Our Great pyrenees

Our Great Pyrenees journey started when we brought our Sheriff home. He was born to a mama who was a full time sheep guardian, and a daddy who was a full time goat guardian. We brought him home at 10 weeks old, and our kids named him "Sheriff" because he is the sheriff of our farm! It only took a couple of days with him to know we had found a breed we would never again be without!

We were so impressed with the breed, and read up on how well they work in pairs, that we were looking for another in no time at all. We found a homestead we were pretty impressed with, and put a deposit down on a female. A few weeks later, we brought home our Sally. We didn't get home with her until dark that night, so we put her in a pen and thought we would show her around in the morning. She didn't have it! She let herself out, and that 8 week old fur-ball spent the night laying in the doorway to our chicken house on her first official guardian job!

Sheriff and Sally quickly became a bonded pair, and were inseparable. Both grew up beautifully and had excellent guardian instincts, while still holding true to the gentle nature of the breed. About the time Sally had her first litter, we were doing some expanding and beginning our ongoing project of switching all the crop-ground at our home over to pasture. We knew we would be in need of a third dog, and started looking for a puppy who would be ready to come to us as Sally's puppies were ready to go to their new homes.

As we began our search for a new puppy, we realized how fortunate we had been in our ease of finding the two we had! What a job it proved to be! We searched states away, but the market had begun to grow, and breeders were starting to enact strict rules on those who took their puppies home. We also found that crossing a Pyr with an Anatolian, or an Anatolian cross, had become very common.....and often the puppies retained so much of the Pyr look, that they were advertised as purebred Great Pyrenees! (This is something we REALLY recommend you be cautious about. Anatolian crosses advertised as purebred Pyrs are all over the place....make sure you know what the breed is supposed to be and that you trust the people you are talking to!) We knew whatever we brought home MUST be full blooded Pyrenees---although not all are, Anatolians tend to be more aggressive, and this was not okay with us with our small children! This made us decide to go ahead and purchase an AKC registered puppy as our new addition. We had to travel quite a ways, but we finally found her! And AKC Mill Creek Guardian Samantha Sue "Sammy" came to live with us just in time to fill the void of Sally's litter going to their homes.

The timing proved to be perfect, as Sally was missing her own puppies, she adopted Sammy right in, and Sheriff didn't argue! And that is how we ended up with our first trio of white "polar bears"! Our experiences with these first three guardians made Great Pyrenees a permanent fixture on our farm.

As the years have gone by, Sheriff, Sally & Sammy have all retired, our human family has grown, our livestock family has grown, our canine family has grown, our knowledge of puppies has grown, and our farm has grown. We have moved into a fully AKC program with all of our dogs are AKC and all of our pups are AKC registerable, and added many new steps to our process of giving you the best pup we can—from Early Neurological Stimulation starting at 3 days old, to our program of genetically health testing parent dogs, and beyond.

Really, the only thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to raising puppies from working parents, socialized with various livestock and children in their first 8 weeks, and well prepared to head to their new homes——-whether that be as a full time working guardian, an in home companion, or a working service dog.

When they are “started” in a way that allows their instincts to flourish, their guardian roots help them in all walks of life!