We are proud to be breeding and raising “Classic Poos”. My brother, Matt, and I started raising Cockapoos four years ago as a way to help fund our college educations. Matt is a sophomore and I am a senior at Mt. Ayr High School, in Mt. Ayr, Iowa. We live on a three-generation family farm just north of Clearfield, Iowa in Taylor County. This is the southern most tier of counties in Iowa just about one hour and forty minutes southwest of Des Moines, Iowa or one hour and forty-five minutes southeast of Omaha, Nebraska or two hours and fifteen minutes north of Kansas City, Missouri. In other words, we are in the middle of nowhere, but close enough to the big cities to have access to everything we need.

Matt enjoys anything that has to do with balls; i.e. basketball, football, and baseball. His favorite NFL team is the Green Bay Packers and of course since his mother is from eastern Iowa, the Iowa Hawkeyes. He is very active in 4-H and our Church Youth group. He is Vice President of the Iowa FFA South Central District, and is also the president of the county's HELP Youth Pod. Matt plays the alto saxophone for our high school's jazz band, concert band, and marching band. At school his favorite subject is Math. Four years ago, his Math team won the State of Iowa Math Bee for the first time in school history. He was second in the contest, while his classmate was first.

I could care less about sports, and focus much of my time towards the organizations and community groups that I am a part of. During my senior year of high school, I was our FFA Chapter's Vice President, head sound technician for the high school drama department, and webmaster of the school's Spanish Department's website. I've also been a part of the principal's advisory committee, SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions), Entrepreneurial Club, Academic Decathlon (Honors Team), Academic Bowl, National Honors Society, and Tech Club. I'm the alto saxophone section leader in our marching band, concert band, pep band, and jazz band. This past year has been a blast for most nearly all activities going on around our high school. This year our Jazz Band made it to state championships, marching band scored yet another "I" rating, and I have been selected as a Star in Agribusiness over Iowa through the FFA. My hobby and specialty is computers and tech toys. I have been building computers and trouble shooting networks for several years at school and in my local community. Just a few of the community service activities that I have helped with include packing food for Haiti, planting flowers on mainstreet, adopting a highway, doing various activities at the nursing home, and putting up Christmas lights at the city parks. A blind friend of our family and I have a DJ service called “In the Dark," we play for weddings, school dances and other social events in the area. I am also active in 4-H and our Church Youth group. I enjoy school very much, especially science and math. When it comes to sports, our family is spilt, as Dad and I would rather watch the Iowa State Cyclones.

Our Mom, Becky, has been raising Border Collies since 1985. She has shipped Border Collie pups to several states and countries, including Japan, Mexico and Peru. Her Border Collie genetics came from Dewey Jontz, who imported the first Border Collies to Iowa in 1938. He believed that Border Collies should be “Farm Smart” and not the hyper, mechanical Border Collies of today. Mom was very lucky to be associated with Dewey. She learned much from him and has maintained his lines much as he would have if he were still alive. She usually has a waiting list for her pups. Her Border Collies are really special, but they are not housedogs. So that is one reason we decided to start breeding Cockapoos. She also is the bookkeeper and farrowing house manager of our family’s swine seedstock that has been in the swine genetics business since 1966. She is the bookkeeper for International Boar Semen, our family’s artificial swine genetics business. In her spare time, she is our official taxi for all of our school, sports, 4-H, church youth group and FFA activities.

Our Dad, Steve, has been in the family swine seedstock business since its start. He graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Animal Science specializing in genetics. Our family’s seedstock are in most of the States, Canada, Mexico, many countries in Central and South America, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and New Zealand. He has traveled overseas since 1981 working swine producers in these and other countries trying to help them improve their swine genetics and production practices. He is very active in Iowa Pork Producers, National Pork Producers Council, National Pork Board, various advisory boards for Iowa State University and the University of Iowa. In 2010, he was inducted into Iowa State University's Animal Science Hall of Fame.

Both of our parents have instilled us with responsibility, honesty, integrity, hard work and being fair to everyone. Our Cockapoos are helping us develop many skills and attributes that will help us in our journey through life. My brother and I do most of the chores and matings with a little help from Mom and Dad. We both feel the ultimate satisfaction when we see our Cockapoos going to great homes!

We are not running a puppy mill, but believe in doing the best we can; breeding and producing outstanding Designer Puppies, by using the best genetics, nutrition, health and animal care practices. Our Cocker Spaniel females are bred by us to be smaller sized, with great personalities. Our Toy Poodle sire is very correct with no genetic defects to date and very full of energy. We produce a “true first generation” Cockapoo, that will give us the same characteristics that everyone wants in a Cockapoo every time. Breeding second and third generation Cockapoos is very unpredictable.

We hope that you will give us the chance to show you how wonderful our Cockapoos really are.

Karl and Matt Kerns