Hi! I am Skylar Copeland, owner of Fireside Fernweh. While I have always loved animals, my obsession with these white dogs began in 2013, when I got my Athena, a white coated German Shepherd Dog. Athena and I had an extremely successful sport career (earning 30+ titles), but as she got a little bit older, I began to ponder my next dog. Late 2017, I met Jean Reeves (owner of Royal Acres WSS) at UKC Gateway Nationals where I was trialing Athena. Mid-2018, Athena was hit by a tractor, breaking her leg and ending her agility career. About two months post-injury, Jean posted a longhaired female available, whom I soon brought home and named "Furrari."

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When you are truly in love with something, it is hard to explain why you love it. I saw agility on TV before I got Athena and knew in that moment I wanted to do that sport....at the time, our only dog was a severely aggressive mastiff mix. Not exactly suitable for agility with a junior handler. When I got Athena and began training her, I loved every moment. There is so much problem solving in dog training, and it is always immensely satisfying to achieve the result you are looking for. When we began trialing, there was just so much thrill and so much excitement to qualify. Much later, I began breeding, and again I am in love with what I do. There is so much excitement watching a litter of puppies develop and so much satisfaction when they turn out as I expected from the pairing. And even moreso when they are better than I could have imagined. I simply could not imagine doing anything else.

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I am not a hobby breeder who works a full time job and only spends the evenings with my dogs. These dogs are my world and I am basically always training, trialing, showing, hiking, cleaning, or renovating our space with/for them.