Our Story - The Long Version

It all began with a sweet dog named Scooby. He was our first dog. He came home to us in January 2011. He was a 10-pound Coton de Tulear. We chose him due to his extremely hypoallergenic coat, which we needed due to Rockey’s severe allergies to any animal that sheds. Scooby was our absolute best friend and constant companion as we both graduated from college, started our careers, and moved from Southern California to Las Vegas and finally to Hawaii.

I could write an entire book to tell the story of Scooby’s life, but the final chapter shaped us all in a profound way. When Scooby was 9, shortly after we moved to Hawaii, we found out that he was in the early stages of heart failure. We managed his heart failure for years and he continued to lead a full and happy life. At age 12, his heart failure worsened and we made the excruciating decision to say goodbye. Our house was empty for the first time ever. We absolutely hated that feeling. We wanted to welcome another dog into our lives and fill our house up again with the sound of paws tapping on the floor and snuffles around the dinner table and barks of joy when we came home.

Scooby chillin’ in Kaneohe

We needed another dog with a hypoallergenic coat and decided to get another Coton de Tulear. Unfortunately, we could not find a single Coton de Tulear breeder in the entire state of Hawaii. We were fortunate to find a breeder on the mainland who used to live in Hawaii and was familiar with Hawaii’s unique laws applying to pets coming from the mainland. She agreed to keep our new puppy for the entire 6 months of preparation time and complete multiple rabies vaccines, testing, and all the other paperwork required to bring our puppy home. We were so incredibly thankful that we found her and that she brought a happy and healthy Thunder home to us, but we were also very sad that we missed out on experiencing most of Thunder’s “little puppy” phase up to 6 months of age. All in all, we had to wait over 9 months with no dog at home because of the wait for the litter to be born and the additional wait time needed to prep for Hawaii.

We related this story to many friends in Hawaii, and we heard the same thing from so many of them - dozens of people had the same experiences as us, either waiting on waitlists for months (sometimes more than a year!) to get a specific type of dog from a reputable breeder on-island, or waiting many months to prepare a puppy to be brought over from the mainland. We recognized an area of need and realized we were well-equipped to fill that need, so we decided to start our own in-home breeding program.

On a side note, you might be asking yourself, “why are they breeding Labradoodles instead of Cotons?” The answer is that a friend of ours has an incredible Labradoodle named River and we fell in love with her temperament and also discovered that Rockey is not allergic to her. Labradoodles are particularly well-suited for life in Hawaii because of their high energy and love of outdoor adventures and water. We were also able to find an extremely high-quality Labradoodle breeder on the mainland willing to help us start our program, which is a rare and fortunate find.

So our sweet little Thunder is not a part of our breeding program, he is just the goofy big “brother” of Sunny and a caring uncle to all the pups that come through our home.