When I was a little girl I had a Saint Bernard named Heidi. She was the best dog a family could ask for. Very protective and a “nanny” to my brother and I. She absolutely loved the Illinois winters where she could play in the snow. I remember my brother and I digging tunnels through the snow drifts. Heidi would plow right through them! It was so much fun having her as a pet. She was the most loving dog ever!

Years later, I’m married with kids. My husband decides he wants a dog. He’s always had dogs every since he was a young boy. But it had been a few months since we had one. He’s had small dogs and medium size dogs most of his life. His last two dogs were a golden retriever and a Bordie Collie/German Shepherd mix. This time, he wanted a big dog. You see, in this family, everything is “go big or go home” mentality. So this dog was going to have to be listed as a large breed dog. A dog that would protect the family and yet be great with kids. A loving dog. In my mind, there’s only one kind of dog that meets that description– the Saint Bernard.

Aiden Bear came into our lives, and we instantly fell in love with this puppy. He has so much personality! He keeps us entertained. And he takes his “nanny” job very seriously. Having him around has brought back so many memories from my childhood. It’s been amazing. Even the scent of his fur, takes me back to memories of Heidi. They smell the same!

But the journey didn’t stop there. Months down the road we joked that we should breed Saint Bernards. With Bear’s handsome colorings and sweet personality, we just knew he would make the perfect sire. Well, that joke became a reality a short time later. We told Bear we were going to get him a girlfriend. But we kept adding girlfriends. Today, we are proud parents of these AKC registered dogs: Bear, Nana, Autumn, Abigail, and Copper. And we absolutely love and adore our babies. It’s such an unique experience to see them grow, watch them interact as a pack, and notice their personalities. No two dogs are the same. Check out more details about each dog, by clicking on their links in the submenu above.

After people recover from the initial shock of telling them we have 5 beautiful babies, one of the first questions we get asked is, how much food do they eat? We usually comment that it’s equivalent to teenagers. It’s ever changing depending on their growth stage, their moods, their hormones, and even the weather. But on the average, we buy 3 bags of dog food, weighing 40-50 pounds each, a week! You read that correctly. I said week. And as they continue to grow and/or get pregnant, they’ll obviously eat more food. We also buy a bag of dog treats, weighing 20 pounds each, two times a month. But just look at those faces? Who could resist spoiling them? They melt this family’s heart, and well, we just can’t say no.

We live in a farm house on over an acre of land that has plenty of shade trees on it. Our babies have plenty of room to run and play. Their shelter is a barn where they have food and water, as well as air and heat. We are remodeling the barn in steps. But right now we have 3 whelping bays and a big area for the dogs to rest, relax, and refuel. Eventually we want to have a wash bay to give the dogs and puppies baths, and I want an office area for me to take pictures of the puppies. You know, more spoiling for them. But for now, it works great with what we have.

And speaking of baths, Spa days are a whole other level of excitement. Some of them love this time of being pampered, and others would like it better if a shaver and water wasn’t involved. Spa days begin by setting up an area outside of their normal enclosure area. We get the necessary wands used to give baths, shampoo, clippers, shaver, brush, and leash to hold them still. We start by checking for any fur knots that wont come out with a brush or bath, and either cut them out or use the shaver. We brush their fur. Then we give them baths, where we can expect to be soaking wet ourselves by the time the last dog has gotten a bath. After the bath we brush them out one more time and dry them off the best we can before putting them back into their enclosure. Now this is the part where we watch to see how long it takes before one of them decides they hate being clean, and he/she decides to roll around in the dirt or in the grass to get dirty once again. And this is the part where we smack our heads and roll our eyes.

I hope you all come and visit the site regularly. I plan on keeping things updated as much as possible, so you can see what it’s like on our small farm. Be sure to click on each dog’s name, in the submenu above, to learn more about them. Also click on the Pack of Saints link to learn more about how they behave as a pack, as a family. And be sure to click on the “Here Come the Puppies” page to see if we have any puppies available and to learn more about Saint Bernards.

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I thought about not sharing this, but it’s part of reality that we all go through at one point. And I want to keep it real here at our farm. I also want to pay tribute to one of our babies. One of the most difficult things we can face as animal lovers, is when our pets die. We had bought a beautiful looking dog, that had the same markings as Snoopy. He was gorgeous. The most loving animal and so playful. Wonderful personality. The whole family was in love and so were the other dogs. We watched him grow through the pictures we got from his owners. We counted down to the 7 week mark when we finally could pick him up. We named him Rocky Arizona. Unfortunately, our time with him was cut severely short. About a week after having him, we noticed he wasn’t acting right and his bowel movements weren’t right. We took him to the vet, but it was too late. He died of intussusception (inflammation of the intestines). We had never heard of such a thing. The vet told us it’s where a portion of the intestine has slipped out of it’s normal place, and where a portion of the intestine has folded. It leads to obstruction. Unfortunately, Rocky was born this way and by the time we got him to the vet, there was nothing that could be done. Our hearts broke and it’s still hard to accept to this day. Please know it was not the owners fault. This is something no one could have known that he was born with a defect. The chances of it happening are rare. Although our time with him was extremely short, he left a mark on our hearts that will last forever.

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