We had the good fortune of connecting with Whitney and Steven Wiltbank and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Whitney and Steven, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
We believe puppies bring joy to their families. Our goal is to breed healthy, well socialized puppies with amazing temperaments and match those puppies with families in a way that is mutually beneficial to the families and the puppy. It’s so rewarding how our puppies thrive in such wonderful homes, and to see the joy they bring their families. I don’t think I put in our main motivation for starting our business, which was we have family members who have allergies and we love Bernese Mountain Dogs but they are not allergy friendly. When we were looking to add a dog to our family we fell in love with the Bernedoodle breed, and decided that we wanted to try to breed some wonderful allergy friendly puppies. We fell in love with breeding and the rest is history. We also love that we can do it together, and have so much more time with our children and each other. One of our goals is to eventually breed dogs that can be diabetes therapy dogs or other types of therapy dog.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
When we started breeding, we thought we knew quite a bit. We had done extensive research and felt prepared. However, with our first litter we discovered we had quite a bit to learn still. Our amazing mentors helped us fill in the gaps, and encouraged us when we needed it. They also helped us to hold a high standard, and be responsible breeders. We also were very blessed to find some great online communities of breeders that have been an invaluable source of knowledge and encouragement. We love how amazing our community of breeders is. We encourage and help each other, and really just want to help each other produce amazing puppies. Our journey has not been easy. Lots of lessons learned. Being a responsible breeder requires love, patience, time, lots of testing, training, constantly learning and adjusting to do what’s best for the puppies in our care. It’s so wonderful to have a family that’s in this together. Our children love to help, and are learning right along side us, and it’s helped us to become closer.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We are pretty simple. We love hiking in the White Tank mountains, it’s so beautiful. Our favorite spots to eat are Jim’s Burgers and Eggs and Cold Beer and Cheeseburgers, definite family favorites. For fun we go to the Great Wolf Lodge, Uptown Alley, or Surprise Community Park to feed the ducks and watch the fishermen.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
We would not be where we are today without the support of our families, our children, and some amazing mentors. Thank you to Kaelee and Sarah for always going above and beyond to share their knowledge and walk us through new situations. These women will forever have our gratitude and esteem. They are truly wonderful, the absolute best, and amazing breeders. I’d also love to thank all of the families that have chosen us to be their Breeder . Without them We wouldn’t be here.

And a big thank you to the families who are giving our puppies loving homes. We could not do what we love without their support, and we truly appreciate the love and care they give to these puppies that we love so much. Every update, referral, and word of encouragement means so much to us!

Instagram: @huckleberrydoodlesllc

Facebook: Huckleberry Doodles, LLC

Image Credits
Whitney Wiltbank

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