Geronimo Golden Retrievers

21/01/2024

Purple girl Baylee, from Estelle/Jack 2023 Gemstones litter… she’s the one that kept climbing out of the pen at the end. Her owners say she brings them so much joy and happiness every day! 😄 I LOVE getting updates!

20/01/2024

Sorry the video is sideways!!!

Answers to recent questions, including when will we have more puppies, what is the box we used, and litter training…

18/01/2024

I’m just saying, one puppy is INFINITELY easier than multiple! So clean and tidy.

15/01/2024

Hanging out with this little boy…

12/01/2024

Murdoch is growing up! But still so weeeettle 🥹

(sorry blurry picture and weird lighting, my phone has been acting up lately)

11/01/2024

I love it when friends ask how much we get paid to show our dogs… 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😅

09/01/2024

09/01/2024

Jemma watching for the huge Michigan snow storm we’re supposed to be getting today…

08/01/2024

Jack, shed scent— he finds it immediately. This is how I set it up for each of them the first time, right in the entrance of the woods.

08/01/2024

Jemma’s first attempt at finding shed hunt scented toy. No— usually you don’t start with them finding it in the woods, I was more or less just trying it out to see how they’d do.

08/01/2024

We’re starting training for a new sport— shed hunt!!!! It’s a timed event where the dog has to find a number of deer sheds 🦌 in the woods. It’s extremely fun and relaxed compared to some of the other sports we have played. Here’s a few videos of the dogs on their first day of training on the scent.

03/01/2024

So many adorable memories being made 💚

02/01/2024

Our “true door…”

I’ve been looking for it for a while. I keep feeling like I’ve found it, but the restlessness I’ve been recently experiencing tells me otherwise.

Speaking about the past— I used to be quite heavily involved with dogs. Not in the same way a lot of young people are currently involved with dogs… the culture used to be completely different. Before social media, the entire dog community was much smaller. There weren’t as many sports, weren’t as loud of opinions about literally every little thing, it wasn’t the norm for you to wrap your entire life around your dog’s very existence, it was not an expectation to take professional level photos of your dogs daily, doing things and having a more exciting life than most people I know, and there weren’t as many people involved as there currently are— so when I say “heavily” involved, I mean for the time that it was, and not in comparison to how it is now.

The truth is, I’m having a hard time keeping up. Stuff moves much more quickly now. The social media platforms are too much for me. I recently started us a page on instagram— I haven’t posted much of anything on it. I forget it exists entirely until I remember it exists, and then I get overwhelming anxiety about the fact that I don’t post there. I see other trainers, breeders, owners posting insane videos, pictures, things they’re doing with their dogs… do I feel inadequate? Not necessarily. My day to day life looks nothing like theirs though, so I don’t have much time for all that stuff.

I also follow a lot of breeder pages. Many of them seem to continually get new puppies, are always at a show titling, or having litters.

I want to keep up. Maybe this is part of the age old “keeping up with the Jonses” problem that I never realized I had until recently. I feel like I’m falling behind, or not measuring up. Some days I feel like my wheels are spinning and I’m not getting anywhere.

Everyone who follows us knows that we recently had a singleton male puppy born here, out of a breeding I put a lot of thought, time, and planning into. But I haven’t yet shared how devastating it was for us when the vet tech came out the door of the surgery room and announced “it’s a boy!” It felt like our entire program was crumbling before my eyes. We had planned on keeping a female— the best female— out of the litter.

As we grappled with the fact that we just spent ungodly amounts of money and energy for a single male puppy, I came to accept our fate— this is the door being presented to us, this is the one we’re supposed to open. We had no plans whatsoever to keep another male anytime soon, but as I ruminated on our current life— day to day— it made sense that this was our door.

Perhaps I’m trying too hard to stay relevant. Perhaps I’m trying to move forward when it’s not time. Perhaps I’ve missed the point of what we’re doing and why we even started this program. I desperately wanted to grow. I wanted more females, I wanted to have litters available regularly like most of the other breeders do, I wanted to title in all the things, all to the highest levels I could. I wanted a pretty website and a well rounded social media presence, I wanted to be an authority on my “professional hobby.”

I was trying to open a door that wasn’t meant for me, at least not right now. The stark contrast between my vision and the current reality of my daily life is just entirely incompatible.

