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Our Story
My name is Shaye Zohner and my husband, Rhen Zohner, and I run Zohner Royal Labradoodles with our 3 year old daughter, Emmary. I grew up around dogs and even with breeding. I always knew I would grow old with dogs by my side. I got my first dog when I was 8. He was a Pitbull/Lab mix named Lucky. He was a handful. He was crazy with energy and had little to no training whatsoever. But he was my dog so I took him on walks, even when he'd drag me down the road with cuts and scrapes.
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My family got our second dog when I was 14. She was a 4-year-old purebred great pyrenees named Brigadiera (don't judge us, the previous owner named her and we didn't have the heart to change it because it had already been changed previously from Bridget). We called her Brig for short. If you aren't familiar with the great pyrenees breed, then I'd suggest googling them because they truly are a majestic breed. She was half my height on all fours and weighed a good 150 pounds. We called her our polar bear. She was a gentle giant; the sweetest dog anyone ever met. All she wanted in life was to be loved and return that love to others. It broke my heart 12 years later when we had to put her down.
Around the time my family made the decision that it was best to let Brig go, I was at college studying music composition and was engaged to my now-husband. Rhen could not understand at all why I was so upset at the prospect of putting down Brig. He had never had a dog growing up and had been bitten by two dogs as a kid. Dogs terrified him, and he could not understand why on earth people would own one, much less multiple. He was one of those people that avoided dogs as best he could. I tried telling him that she was like family and he thought I was absolutely crazy. All he knew of her was that she was a big wolf-resembling animal that shed buckets of fur. When Brig was put down, I cried for weeks. I couldn't even talk about her, it made me so sad. The entire time, Rhen thought I was crazy, and I'd say, "You'll understand when we get a dog" and he'd say, "We are never getting a dog". Usually, I'd respond with, "You'll see". I knew I'd be able to change him into a dog person. It was my goal.
Around the time of our first wedding anniversary, Rhen's sister got a 4-month-old puppy from Craigslist, named Cash. He was a mixed breed, his mom being a border collie and his father unknown. Quickly realizing that she didn't have enough time to fulfill all of his needs, she began looking into rehoming him. We offered to help her take care of him until she could find his new home. We took him for a few hours to give her a break and we knew that he was meant to be with us. Rhen loved him from the very start. All of Rhen's previous fears of dogs seemed to melt when it came to Cash. Cash loves everyone. And he is such a good-natured dog.
I knew he'd need a friend though. We began researching good breeds that might be good for Cash. Around the same time, a close family friend purchased her first Australian Labradoodle. I quickly noted how trainable, kind, and gentle of a breed it was. I trusted my daughter wholeheartedly with their ALD (Australian Labradoodle). Their dog was kind-natured and oh-so gentle with Emmary. I had never met a kinder dog. I knew that that was the breed I wanted. As our little girl grew with her puppy, it became clear to me, that I was meant to share this breed with others.
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