Our Kennel

My name is Lindsey, I have been raising Mini/Toy Australian Shepherds since 2002. I have been self employed since I was 16. First giving riding lessons, breaking and training horses and then to buying and selling family horses. One day I traded a horse for a couple of Mini Aussie females. That was one of the best things I ever did. I knew nothing about Aussies or breeding at all. I'd never even heard of a mini aussie. You could say I took a crash course. I talked to anyone who would talk to me and I found any website I could find with information about aussies or breeding. I made some mistakes and I learned from them. Fortunately I found a few people along the way that helped me out and taught me a lot. The rest is history!

Would you like to know a little more about us? My facebook is not private and anyone is welcome to look it. I understand how scary it can be to buy a dog off of the internet not knowing who you're dealing with and wondering if someone is really who they say they are. I've heard my share of horror stories. Heck, I have my own share of horror stories! I'm very open and willing to chat and answer any questions you might have or want to know to feel comfortable. I've had people tell me they feel like they know me and that is one of the reasons they want to buy a puppy from me. Well, if you are one of those people, feel free to check it out. It is not my professional facebook but my personal facebook. Not to be rude, but I only add people I know personally. Still want to know more? I have a channel on YouTube. Lindsey682 or type in http://www.youtube.com/user/Lindsey682. I have well over 1000 videos added. A lot are puppy or business related videos, but some are personal and are posted to share with friends. You'll see a lot of my dogs and kennels in these videos.

    Well, first thing in the morning I go in and check on all of the puppies. Nothing starts a day off better than puppy love. I go through the whelping house and give all of the mama's a pupperoni treat and make sure everything is like it's supposed to be.   We go through all of the pens, check feeders and give out kisses and get our daily slobbers and licks. We have automatic feeders so the dogs have free access to food all of the time. We also have Lixit waterers everywhere so they have clean water all of the time.
    There are ALWAYS chores to do. If we're not adding something new or working on the kennels, we have plenty of dogs that could use grooming or yards that need mowed and puppies that want to be played with. Fence that needs checking or dogs that need training for the upcoming shows. One of the things that takes up a lot of my time is taking puppy pictures and videos. Most people don't realize that I spend anywhere from 5-8 hours or more a day just taking pictures and videos for my website. This doesn't even start to include editing, sorting and putting them on my website.
    I have 3 people who work for me full time and help keep kennels clean and puppies played with. Between us, we usually spend about 35-40 hours a day at the kennel doing dog work.    I've had the question asked, 'How can you take care of so many dogs?' Well, that pretty much answers a lot of that question. The rest of "how we do it" is explained in the what are your kennels like section.
    The day (at the kennel) usually ends around dark and the rest of the day is spent on my website and writing emails. A normal night on the website/emails is generally from 6 to after midnight in the winter time and closer to 8-2am or later in the summer. My website has so many pages that there are literally pages that I have not seen in years. I have hundreds of pages on this site. If you think you've seen it all, click around a little more and you'll find something new. My website is updated daily with new puppy pictures, new information and a lot of times, even videos. I try to take 1 night off a week off to get me out from under the computer. Hey, I've got to have some reason to dress up every once in a while! In the summer, I spend some weekends at the lake. Summer is usually slower with the dogs anyway and it gives me a chance to slow down a little and take some dogs out on the boat. Almost everyone at our lake has one of our Aussies.

