About Our Dogs
Our dogs live in our home as beloved members of our family, and they also spend time with our extended family at various times throughout the year when they are not being bred. All of them have been raised in our home since puppy-hood, some of them since birth. Our lives completely revolve around their well-being (physically, mentally, and emotionally), and we take pride in each and every one of them. Our dogs have free-run of our home (and puppy room when there are no litters present), and they have access to our fully fence back-yard. All of our dogs are kennel trained for sleeping ONLY, they are NEVER housed or confined in cages other than for sleeping purposes. Also, living on a farm gives us the opportunity for long walks around the property either on leash or off leash.
DOGGIE HEALTH:
Providing excellent quality care for our dogs is at the top of our priorities. All of our breeding dogs receive their annual health check up and vaccinations. Prior to breeding, all of our dogs receive a full health exam to make sure that they are in excellent condition, and you can click HERE to read about what that entails.
Mental and emotional health is just as important as physical health. We strive to create a home environment for our dogs that is conducive to natural play time, adequate exercise, mental stimulation, and each dog is loved for their own unique personality and needs. For days when it is too wet/cold/hot to be outside long enough to obtain proper exercise for our dogs -- we have a treadmill for them to walk/run on and they love it!
Proper nutrition is very important! Click HERE to see what we feed our dogs!
Breeding our dogs is not something that we take lightly -- it is always carefully thought out and planned. We try to pair our dogs in a way that will compliment each other and our waiting lists are designed so that each one of our females completely skips over one whole heat cycle to allow rest. Taking into account each female's natural fluctuations of their heat cycles, each one will typically have a minimum of 10-12 months between litters after skipping one cycle! We will NEVER ever breed back-to-back cycles UNLESS advised by our VETERINARIAN to do so for one of the two following reasons:
1. Back-to-back for a female's final litter before retirement in the event that Pyometra is determined to be a risk for that female. Pyometra is a potentially fatal infection of the uterus that can be common in older unspayed females regardless of breed, size, or health.
2. A vet will also sometimes advise to breed back-to-back in order to "break up" females who are syncing up their cycles and the pattern of when they have their puppies needs to be changed in order to give a larger time-span between litters being born. And again, to avoid Pyometra in this situation, as the only other alternative is to skip two cycles which might put a female at undue risk of Pyometra.
Our females are not bred past their 6th year (some retire much earlier, each female is different and needs to be treated accordingly) and depending on their birth month -- breeding them 10-12 months after their last whelp can put them closer to 7 years instead of reasonably close to 6 years. All breeding is done under veterinarian advise, there are NO exceptions on this matter, we will skip a cycle to allow rest 90% of the time for the well-being of each of our females! It is very important to us that our girls are able to rest and rejuvenate between litters and to simply have time to "be a dog"! In the event that our veterinarian advises breeding a female back-to-back, it would ONLY be done if the female has COMPLETELY recovered from her previous pregnancy in weight and overall health and the number of litters that female has in the future would be reduced for an earlier retirement.
All of our dogs also receive regular massages/adjustments (as needed) by a certified equine and canine massage therapist to keep them in top form, it is especially relaxing for our our females to get a massage since they do carry puppies for two months out of each year and then give birth!
OUR BREEDING DOGS and STANDARDS:
When choosing a breeding dog -- HEALTH and TEMPERAMENT -- are the most important things to us. We have a mixture of registered dogs with papers, and dogs without papers. Whether our breeding dogs come with papers or not there are some key things we look for before we even consider adding them to our breeding program:
- must come from pure healthy lines
- be raised in a clean healthy environment
- both the parents and the puppy must have a good temperament
We breed firstly for HEALTH, secondly for TEMPERAMENT, and thirdly for the BREED STANDARD!
You can read about each one of our dogs on their doggie profile pages under "Our Dogs". We list their weight, height, their health screenings, and a little about each one of our precious canines. The weights are updated on a regular basis, as they grow, etc. All of our breeding dogs are either health screened through Canine Health Check (by Paw Print Genetics) OR they are Cleared By Parentage which means that because their parents (and sometimes as far back as their great grandparents) have tested CLEAR for disease they cannot "become" affected.
We do want each of our dogs to conform to breed standards, but specifically with the hybrid breeds there is no set standard as there are two available gene pools for a Cavapoo (or any other hybrid) to draw from when two purebred dogs are crossed. With our purebred dogs we adhere as close to the breed standard as possible -- sometimes it's like predicting how tall your own child will grow and he/she exceeds your own height. Even a dog that comes from a line of champions can grow that extra inch taller or weigh that extra pound or two! A healthy family pet is the most important thing to us!
Dogs that come with papers or an extensive pedigree do NOT guarantee good health! In fact, in some cases it's the complete opposite because it's an all-too-common practice for SOME breeders to do what is called "line-breeding" (related animals bred together to supposedly retain certain traits)! It is up to the breeder, and something we at Pleasant Meadows do everything humanly possible to achieve, to start with good healthy breeding dogs that are not related, so that we can do everything in our power to sell healthy puppies.
Every breed of dog comes with it's own set of potential health problems (please do your research!) -- and you can visit our BREED HISTORY page for more about the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Miniature Poodle, and the Cavapoo hybrid.
We sell all of our puppies with a 2 year genetic health guarantee, and they will have a full health examination (at 8 weeks) before leaving Pleasant Meadows. And they will also come with a puppy starter pack to help them get established in your home!
At Pleasant Meadows, we believe the that the "proof is in the puppies". As breeders, we can do everything humanly possible on our end in selecting healthy dogs and have veterinary confirmed healthy dogs, but it is important to us as responsible breeders that if any health situations were to arise in your puppy that you contact us immediately so that we can take appropriate action. Every dog breeder out there in the world in some respect or another is relying on another breeder's word or their vet's word that their dogs are healthy -- public feedback from puppy purchasers is one of the best ways to verify a healthy line. A vet can verify that a dog is healthy, but health issues can arise from generations back, so it is vital that if something shows up in one of our puppies we need to know about it immediately in order to maintain healthy lines.
We are very proud of the fact that, to this date, NO genetic health issues have ever been reported in any of our puppies!! (from 2011 to present day)
Our main focus is breeding dogs that will make excellent family pets for all ages. The reason we have chosen to breed the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Cavapoo, and the Miniature Poodle is so that everyone who loves the purebred Cavaliers can get a quality dog, and anyone with allergies who loves the Cavalier can still have the same spunky, happy-go-lucky dog in the Cavapoo; also if you have severe allergies then the Poodle might be a good choice for you!