D.J. has fathered hundreds, possibly thousands, of offspring. Perfectly proportioned, impeccably pedigreed, and weighing in at just 14 pounds, D.J. (full name: Don Juan) is the top dog at Alpine Bernedoodles, a doodle breeder in Colorado.
You can find D.J.’s pups romping around affluent neighborhoods in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas, and in Vogue stories about billion-dollar Hollywood earners (and also in this writer’s humble home).
Blue eyes? Red hair? Tri-color? Straight hair? Curly hair? Long-legged? Rambunctious, like D.J., or more easygoing? You decide. Souped-up reproductive technology makes getting a doodle a little like shopping for a sweater. A $4,500 sweater.
You don’t want your designer dog to bark, eat your shoes, or pee on your carpet, do you? That’s why Alpine created a turnkey program that delivers “fully operational,” perfectly obedient dogs to your door. It proved to be an administrative headache during the pandemic, when eager buyers routinely offered whatever it costs to jump Alpine’s 36-month waiting list, so Alpine owner Kathryn Hadfield turned the program over to nearby trainers such as Jessica Poynter, at Peace of Mind dog boarding.
For $12,000, Poynter will deliver a fully obedient, six-month-old puppy that is trained and spayed. Poynter says many of her clients opt for her even more intensive, $24,000 “Epic Dog” program where the dogs are ready to go anywhere—hotels, restaurants, or board meetings. “Their jaws hit the ground when I walk in with a finished puppy that’s better behaved than their children,” she says.
The Bernedoodle breed, which is in fact not a breed, because the American Kennel Club does not recognize hybrid dogs, began with a sneeze. A young Canadian named Sherry Rupke fell hard for a Bernese mountain-dog puppy, but her mother was allergic. Rupke wondered: What would happen if she crossed a Bernese with a poodle, which is hypoallergenic? The result: a litter of the world’s first known Bernedoodle puppies. That was in 2003. By 2017, when D.J. got started, Bernedoodles were big business. (Montrose, the sleepy Colorado town where D.J. lives, is now home to at least six Bernedoodle breeders.)
Though the industry-research firm IBISWorld estimates the U.S. dog-breeding industry’s value at $3.1 billion, it doesn’t say how much of that comes from doodles. But look around: they are everywhere. And the Bernedoodle is a big favorite, especially in Hollywood. (“Bernedoodles are status symbols here,” says Poynter.)
“Good breeding is all about genetics,” Hadfield says. “It’s not about throwing two dogs in the backyard.” She says that responsible breeders screen all dogs for genetic defects and diseases that could be passed along. She also screens for secondary traits such as coat and coloring. Knowing which genes are present in which dogs makes it possible for her to effect desired traits.
Nurture plays as essential a role as nature in determining the temperament a parent dog passes along. That’s why none of the Alpine dogs has ever set foot in the kind of chicken-wire cage common in puppy mills. Instead, they enjoy romping around on Hadfield’s 12-acre mountain-view ranch. “It’s like summer camp here,” she says. When it comes to reproduction, however, little is left to nature.
“He’s very wound up. He knows,” Hadfield says about Bullet, D.J.’s four-year-old, 15-inch-long son. Panting and wild-eyed, he’s sitting in a crate beside Greta, a 70-pound Bernese mountain dog. Born to East European champions, Greta is a virgin. And what Bullet knows is that he is going to get lucky.
Released from the crate, Bullet tugs hard on his leash, pulling Hadfield toward the back room in the Black Canyon Veterinary Clinic basement, where Rachel Blankmeyer, white-gloved and ready, greets him warmly. Blankmeyer specializes in transcervical insemination (TCI), which the Black Canyon Web site calls “a step into the future.” “Doggy style” is not the way you would describe this procedure.
Hadfield positions Greta so that her rear end is in Bullet’s nose. In a matter of moments, Bullet deposits prized seeds into a clear specimen bag. Hadfield pats Greta (otherwise untouched and looking a little bored), and Bullet is dispatched to a dark room to calm down.
“Doggy style” is not the way you would describe this procedure.
Greta’s turn. Blankmeyer slides a long, thin, computer-guided probe four to six inches into Greta’s uterus. The dog looks calmly at two golden retrievers playing ball on a poster on the wall in front of her. “See! It doesn’t hurt at all,” says Blankmeyer, withdrawing her instrument. Greta, who likely does not realize she is now carrying a litter of “Ultra Bernadoodle” (62 percent Bernese and 38 percent poodle) puppies, places a big, fuzzy paw in Hadfield’s hand. Dr. Blankmeyer beams. “And just like that,” she says, “puppies are made!”
There are alternative methods. Until fairly recently, for example, high-end breeders surgically inseminated dogs. They’d cut them open, plant seeds, sew them up, and hope for puppies. The very definition of invasive, the procedure often caused infections and post-surgical complications and raised ethical questions that TCI avoids.
TCI also makes it possible to breed dogs that would otherwise be unable or unwilling to mate. You cannot breed a 14-pound dog like D.J. or Bullet with one that’s six times larger without what Blankmeyer calls “an assist.” TCI also makes it possible to dual-sire—to inseminate a female dog with two different dogs on two successive days at peak fertility time. “So,” Hadfield explains, “if you have someone who wants a merle [marble-coated] dog and another who wants a tri-color, you can deliver both in the same litter.”
“Natural breeding” was never in the cards for D.J., Bullet, or any of the Alpine studs. It’s too risky. Hadfield explains that dogs often get stuck together—or “tied”—during mating when an accessory gland on the male dog’s penis swells so enormously that it can take 20 minutes to retract. If the female freaks out and takes off, it can damage the penis, something breeders (and studs) like to avoid.
Selective breeding in dogs has been practiced since wolves were first domesticated, though not always to great results. Bred to have squashed, flat faces, bulldogs commonly have trouble breathing, moving, and reproducing. Scary stories about “Frankendogs” sometimes surface: a 2011 Korean breeding effort reportedly produced a glow-in-the-dark dog.
A pair of genetically cleared Alpine dogs once produced puppies without earflaps. (“Why? No idea,” says Hadfield. You can’t control everything.) The earless pups were euthanized (ethically), and the parents were not bred with one another again. Since then, Alpine has produced nothing but fluffy, goofy, non-shedding puppies. “D.J. is the father, or grandfather, of them all,” says Hadfield.
Because male dogs can keep reproducing as long as they’re healthy, D.J. could be at it for a while. And in a potential boon for Alpine—and D.J.’s line—the biotech company Loyal recently announced that a drug it has developed, which will enable dogs to live longer, healthier lives, could be on the market next year, just in time for D.J.’s ninth birthday.
Susan Lehman, a former New York Times editor, has written for The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Vogue, GQ, and Spy. She lives in New York