[PollyPolly]

Hi everyone,

I am currently researching homing a dog. I've read a lot about Bernese mountain dogs but was wondering if anyone with more first hand experience could tell me what living with this breed is really like day to day? How much exercise do you give them? And how do you find them to be in the house?

It'll be a few years yet so for the time being I want to do as much research as possible.

 

[Avie]

Don't have any experiences to share other than that I know two of them who live in my neighborhood. One is milder in character, the other is very boisterous! Both are friendly. Don't always listen as well as the owner wants them to, hahahah But overall they're good off leash and good with other dogs and people. They live in a small house with a small, fenced yard, together with a Newfoundland, and they seem to be doing just fine with the three of them in that living space. Don't know if this counts for the entire breed overall, but to me they seem like dogs who don't need much to be content, happy dogs.

 

[Bordermom]

They can be pretty active, depends on the dogs and so on. We've boarded a few and I can say socialize, socialize, socialize! Teach good leash manners and make a point of finding a good groomer and take them there often as puppies so they get used to everything. The only issues I've really seen is spooky and hard to catch (the kennel has large pens for the dogs to run in, the one BMD didn't want to get caught so it took two of us to 'herd' her into the smaller pen so we could - food and anything else didn't work!), and hard to handle simply because they're a big dog. I also understand cancer is a huge issue in the breed, so you would want to ask about the relatives and how long they've lived over the years as well as considering a raw diet and minimal vaccines.

They are sweet though, the last one in was a big guy who was not happpy he couldn't romance the one dog there, but wonderful leash and table manners - once the leash was on he walked very nicely!