She raised the whole farm. Now she's raising puppies.
Maggie is a two-year-old purebred Bernese Mountain Dog and the heart of Recon Ranch Pups. This page is her story.
Every new arrival gets a Maggie inspection.
When ducklings, goat kids or emu chicks come to the ranch, Maggie is the first to greet them and the one who keeps an eye on them after that. She doesn't herd and she doesn't chase. She lies down nearby and lets them come to her, and they always do. The ducks follow her to the water. The guineas roost within sight of her. The goats treat her like a large, patient pillow.
None of that was trained. It's the Bernese temperament doing what it was bred to do on Swiss farms for a few hundred years, and it's exactly what we want to pass along.
Calm is learned early, and it's learned from mom.
Puppies pick up how to react to the world by watching their mother in the first weeks of life. A litter raised by a dog who is relaxed around flapping wings, strange noises and other animals learns that those things are normal. That's the difference between a dog that startles at the vacuum and one that sleeps through a thunderstorm.
Maggie's puppies will spend their first nine weeks on the ranch with her, meeting the animals she raised, before they go home with you.
Maggie and her animals.
Not staged. This is just what a Tuesday looks like around here.
Maggie
- BreedBernese Mountain Dog, purebred
- Age2 years
- ColorClassic tri-color: black, rust and white
- LivesOn ten acres in Georgetown, Texas, with chickens, goats, emus, guineas, ducks and the other farm dogs
- Favorite jobSupervising the ducks
- Paired withSonny, a DNA-tested Standard Poodle