    Our kennels are something that we have worked VERY hard on for the last 12 years. We are very proud of our set up and are proud to show you around here on the website.
    Our kennels are set up to use. What I mean by that is, we went the extra mile. Spent the extra money and time to build our kennels to work for us. Everything is set up to be easy and as simple as possible. For example, the whelping house is all cement. Inside and out. Everything slopes towards a drain that goes to a huge septic system we put in just for the dogs. The cement is sealed so it does not hold germs or smell. Every day, we use the pressure washer and spray everything down the drain. This makes the whelping house so easy to clean and sanatize. The cement is cleaned so well every single day that it looks like brand new cement. There are no 'doggy' stains at all on the floor of the runs. (The building is old and could've used a paint job, but hey, we've had other priorities) All of the pens in the whelping house are inside/outside pens. The doggy doors are strategically placed high enough that the adult dogs can get in and out, but puppies that aren't old enough to be outside yet can not get out on accident. Each individual pen is divided by 4ft tall solid concrete walls (custom built) so that the dogs have plenty of privacy inside. They all have 5lb feeders and automatic lixit waters in their pens. The building is of course heated, cooled and ventilated. Each whelping room has cameras that are hooked up to the internet so we can check on the puppies anytime from anywhere. This is especially nice when expecting puppies. Yes, we took the time to run internet cable out there after we ran the electric, water and everything else. It was a huge pain and a lot of work but very worth it. How interesting to watch the dogs doing their thing without disturbing them.
    Okay, for the outside kennels...I hate scooping dog poop just as much as everyone else, I'm not gonna lie. And I didn't want my dogs to be in cages or pens their whole life. So, I found a place that was private enough and where I had enough room. Each dog yard is 75x100 feet or 70x70 along the back. My dogs have it made better than a lot of pets out there. These yards are so large that I hardly ever even have to scoop dog poop. No really. Most people don't believe it until they see it. Ok, I'll admit, the wonderful dog food that I feed has a lot to do with it. But seriously, in that much room the dogs do not poop enough for it to need picked up very often. When you walk out into my kennels you will not see or smell any 'dog smells'. People who have been to my kennel are still surprised when I tell them how often I have to rake those outside yards. But if you imagine you have a huge back yard with 3 or 4 small dogs in it. If you're feeding good dog food, you wouldn't have to pick up your yard either. These yards are basically like living in someone's huge back yard.
    Each yard has a shed (built just for the dogs) and inside each shed are dog houses with a shelf that makes each one two stories. It gives them more room and something to play on. In the winter time we put straw in the houses and we can completely shut them up. In the summer time the backs of some of the sheds slide down and out. When the back portion of the shed slides out it actually pulls air through like a fan; even when it isn't windy. It also gives them more shaded area. Remember, these are cow dogs. They aren't foo-foo house dogs and are most happy outside. Each yard has a 55 gallon barrel cut in half that is used for a water trough. They always have plenty of water and a big place to jump in and cool off. All of the yards have swimming pools in the summer time.
    Other than that, my property is completely fenced in with 2 x 4 inch horse fence. The 'back yard' is what I call the huge hard in the middle of all of the individual yards. It goes around the whelping house and into all of the individual yards. For example, if a gate is left open the dogs would just be loose in the back yard. The back yard opens up to the rest of the property where the house, pool and barns are. The dogs have several acres to run on and explore. Usually you'll see them under a tree watching a squirrel or chasing each other around the house. Most of them are very good about coming back into the 'back yard' when I call them so its easy to just let them run while we're out there doing chores all day.

I almost forgot to mention the bathtub, set at just my height so I can give dogs warm baths without killing my back. We set it up where it works perfectly. Warm water, the tub at just the right height with enough slope that the dogs aren't standing in water. I also have a nice area to groom dogs.. My dryers make everything complete and easy to use. This has gotten so many hours of use you wouldn't even believe it!

I am lucky to have good help that allows me to spend more time playing with puppies. If I didn't have them I probably wouldn't get to spend as much time with them as I would like to. I spend an average of 8-10 hours in the kennel each day anyway but everyone has puppy duty. Every puppy is picked up every day by every person who is working out here. This is the most fun and most important thing we do. I do have a monkey, Mali, who absolutely adores the puppies. She does a lot of the things that kids do to puppies. She pokes on their noses, pulls on their feet and looks in their mouths. The hugs and kisses and even tries to carry around the little ones. So they are used to all of the silly little things that a kid might do to them. They all love people, have been around horses, turkeys, ducks, kids and other farm animals. They will be happy and friendly when they get to their new home with you! Socialization is a big deal for us.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask! We'd love to hear from you! I've always got time to talk dogs! :)

