her to be an ESA to help ease anxiety and depression for me and my daughters. While this was not something that was essential for us, her capacity to understand and respond individually is absolutely amazing and benefits and improves our lives.
I have been in awe at what she has been able understand and her capability of responding appropriately, it took very little training to help her learn how to help us.
It was through this ESA process that I really decided that I wanted to begin our breeding program. I know there is an incredible need in this world for the kind of love that Josie is able to give to us personally. It was through this training process I found my own personal passion as I discovered Josie's purpose and joy in serving and loving.
As I observe and encourage Josie, her sense of loyalty, intelligence, and ability to love continues to grow and develop, along with her natural-yet gentle-protective instinct. She has an amazing ability to assess situations with caution and as she matures she continues to learn to trust me to help her decipher appropriate responses.
Josie loves everyone and everything she meets, but her loyalty lies with her family and those she knows and trusts first and foremost. These qualities are what I feel sets a Rottweiler apart from other breeds and makes for an ideal family companion or service animal.
As ESA training with Josie progressed, I discovered that not only did she live for loving us, but she genuinely enjoyed meeting new people and making them smile. Seeing her joy in serving others is when I realized that her purpose is more than just giving love to our family, Josie has so much more to give!
I researched and found a therapy program, Intermountain Therapy Animals that aligned perfectly with my personal values and I got to work training, along-side Josie, to become a therapy team, this meant putting aside our official ESA work and focusing on therapy training. In January 2019 Josie and I and proudly became a registered therapy team! We currently visit the Salt Lake International airport regularly to provide travelers with much needed stress relief. We also visit special events throughout the year for businesses, schools and specialized programs. Josie thrives as a therapy dog and couldn’t be happier out visiting and spreading happiness to those she meets!
Disconcertedly, what I began to notice as we starting taking her into more diverse public settings is that there were far too many people with incredible misinformation about the amazing Rottweiler breed. I encountered so many individuals who always said things like, “She’s so sweet, I thought Rottweilers were supposed to be mean.”
These comments break my heart, and I always kindly answer that there is a lot of misinformation out there and that I'm happy that Josie is able to help show the true nature of Rottweilers!
These encounters solidified the single most important goal of our breeding program, which is to breed healthy and happy Rottweilers with sweet temperaments that are ready to give, serve, and love.
All dressed and ready to go! Josie loves getting her scarf on and into her “uniform”
After the passing of Cooper in 2019, our home felt much too empty and very quickly we brought darling Maverick home. We all immediately fell in love with his crazy spirit, fun energy and his lovable soul. He keeps us laughing all day, is extremely smart and athletic, he‘s inherently protective, loves fiercely and has a huge, exuberant personality that cannot be ignored!
Maverick just passed his health testing in 2022 and is all set to be our sire for our future litters.
From our December 2021, we were finally able to keep one of our own puppies!! Wynnie, formerly Molly Ringwald, is everything we had hoped and waited for with her sweet, happy disposition. She is full of sass just like her mama Jos and hasn't met a single human who isn't her immediate best friend!
Our hope is to have her be our next breeding mama, but as always, there are many steps to go through before we'll know if she will be a good breeding candidate. She has been the absolute happiest addition to our family!!
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