Welcome to Cape Bernese

The Bernese Mountain Dog Kennel

in the heart of Cape Breton Island, at the Shore of the Bras d'Or Lake,

in Nova Scotia, CANADA.

This website is about Bernese Mountain Dogs – our Bernese Mountain Dogs, and about our Bernese Mountain Dog puppies. And it is about our Kennel “Cape Bernese”.

We would like to introduce us and our magnificent dogs. We invite you to share our delight and rapture for our dogs and for this breed.

You are welcome to join us on the wave of enthusiasm for Bernese Mountain Dogs.

If you are looking for general information about this breed, you will find many much specialized websites and books. Unfortunately, many of those information-sources you will find in German language only. No wonder, the name "Bernese Mountain Dog" relates to the mostly German speaking City in Switzerland: "Bern".

Most people familiar with these dogs associate the Bernese Mountain Dog, or short "Berner", with the history of Switzerland and the Swiss Alps and the Swiss Heritage.

By the way, "Bern" is not just the word for the City of Bern, it is also the name for the Region (Kanton) Bern in Switzerland, something like a province in Canada, with its capital "Bern".

For the last couple hundred years, the Bernese Mountain Dog was an typical working dog on many farms in and around the Swiss Alps. He was used in the City of Bern and in wide rural areas around the Mediterranean as a watch dog and for guardian purposes.

The breed of the Bernese Mountain Dog is old, I mean really old.
And nobody knows for sure, how old exactly this breed is. Accordingly to many sources it is believed, that the ancestors of the Bernese Mountain Dogs have been guard dogs for the old Romans and in ancient times they came with Hannibal to cross the Alps from…why...who knows.

One of the milestones in becoming the Bernese Mountain Dogs an internationally recognized dog breed, was the international dog exhibition "Berna" in 1904 in the Swiss city Bern. The Judge Fritz Probst and Prof. Dr. Alber Heim are maybe the most important patronizers of this dog breed and its standards.
Some say that the world owes these gentleman the Bernese Mountain Dog standard. Until around then these dogs are called "Dürrbächler" after a farm and tavern in the very little village of Dürrbach near Bern in Switzerland.
This historical photo is from the Swiss Club for Bernese Mountain Dogs.

Nobody did expect the "Dürrbächler" dog becoming famous all over the world as the “Bernese Mountain Dog” just hundred years later. Thank you Mr. Probst and Mr. Heim!

More about the history of the Bernese Mountain Dogs and much more detailed information about this breed you will find at the website of the Swiss Club for Bernese Mountain Dogs or the German Club for Bernese Mountain Dogs.

If you are just looking for some general information about this amazing dog breed without having the intention of becoming an “Kynologe”(Cynology - the study of matters related to canines or domestic dogs), maybe you are on the right website.

If you enjoy looking at some Bernese Mountain Dog photos, especially at photos from Bernese Mountain Dog puppies: you found the place.

On this little family-made website we would like to introduce us and our Bernese Mountain Dog Kennel here at Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada, not more and not less.

If you are thinking about sharing your home and life with a Bernese Mountain Dog, you are welcome to keep reading.
But consider buying the best vacuum cleaner available, ideally one for each level of your house.
And be prepared for the fact, that the amount of love you will get from this dog breed, and the volume of the heart of your Berner is equivalent to the volume of dog pup you might have to clean from your yard each day...:-). And if a black hair (or maybe two or even more) on top of your fresh cooked meal is something pushing you to miserable thoughts, stop right here!
Find a different hobby with less hairs. But stay away from Bernese Mountain Dogs!

And we warn you even more. We don't just sell puppies. We might place a Bernese Mountain Dog baby for adoption! That is a huge difference for us, and we hope for you as well.
It very important for us to find out if somebody would be the best fit to provide our Berner baby the perfect new home. That is why we have a lot of questions for you and we would like to find out a lot of information about you, about your family and about your situation.
Doing the same with us would show us that you care about your Bernese Mountain Dog puppy.

If you are still not discouraged and you still think about getting a Bernese Mountain Dog puppy in to your home, you are welcome to drop us a line. But before contacting us, please take the time and read about some basic information on our page >Berner Puppies< first.
On this page we would like to share some thoughts about our policies and standards as a Bernese Mountain Dog breeder and what it would need to become a new owner of one of our Bernese Mountain Dog puppies.

If you never petted a “real” Bernese Mountain Dog before, you are welcome to meet us and our dogs at our place at Cape Breton Island. All of our Berners are family members and live in our family home together with us.
Maybe you would like to meet our kennel and the parent dogs? As you might know, we rent out a comfortable cottage right on the shore of the Bras d'Or Lake:www.CapeBretonCottage.com

All of our breeding Berners have been certified to be free from hip and elbow dysplasia for several generations.

And our newest Berner baby Elisa come to Nova Scotia in September 2014 from Germany. More detailed information about our present Bernese Mountain Dogs you will find on their specific page.

We are members of the Canadian Kennel Club (CKC) and the Bernese Mountain Dog Club of Canada (BMDCC), the Berner Garde and the Cape Breton Kennel Club.
All puppies will have up-to-date vaccines, will be veterinary checked and micro chipped - no exemptions. You are welcome to conatct our vet clinic to enquire about us and our kennel.
Of course they are all CKC (Canadian Kennel Club) registered.

Just in case you want to see some more historical photos from Bernese Mountain Dogs:

pictures taken from Schweizer Sennenhund-Verein für Deutschland e.V.