Our Story

It was the year 2003. The December sun was past mid-heaven, and a few fluffy clouds floated in the sky above the waves, and stretched across the ocean as far as the eye could see. It was rather warm for a winter day on the Oregon coast. Our family was enjoying a wonderful walk along the beach with some relatives. We three girls, Joy age 9, Daneè age 7, and Adel age 4, ran here and there, picking up pretty rocks or shells.

Suddenly a beautiful dog ran happily up to us. His markings stood out from any dog we had ever seen. He was large and yet, so wonderfully gentle with us girls. When the dog ran and fetched a stick and brought it to us he seemed to say, “Here, please, throw this for me.” So we took it and played with him for a while. Then along came his owner, and we went on our way. That was our first interaction with a Bernese Mountain Dog.  

 

Sometime after that we somehow found out that it was a Bernese Mountain Dog. Mommy had fallen in love with the breed, with their gentle ways and beauty. Talking about the incident Mommy remarked that she would love to have a dog like that. Her second daughter’s sharp little ears heard the comment and hid it way down in her heart. She knew that at the time we couldn’t have one because we already had Taffy, a little poodle, and a cat and at the time where we were living you couldn’t have more than two pets and on top of that we didn’t have the money to get one. But slowly a dream began to form in Daneè’s 7 year old heart. She decided the best thing to do was to confide in Daddy. So Daneè went to Daddy and asked, “Daddy, some day if we move to the country, can I get a Bernese Mountain dog for Mommy?” Daddy said, “Yes we can” “It would be a surprise for her though,” Daneè said. “Ok, I won’t tell,” Daddy replied. And so, Daneè began to save every penny, dollar, nickel or dime that she could earn, or received from grandpas and grandmas and aunts and uncles. Sometime later Daneè told Adel and Joy about the surprise for Mommy, they were very excited and couldn’t wait to get a big dog someday. All the while the piggy bank kept growing.

 

About a year later we moved north to yonder high mountain in yonder western state and then went through the slow prosses of building a house, moving in, getting settled,  and putting in a garden. And all this time Mr. piggy bank kept growing, and Daneè was telling Mommy that someday we were going to get a big surprise for her. Then in June 2009, Daddy said it was about time we should look into it and see if we could get a Bernese. Daddy called a number that our aunt (Mommy’s sister} had given us for a lady she had worked for, and who raised Bernese. We found out that the lady’s female Bernese had just had a late batch of puppies and they had been born 3 days before on the 9th of July. They would be 2 months old and ready to leave their mother a week before our Mommy’s birthday and not only that, but our aunt would be flying out here for our Mommy’s birthday and would be arriving on our Mommy’s birthday. So it worked out that our aunt Amy would pick up the puppy a week before she would fly out here {and all this was done without our mom knowing anything. Except of course she knew that our aunt was coming out for her birthday}. And all the while the piggy bank kept growing. And finally he was full. 

So the weeks and months went by very slowly for us girls. But finally the long awaited day arrived, and it worked out that our Daddy could get the afternoon off. So on the 14^th of September we went to pick up our aunt and uncle from the airport. When we arrive they were there with the puppy. The puppy was in a little dog carrier that our aunt had under her arm so it just looked like a bit of baggage. We all climbed into the car and started driving away from the airport with the puppy in the back. Then the puppy started whining and we were afraid our mom would hear it so Joy and Adel reached back into the back of the car to try to calm her down while our aunt started talking loud so our mom wouldn’t hear anything.  Daddy drove into the collage parking lot that was near the airport, and he got out and said he needed check the tires {we had had had several flat tires recently and so our dad used it as an excuse so we could get the puppy out}. We got our cameras out and all got out of the car all that is except mom {she was trying to find the tire gauge for Daddy in the glove box and thinking that we were going to document with our cameras that we just got new tires and they were already flat} meanwhile we were all at the back of the car frantically trying to get that puppy out of her carrier before Mommy came to the back of the car. We finally got the puppy out and Daneè took her around the car to Mommy and we sang, “Happy Birthday to you...” Mommy was so shock she couldn’t believe it was really true. We completely surprised Mommy.