The Best Goldendoodle Breeder in Oregon
From Portland to Bend, Why We’re the Top Goldendoodle Breeder in Oregon
In case you didn’t know it, Goldendoodles are amazing.
If you’re looking to buy a Goldendoodle puppy these days, the options are daunting. A brief search of either Facebook or Instagram yields almost infinite results of available Goldendoodle puppies for sale.
The breeder’s pages look charming, and say all the right words. However, there are not only a lot of puppy scams out there, but a lot of puppy mills along with “health-tested” parents that are not required to meet particular health-testing standards.
On top of both Facebook and Instagram, other forums like Craigslist and Classifieds also have a ton of Goldendoodle puppies for sale. With all of these options, how do you know what to trust? Are you okay with just believing what the breeder says about health-testing and early socialization?
While there are many Goldendoodle breeders throughout Oregon, High Desert Family Doodles stands in a category all by itself.
From Gresham to Bend, we are the only Goldendoodle Breeder in Oregon to be both a member of the Goldendoodle Association of North America, Gooddog.com, and an Empowered Breeder certified Puppy Evaluator.
Each of these organizations have particular standards and trainings that breeders have to meet in order to receive their stamp of approval, that way potential Goldendoodle puppy parents can trust in what the Goldendoodle breeder stands for.
So lets take some time going through each of these organizations standards, and why we believe these contribute to making High Desert Family Doodles the top Goldendoodle Breeder in Oregon.
Members of the Goldendoodle Association of North America
With so many available Goldendoodle puppies available throughout Portland, Salem, Eugene, and Bend Oregon, how does someone choose where to find their puppy?
An important starting place is to make sure that a perspective Goldendoodle breeder has an endorsement through a third party that requires their Goldendoodle parents to get the right health-testing.
That is why we’re a member of GANA, the Goldendoodle Association of North America. GANA is the authority on Goldendoodles, and the largest and most relevant Goldendoodle breed club around, particularly in Oregon.
GANA maintains high testing standards for any GANA breeder members. First, GANA requires that breeders confirm the breed of their prospective Goldendoodle parents through either an AKC registration or an Embark/Wisdom panel in order to be registered with GANA. This ensures that every Goldendoodle bred by GANA-registered parents will be a hybrid of Golden Retrievers and Poodles.
GANA also requires that our Golden Doodle parents pass a variety of health-screenings in order to qualify for breeding. GANA has different tiers - or badges - that they give based on the how much the breeder health-tests. Currently, High Desert Family Doodles is a top tier “gold badge” GANA Goldendoodle breeder in Oregon.
In order to qualify, the doodles need to be genetically tested for relevant disorders, such as DM and PRA. If any of their dogs carry one of these traits, they must be bred to a clear dog to prevent these diseases.
Breeders also must get their hips, elbow, and sometimes patellas x-rayed, reviewed, and graded by particular organizations to ensure a passing score. Due to our location, we have to drive ninety minutes to a certified vet that can preform these tests. The Goldendoodle parents also need to pass a heart and biennial eye test in order to get the top ranking; we have to sometimes drive three hours to do this testing, but it’s an important standard to keep.
GANA provides significant resources, training, and mentoring for their breeder members, in order to help them learn from each other and hopefully avoid any pitfalls in their road to be the ethical Goldendoodle breeders.
Part of the Gooddog.com Team
Along with being a GANA member, High Desert Family Doodles is also a member of Gooddog.com. Good Dog is a connection point for top tier breeders and prospective puppy parents. Their mission is to ensure that dogs have better beginnings and increased welfare throughout their lives. They pursue this through transparency and research into the crossroads of responsible breeding practices, updated veterinary medicine, and wise legal and organizational counsel. While there are a few five dollar words there, the overall picture is that Good Dog wants dogs to flourish, and does what they can to ensure that.
Much like GANA, a breeder must preform relevant breed health testing - both genetically and physically - in order to be a Good Dog member. Good Dog then gives a breeder a particular classification based on how much health-testing is done. Like GANA, High Desert Family Doodles received the top classification of Excellent Health Testing Standards for our Goldendoodles.
Good Dog also interviews and vets breeders to make sure they’re maintaining responsible breeding practices. For instance, “how frequently are dams bred?” and “how many times is a dam bred?” are questions that they ask, because they offer insights into a programs standards.
Good Dog also offers some invaluable tools and resources for their members, such as the Avidog breeder training program, which is a science driven approach to canine pregnancy, whelping, and development that we use with our Goldendoodle puppies.
On top of all this, Good Dog also offers a payment platform for breeders and puppy seekers to use. It feels somewhat like puppy escrow; it’s a neutral third party in this transaction that can offer protection to each side from some sketchy things.
We are proud to be a part of Good Dog, and feels like it’s another important part of what makes High Desert Family Doodles the top Goldendoodle breeder in Oregon.
An “Empowered Breeder”
Along with being a GANA and Gooddog.com member, we have completed the Empowered Badass Breeder curriculum. This curriculum focuses on canine pregnancy, whelping, and raising puppies safely, healthy, and with puppies wellbeing in mind.
These courses aim to equip breeders with information and practices that have been honed over decades through using both practice and science, such as Early Neurological Stimulation and Early Scent Introduction. These practices help us as goldendoodle breeders with keeping our mommas, papas, and puppies safe and flourishing. Developed by 4E kennels out of Nevada, this curriculum offers insight in important pregnancy and puppy develop milestones, along with valuable diet information so that everyone is getting the nutrients they need.
This EBB curriculum also trains breeders on temperament/demeanor testing. This helps us understand our puppies individual personalities even more, so that we can offer insight, feedback, and encouragement to our puppy purchasers when they are wondering which Goldendoodle is best for them.
We Rest Our Case as the Top Goldendoodle Breeder in Oregon
So in this sea of Goldendoodle puppies, what would help you discern a trustworthy and reliable breeder, that starts with healthy parents, strives to breed responsibly, and excellently raise their Goldendoodle puppies in the short but important time they have with them?
You’d want people and organizations that you trust to approve, support, and refer a reputable, responsible, and remarkable breeder to you.
High Desert Family Doodles has that support that sets us apart not just in Oregon, but in the Pacific Northwest and West Coast. We are the only Goldendoodle breeder in the West that is a top tier GANA and Gooddog.com member along with being a certified Empowered Badass Breeder.
On top of this, we use other resources and curriculums in our training, raising, and whelping, such as Puppy Culture, Avidog, Baxter and Bella, and Gungho Dog Training.
On top of all of this, we were named as one of Oregon’s Top 5 Ethical Goldendoodle Breeders by doodledoods.com.
While there are always breeders that have bred Goldendoodles longer, have a larger facility, or whelp more puppies in a year, no other Goldendoodle breeder in Oregon has the level and number of organizations standing behind them than High Desert Family Doodles.
That’s why we’re confident that we are the top Goldendoodle breeder in Oregon.
Please reach out if you have any questions or thoughts on Goldendoodles, as we deeply desire to help everyone out who is curious about these beautiful hybrids, regardless of whether you get a puppy from us or not.
We look forward to hopefully hearing from you,
Erin and Jay