December 2024

The founding pair of our breeding program were Annie and Buddy. We waited until after the global pandemic was over to start their pawrentage, which meant that Annie would be an "older mom" thus limiting her number of litters before retirement age. Conception was done naturally and the pregnancies went well. Though there was one stillborn in the first litter and the second litter saw one pup passing away at 20 days old ("failure to thrive"), all other pups were hearty eaters, movers, and shakers. Annie and Buddy have been great pawrents to their offspring and we simply couldn't be prouder of them. Our primary goal has always been for currently available pups to be adopted by their ideal person/family rather than just any applicant. We try very hard to focus on making the right match once-and-only-once so that our pups don't have to experience the confusion of being returned. Happily we can say all but one adoption has played out this way. The individual short-term adoption ended up being less than a week but could have been longer if it weren't for both parties recognizing that it wasn't the match hoped for. That same pup met their furever-and-ever family just a few months later and to this day continues to live their best life.

The future of our program was supposed to be: Enola gets adopted into a Guardian Home, is later matched with a potential mate after a diligent search, then she would retire at the appropriate time before a successor from her offspring is selected (if feasible). This might sound to some people like a lot of puppies, however, we do not believe it to be a healthy practice for any dam to have a lot of litters. The only reason A+B's two litters were back-to-back was due to the limited timing between the pandemic ending and her retirement starting. Eligibility phases encompass the health clearance, securing a guardian home, aging into adulthood, and matching with a mate. A gap between pairings is necessary because of phase three but Enola's eligibility is currently stalled in phase two. If only we knew which family should apply and when they might do this so that Enola could meet her furever family. Behind the scenes these past few years, our breeder Nancy has been harassed (both on and offline) and it all recently came to a head causing her to suffer numerous panic attacks. In short: she will probably continue to reduce her social media appearances in order to prioritize her mental health and wellbeing. We cannot speak for others but we know Nancy believes as we do, that there is enough room in "the conversation" for both responsible breeders and responsible animal shelters/rescues, and no room for bullies.

We are grateful to have Nancy as Mum to A+B, and Nana to their pups. In spite of the panic attacks morphing into PTSD, Nancy feels that raising Annie and Buddy's pups has been an incredible honor. To the mighty few who have contributed to making our adoption program successful, we thank you. Your support is immensely appreciated. We wouldn't know where to begin to say how it has impacted us... especially for what your support has meant to Nancy in recent weeks. Thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU!  PS) Word-of-Mouth is still the best form of advertising around! Please click or share the referral links listed below.

~The Sharpeagle Family of Indiana~