This new puppy— our Murdoch— is the embodiment of “the door for us.” To me he sigifies all the effort we have put in to get to where we are, patience for what’s to come, and acceptance for what currently is.

Our program may be small, we may not have the fanciest pedigrees or the most highly titled dogs out there, but we have deep value. We do what is right, we’re honest, and our door looks like authenticity.

01/01/2024

Happy New Year!

First off, what better day to announce our new puppy’s name— so sticking with our fishing theme, I’d love to formally introduce our new guy:

Geronimo’s Small Catch Big Keeper
Call name “Murdoch,” which means sea 🌊

The next thing is I’m hoping for some participation here…

What things would you like to see more of on our page?
Less of?
Training articles?
Videos?
Information about health?
Breed relevant information?
More photos?
Puppy birthday posts?
Etc?

I don’t feel like I’m as active on social media as a “should be,” but I don’t want to be too overwhelming and lose you from over sharing. I realize I’m a very small program and it’s quite redundant seeing the same three dogs on repeat.

Thanks everyone!

30/12/2023

Trying to find exciting ways to photograph one puppy is almost impossible— (I’m not into props/dressing up or using AI to alter my images either.)

On a different note— He’s starting to look more like a real puppy. Ears and eyes will be opening shortly and then the real fun begins. He’s 11 days old today.

27/12/2023

Little boy singleton falls asleep nursing on a very regular basis now— and he turned one week old today!

Jack and Jemma had a fun trail walk outing with me and one of my BFFs tonight. Jack hasn’t been out away from our normal routines in a while and was quite over exuberant to put it modestly…

24/12/2023

Merry Christmas! 🎄🎁

20/12/2023

Snuggly buggly, this puppy is going to be amazing 🤩

19/12/2023

He’s here! Estelle delivered her gigantic 19 1/4 ounce male puppy this morning via planned cesarean. Both are doing well. Puppy is very strong and is loudly nursing away as I write this.

15/12/2023

Merry Christmas from Geronimo Goldens 🐾

14/12/2023

A good friend of mine is hoping to rehome her Cavalier puppy. He is around six months, he is up-to-date on shots and fixed. He is located in West Michigan. He has been born and raised around children, has exposure to cats, dogs, and chickens. There is a rehoming fee.

13/12/2023

There it is— that’s one humongous puppy. Unfortunately all my hopes of a possible second puppy in there were squashed this morning after this x-ray verified— still a singleton. We are contemplating if we are going to try to allow her to labor or just plan a cesarean. She’s due next Tuesday.

When there’s only one, sometimes the hormones that trigger labor are never released, requiring an emergency situation. It’s a toss up whether or not she will go into labor on her own.

07/12/2023

Paisley and Jack's puppies finally arrived late last night. She had 11 puppies, but unfortunately 2 did not make it. Mom and puppies (6 females/3 males) are all doing great!

05/12/2023

Estelle— two weeks left in pregnancy. She’s incredibly small, this singleton thing is so bizarre.

30/11/2023

Our beautiful, sweetheart Jemma passed all her OFA’s! This is fantastic news, and means we can go forward with our plans to breed her this spring.

OFA Hips Good
OFA Elbows Normal
OFA Eyes Normal
OFA Heart Auscultation & Echo Normal

28/11/2023

Here we are, more than halfway through the pregnancy… I’m honestly still in some disbelief about the singleton. Some days she doesn’t even look pregnant to me. The repro vet told me not to supplement her because we don’t want the puppy to grow too big or Estelle will need a cesarean. I sometimes have hope that maybe there’s a second puppy hiding in there. Only time will tell.

I’ve been in my head a lot lately, ruminating over the decisions I’ve made in terms of our program, where I want to be headed versus where I likely am headed even if I don’t want to be… sometimes it takes a toll on my mental health if I’m very honest. There’s so many self proclaimed experts out there who are doing this and that and so much more, seem to have infinite amounts of money and time to pour into their dogs… I feel like I’m falling short in many ways.

But sometimes I’m real with myself and I know that I’m doing my best with the life and circumstances I’ve been given. And for that, I’m grateful. I’m grateful to be able to identify that and know that, even on the days that I struggle.

I hope to be able to post more show wins, more training videos, more puppy announcements. Thank you so much for being a follower of mine and for many of you believing in me and what I’m doing here. It really wouldn’t be possible without so much support.