About Moro Shepherds


Moro Shepherds is located on 5 acres just outside of Albany, Oregon. Our dogs are family pets as well as being stock for our breeding program. We travel with our dogs and show in conformation in FCI and UKC, which earns titles of beauty and adherence to the breed standard for the White Swiss Shepherd. We also will title in other types of events with our dogs, depending on their natural strengths. Our breeding program character focus orients toward service work, which is a rather broad term that encompasses everything from emotional support animal, to medical service alert (seizure, blood sugars, blood pressure etc), mobility assist, and up to highly specialized work such as Search and Rescue. Due to the protective instincts of this breed, properly temperamented White Swiss Shepherds make excellent service dogs when raised and trained properly. We have several dogs placed across many categories federally considered to be a ‘service dog’ and we are happy to provide references. These placements also serve as proof of the strength of character in the lineage of Moro/Parsons dogs adherence to the breed standard. Our dogs are not only lovely to look at, but are intelligent, trainable, and of superior health. We gladly accept visitors to our property, where you can meet our dogs. All of our puppies are whelped inside our home, handled by the family constantly, and subjected to a myriad of noises, people and circumstances to ensure a well rounded puppy. We litter box train our puppies, and they are most often, potty trained by the time they go to their new homes at 9 weeks of age. Our babies are also on live webcam from birth, 24 hours a day, which enables families to observe puppies grow prior to placement. We can ship worldwide.

We are active within the breed’s politics, having founded the White Swiss Shepherd Club of America. There, we tabulate health data for our breed, acting as custodians that our breed is properly cared for in the hopes to maintain this wonderful breed in the healthiest state possible. This means to encouraging as much genetic diversity as possible, setting standards for health testing, mentoring new breeders, and answering questions presented by the public. Moro sets itself at a very high standard of care for its own dogs, and we choose only the very best specimens of character, physique, and health, so that we can set the example of how other breeders within the WSS breed should be operating. We are also members of several other White Shepherd groups and associations, as well as having served on the Board of Directors for many organizations pertaining to the White Shepherd.

All of Moro’s breed stock has Canine Health Information Center (CHIC) certifications through the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals (OFA). As of this web update, we are the ONLY White Swiss Shepherd breeder to have CHIC certifications on any of its breed stock- and we have certifications for ALL of our breeding dogs. Having a CHIC certificate for a particular dog formally indicates that the dog has been tested for every recommended health test for our breed. This would be testing for hips, elbows, eyes, heart, dentition, thyroid, and are dogs are DNA tested for MDR1 and DM mutation. Not only are we the only breeder to fulfill all recommended testing, but we also go above and beyond the CHIC recommended health testings by testing patellas, and DNA testing for von Willebrand’s (vWD) and hemophilia. Moro has a lifetime guarantee with regards to life threatening genetic illnesses. Not only does no other breeder health test do health testing to the extent that Moro does, but we are unaware of any breeder with our level of health guarantee.

In our opinion, we produce some of the best temperaments of this breed that can be found anywhere in the world. Our dogs produce happy, good natured puppies that with a range of drives and energy to be able to suit most requests that come to us. Our goal is to produce dogs of sound temperament, health and body; conforming to the FCI (Fédération Cynologique Internationale) breed standard for the White Swiss Shepherd and White Shepherd. Our breedstock is registered with FCI as White Swiss Shepherds and usually also litter registered with United Kennel Club (UKC). This breed is not yet recognized with the American Kennel Club (AKC), and so connection for our dogs with UKC gives us and buyers a good venue to compete in a wide range of activities with your dog. Over the last several years, we have brought in import lines from German and Italy to maintain working drive and health, while the outcross ensures genetic diversity.

White Swiss Shepherds make great companion, service, and working dogs, and they have the natural physical and mental ability to be used for home protection, agility, obedience, herding, therapy, tracking disciplines, and make a great all around farm dog. Most of our own stock have medium to high play drives, medium to high prey drives, and strong natural tracking instincts. Most of our litters will produce puppies ranging in drive to be able to accommodate various requests for companion homes up to drives necessary to meet the needs of a performance puppy buyer. Our conformation quality is high across all litters these days, as our breeding program gets closer and closer to reaching its goal of a total dog. All puppies get written evaluations by a judge; testing for temperament soundness as well as structural quality. These evaluations are what determine the price for individual pups. We often sell show quality stock into companion and working homes.

As for myself, I have worked with dogs since I was a child, and am a 4th generation dog fancier, with parents, and grandparents, and great grandparents also having had been well respected breeders in their own breeds. My parents had afghan hounds, then later Irish Setters and Finnish Spitz. My grandparents had Cocker Spaniels and a few other breeds, and my great uncle had Welsh Terriers and was an AKC judge nearly 100 years ago. After attending the University of Oregon, I settled into working as a police dispatcher for a county law enforcement agency. I met my husband at a dog show, and he works as an operations engineer for a large tech firm. Our goal is to produce dogs that can perform well in a family environment yet also have the drive and stability and instincts to perform in any manner of performance and the health and structure to maintain longevity. We have many dogs placed in homes as service dogs, from law enforcement Search and Rescue, to lift assist, seizure alert, general therapy work, to farm utility dog. However, our temperament focus is to produce stock suitable for Search work. Search and Rescue demands a dog with proper structure for durability in the field, as well as high drives for play and natural tracking abilities. Our dogs suitable for Search will track via air as well as ground, and will have high prey drives, but a very strong bonding ability with people.

We feed Royal Canin foods, which is one of only 4 brands of dog food that is NOT linked to nutritional Dilated Cardiomyopathy (nutritional DCM). Our puppies are fed the Royal Canin Large breed Puppy formula and adults are fed RC large breed maintenance formula.