Our newest building, we started working on it January 2011 and had it mostly done by May. This building is working out very well for us. It is very well insulated and is easy to keep clean and cool. (or warm of course!) It's approximately 55 ft long It has 8 pens on one side, with large whelping boxes on the inside and 12 on the other side that is used for females in heat. This makes it easier for me to know exactly when the dog is bred and it also prevents unnecessary fights in the yards when the girls are feeling moody. I'm sure you can imagine how these girls are when they're in heat. :)
We installed lixit waters in every pen so everyone has cool, clean, fresh water all of the time. No knocking over water buckets! This building also connects to the septic system so it is easily cleaned. It, like the other building, is cleaned every day with a pressure washer. To keep the air circulating, along with a couple of large fans, a ventilation system has also been installed. You might be surprised though at how cool this building stays even with just the doors open at both ends.
There are always a few pens left open and gates left ajar so my loose dogs running in the yard can go in and nap if they please. However, I find even if they have the opportunity to go take a nap in a 70 degree building, they'll opt for the shade tree. Another nice feature is that when we built the divider panels, we made them removable. So if we're only using a few pens on one side, with just a couple of screws removed, the pen size is doubled....or tripled! Works great for weaning age litters in the heat of the summer and can be easily sanitized and cleaned.

The old dairy barn that we have cleaned up and turned into our dog kennel/whelping house. It has two rooms, a big room and a smaller one. The smaller room is where the puppies are born. Its smaller it is easier to keep even warmer. It stays at about 70-75 at the lowest. The bigger room has bigger pens, about 4x4 inside. We keep rubber mats down in the winter time to keep them of the cool floors. There are propane heaters in both rooms and a heat lamps.
In the summer time this solid cement building is a perfect place to keep cool. I have a huge fan that ventilates, 2 ventilation fans in the ceiling and they pull quite a bit of air in. Of course there are air conditioners in both rooms for the days that get really hot. The outside pens are covered all of the way around. When the windows are open and the fans blow, it will pull the cool air in from the shaded areas. The dogs get sunlight in their pens in the morning and evening, but not during the hottest part of the day.
Another one of my favorite things about my kennel (and one of our bigger projects) is that it all washes into a huge septic system. Yes, EVERYTHING washes into the septic. Inside and out! No yucky run off making a huge mud/poop puddle. Ever. Pressure washing everyday, getting every little thing off the concrete makes a huge difference. This keeps everything cleaner and it is much easier to sanitize.
We have 24 cameras in our kennels so we can watch everything that is going on at anytime. There are cameras in the puppy house, both the whelping houses and cameras that show all of the outside yards. Yes, of course they have night vision. :) That is when we use them most. They record so we can always go back and look to see if we missed something. Usually it's to watch ourselves doing something dumb that we think the cameras caught. Like tripping over a dog or wrecking a segway.
For those of you just a little curious...here are a few quick pictures of this 50 year old dairy barn before we started working on it just over a year and a half ago...

*Please remember, we converted a 60 year old dairy barn into a kennel. There were doors we had to turn into walls and walls we had to turn into doors! It doesn't look as pretty on the outside as it would've if we would've started from scratch. But it isn't the outside we're worried about, its the inside, where the dogs stay. It was painted the worst color of green you've ever seen. I suppose I could repaint it...but there are a million more projects that are ahead so for now, squint and pretend that the green is....tan, or something a little easier on the eyes! lol

Outside pens, where the dogs spend most of their time.

A few pictures of my dog yards....

A different view of the latest yards.
June 2010 July 2010

The two pictures below are taken from the same spot 15 months apart. We hauled off a huge junk pile the last owners left, cleaned everything up and tore down all of the old, hanging fences. We put up no climb horse fence. Works great for the dogs.

The outside pens are 50x100, 75 x 100 or 70x70

	Bill has worked here full time since early spring 2014. He helps with absolutely EVERYTHING. From taking puppies to the vet for their health certificates to keeping everything running smoothly. And believe me, keeping everything running smoothly is a full time job. He's the one who's feet you always see in my puppy pictures. Bill will also be the one you talk to about your puppy's flight if you choose to ship. He is my shipping specialist.
	Shannan has worked here since early 2015. She helps me with computer stuff, paperwork, puppy playtime, pictures and organizing what all needs to be done. She forces me to take a few minutes and relax sometimes. Kind of a nice change!
	Kristen has worked here with me since 2012. She makes sure every puppy is hugged and kissed to it's hearts desire! She's good at noticing if one just isn't feeling 100% or which ones need extra attention. She loves the puppies and has been around to watch a few generations be born and raised here. Knowing every single dog, their personalities, likes/dislikes, wants and needs is a very important part of how she helps out here.