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    Welcome to Big Doodle Dreams. I am a very small scale breeder where my dogs are part of my family and live with us in the home. All puppies are raised under foot with constant love and affection from everyone in the house.

    It all started with one dog, Max, a beautiful parti colored aussiedoodle. We had been looking for a service dog for our children, but we quickly found out that companies/agencies that train dogs would not train a dog for us due to the dynamics of our family. I have three sons, all of them are on the autism spectrum and have different needs. Our oldest son was born at 27 weeks and is the most impacted by autism. With hard work and dedication he is presently functioning at his age/grade level with minimal issues. His biggest problem is anxiety caused by a change to his routine/schedule.

    Our middle son was born full term with minimal problems. He was completely on target and then everything changed, he went from complete sentences to screaming with no speech. Again with dedication and determination we were able to pull him out of it. He has epilepsy which is controlled by medication. He is in the aspergers range with mathematical and nonverbal reasoning skills being his strongest areas. He is our little Einstein.

    Our youngest seems to be the least impacted, but at this point we are very good at providing interventions to decrease the impact of autism. He has a few moments every day where his autism is visible, but overall he is doing very well.

    I can credit our success to my education and experience. Ironically I am a special education teacher and had been teaching for four years prior to having children. I have my B.S. and M.A. from the University of South Florida and I have my Ed.S. from Lincoln Memorial University. All of my degrees are in the area of special education.

    So how and why did we pursue a service dog? The main goal that we had for the service dog was to distract our oldest son when anxiety became an issue. We also wanted to have our two oldest sons hold the harness and leash when out at a store. Stores are difficult places for them, it is noisy with many lights, and people. Max has been successful at filling both of these needs. We had spent many hours searching for a service dog and tried to go through a service dog company. We found that service dog companies will train a dog for only one person and with our needs being greater than that we were quickly eliminated. I had previously trained a dog many years ago for therapy work, a standard poodle named Sam. So we began our search for a dog that I could train. We had washed out four (different breeds) dogs before finally getting Max. Max came from a breeder that only breeds aussiedoodles and she frequently retires dogs and donates them to a service dog training company. Max's father was donated and trained for service work. Max's mother is retired and lives with a great family in the lap of luxury.

    Max has done so well, he was very easily trained. Housebroken in the first day and began his outings at the end of the first week. I was able to teach him sit, down, stay, and come in less than one hour. The "watch me" command took a little more time, but with the clicker and treats he responded quickly. We wanted him to have a playmate, so we started looking. We went with a standard poodle, Maggie. She came from a small breeder and I had asked for the litter to be temperament tested prior to making my choice. She was it and we couldn't be happier.

    So why breed? Well, we weren't intending on breeding, but it seemed a shame to have found the most perfect dogs and not be able to share. We are still able to have Max work. So far there has been no change in his abilities due to him being intact (not neutered). However, when and if that does change we will have to neuter him. We are planning on keeping a puppy from a litter so that his legacy can continue.

     Up date on Max       

    Max has now been neutered (Summer of 2016), this decision was made due to seeing a difference in Max's interests (canine girlfriends over his human companions). I knew this would happen and we are working to help him forget about the girls. It takes a few months for the hormones to leave and see a noticeable change in the dog's behavior. Three months after surgery I now am beginning to see some big changes, he no longer has to mark every tree, bush, post, etc, he doesn't show the same interest in the canine girls, and he now cries for his human companions to pay more attention to him. I am very excited about this change and hope to have him up, out and working again.

    For more information and pictures of our dogs check out the our stud dog page and our female dog page.

UPDATE FALL 2013

    Since the start of our adventure we have had many changes. Our oldest son is not needing Max as much as he did when we began our adventure. Our youngest son is now needing Max and does very well in situations that were challenging for him. Overall, Max is not utilized to the fullest extent, he works on an as needed basis and enjoys just spending time with the boys in the house.

    We have also found ourselves with additional challenges. My husband, Jeremy, was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in September of 2011. At the time he was diagnosed with the relapsing remitting form, which is what 80% of those with MS have. However, as time has gone on and his symptoms have worsened (with no remission) the Doctor has re-diagnosed him with Primary Progressive MS, the worst form. We thought life was challenging before with three children diagnosed with autism, now it has become even more of a challenge for us. Honestly, we believe that everything happens for a reason, our challenges have made us stronger. We look at life in a different way than before, we cherish every moment and enjoy the simple things.

    With the new challenges I am needed at home, this is the first year (in 12 years) that I am not teaching in the public school system. I am much happier at home taking care of my family. I still get to teach, I am homeschooling my children, I am loving every minute of it. Since I am at home I have invested in a couple additional puppies which I plan to breed, but they have to grow and that takes some time.

Update Spring of 2016

Many changes in the last couple of years, overall the 5 of us are doing great and enjoying life as a happy, blessed family. Life is a challenge for us and will continue to be, but with God's grace anything is possible. We are truly enjoying the dogs as a family, everyone helps and everyone loves the dogs and puppies. My small group of dogs has grown and we have had to make adjustments. We built a separate room just for the purpose of being able to keep girls in heat from boys that will cry all night, lol. I continue to raise my puppies in the house and start potty training at 4 weeks. I have absolutely enjoyed training puppies at a young age and having success with it. My boys have benefited from all the experiences of raising/training/grooming dogs and puppies. Here are some current pictures of us.