Barry and Shelley
We have been married for 27 years and bought our first puppy together a few months before we wed! It was a total disaster of a situation! We picked a breed we knew nothing about, a breeder from the newspaper that we could barely afford, selected a puppy and took it home that night! Long story short, we both worked full-time, were planning a wedding and renovating our first home. And we thought getting a puppy was a wonderful idea! We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into and our breeder was clearly only interested in selling puppies. Neither of us had any experience with large breeds, so we picked the biggest pup of the litter! He literally ate the siding off of our house, no joke! 6 months later, Moses our beautiful, destructive, ill behaved, giant chocolate lab went to live on a farm with some friends of ours. We failed him!
Nearly 23 years after our first puppy and after 2 years of research we adopted our first Goldendoodle, Lucy in 2017. Lucy is a retired breeding mom and was such timid but sweet girl. She had 6 litters in 4 years and came to us shortly after. We spent the next 18 months helping Lucy reach her full potential as our family pet. This experience also opened our eyes to breeding. Lucy is our inspiration and motivation to breed exceptional doodles. Although she did not come from the best breeding situation, she is an extraordinary dog and the vision behind DoodletownUSA.
Sydney and Tyler
Sydney is our oldest daughter, and she married Tyler (her middle school sweetheart) in April 2018. They are a military family stationed in NC. Shortly after they were married, our family started building our breeding business. Sydney and Tyler have 2 dogs, Violet Rae (future Doodletown Mom) and their Dobie, Moose. Sydney continues her love for teaching by working on her Masters in Education, while Tyler continues to faithfully serve in the military. She is also working alongside Shelley as an active partner in the business. Sydney and Tyler’s hope is that she can stay home and raise their children while also raising puppies for DoodletownUSA.
Samuel and Pawpaw Phil
Samuel is our 19 year old son. He is a tender heart, full of compassion and empathy. He works at DoodletownUSA with us ensuring everything gets done in order for things to run smoothly. I have not only seen how the dogs have changed him, but how they have comforted and quite literally healed him during times of injury. The excitement they have when Samuel comes home is unbelievable. The cool thing about having a teenager in the house is that we usually have many teens at our house! This is so good for socializing the puppies.
And we can’t forget Pawpaw Phil! Barry’s dad moved in with us shortly after his wife and Barry’s mother passed away in 2017. We could not be full time pet parents without Pawpaw. He is our resident dog watcher. Pawpaw is always at the puppy palace to feed, water, spoil our pack! He gives us daily reports of all the happenings of the day and when we have puppies he is a constant watch over the bundles of joy. Our pack gives Pawpaw purpose, and in dealing with the sudden death of his wife of 50 years, the companionship, love and affection is undeniably the best medicine for a broken heart.
