Why did you start breeding dogs?
Abby's family has been breeding dogs since she was little, primarily Golden Retrievers, Boxers, and Corgis. Abby's Boxer, Brinker, was originally a stud dog for a female boxer that Abby's mom owned, then in 2004, while we were living in North Carolina, we saw a newspaper ad for a 3/4 English Bulldog 1/4 Boxer hybrid puppy. We thought it sounded really cool so we went to take a look and ended up going back later that night to get Lola.
After moving back to Indiana we decided to start breeding Lola and she and Brinker had their first litter together in April of 2005. The Boxer/English Bulldog hybrid was a huge hit and so WestfieldPups.com was born; you can see an archive of that website and all of our past litters here. We decided to keep one of the female puppies from that first litter and named her Lucy. We then decided that we'd like to mix them with a little more Bulldog, so we got Frank, a purebred English Bulldog. Between the 4 dogs we ended up having 9 litters over 7.5 years; they were very popular, we had waiting lists and people traveling from around the country to adopt them. Over time the girls got too old and unfortunately all of our previous dogs have since passed away.
With kids, and allergies, we went almost 2 years without any dogs. In the meantime, Abby's mom had started breeding Goldendoodles, which were really popular, better for allergy sufferers, and so we got Stella, followed shortly after by Tilly, and then Willow because of interest in the blue merle color pattern. Almost 8 years since our previous litter, we went back to breeding.
While the breeding process can be a lot of work (and a LOT of laundry), it's amazing to watch the puppies be born, learn to walk, develop unique personalities, and grow up; we really like the hybrid breeds and the variation you get. It's also a great experience for the kids and we love doing it.
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