Welcome to Adventure Kanyon, a new blog that follows the journey of my new puppy, Kanyon, through puppy training, adolescence (and all the challenges that might come with it), and then life ever after. Kanyon is a Bernese Mountain Dog puppy who comes home in just a few days. His official registered name will be Snowbiz Winter Kanyon.

Kanyon is coming from a breeder in North Carolina – the same breeder that I got my previous Berner puppy from. I chose this breeder again because my previous Berner – Kodiak – was amazing and I am looking for a temperamentally stable dog to join our family.

For those of you who don’t know who I am, I’ll offer a brief introduction as it might pertain to Kanyon’s life with us. My name is Jamie, and I own and operate Laughing Dogs Daycare as well as Playful Pets Retail Store, both located in Lake Mills, WI. I share my life with my husband Tim, and our three other dogs: Lacey (a beautiful white Great Pyrenees), Lyra (Lacey’s daughter and 50% Great Pyrenees, 50% Saint Bernard Mix), and Legend (an English Springer Spaniel). Lacey and Lyra were rescued from Big Dogs Huge Paws rescue out in Colorado, and Lyra was born in rescue with a wonderful foster mom who took care of Lacey and her litter until they were ready to go home. I’ll share the story of how I ended up with both girls another time. Legend came from a breeder relatively local to us, and he is Tim’s hunting companion.

In this blog, I’ll share stories and anecdotes about all kinds of dog-related things, in addition to the adventures that Kanyon and I share together. The purpose of the blog is to document my puppy-raising process for those who may want to follow or gather some information for their own puppy journey. But more importantly, on a personal level, this is a way for me to document life with my dogs – a journal, if you will – so that I can save the memories to look back on whenever I choose to do so. I have enjoyed the presence of some amazing dogs in my life, and I wish I had documented those journeys better for myself in the past.

So, feel free to follow along. There may be some things you disagree with along the way. I may share some things that you might find to be a little more “woo-woo” than you would like (for example, I have done some complementary medicine with my dogs, and have worked with animal communicators and have dabbled in communication with my dogs and I may share some of that here). I may share some really tough experiences – a behavioral euthanasia, a medical euthanasia, the agonizing decisions that go into making these tough calls for our animals, injuries or illnesses, and a whole host of other things that might come up as part of sharing life with dogs. If any of this makes you uncomfortable at any point, it is very much OK to choose to stop following along. I will not be offended.

This is really just the journey of one woman and her dogs. I enjoy the luxury of having gone through a training program for dog training, I own a facility in which I get to experience the joys and challenges of working with dogs on a daily basis, and as of this coming Thursday, I will be journeying in this place and time with four furry members of my family. Do I know it all? Of course not – it would be unwise for any professional, in any field, to assume they know everything there is to know about their industry. But I know a fair amount, and to the extent that I can share with you without doing any harm, I am happy to do so.