About Us
Moro Shepherds is a small, family-run kennel on five acres outside Albany, Oregon. Our dogs are family first and breeding stock second — they sleep in our house, grow up underfoot, and share our lives. Everything we do starts there.
We breed White Swiss Shepherds because we've seen what this breed can be: beautiful enough to win in the ring, sound enough to work all day, and steady enough to trust with your life. Over the years our dogs have gone on to become certified search-and-rescue K9s, seizure- and mobility-alert service dogs, therapy dogs — and, most often, somebody's once-in-a-lifetime heart dog. That's the whole point. We don't set out to produce a lot of dogs. We set out to produce the right ones, and to leave the breed a little better than we found it.
How we make those choices, what we test for, and where we think the breed is headed each have their own home — see Our Philosophy, Health & Testing, and Breed Information pages. This page is about us.
Meet the family
Sydney — the driving force behind Moro. A fifth-generation dog fancier who grew up showing in Junior conformation and managing kennels before she was out of her teens. Former law enforcement, and the handywoman who does most of the building around the homestead.
Mike — the nerd. He keeps the tech running — this website, the puppy cameras, the whole digital side — and trains his own dog in Ring Sport. By day he's a Site Reliability Engineer at an aerospace company.
Patrick — the minion. Sydney and Mike's youngest, an all-around helper and caregiver who's been part of the program since he was small — back when he was as likely to be found napping in the whelping box with puppies.
A note from Sydney
I've worked with dogs since I was a child. I'm a fifth-generation dog fancier — my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all 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 others, and my great-uncle bred Welsh Terriers and judged for the AKC nearly a hundred years ago. The dogs in my family go back about 150 years, to before we ever arrived in the United States.
After the University of Oregon, I settled into work as a police dispatcher for a county law-enforcement agency. And I met my husband at a dog show, of all places.
A note from Mike
I don't have my wife's multigenerational pedigree, but I've been around animals my whole life, and they seem to get me — I've had wild squirrels eating out of my hand while sitting in my lap, and anxious puppies relax when I hold them. I've been involved with White Shepherds since the mid-1990s, and finally got a dog of my own in 2008, directly related to the ones I grew up with. That dog led me to a dog show in 2010, where I met Sydney.
I lost that boy in 2020 to cancer. Today I'm lucky enough to own his son, who reminds me constantly not only of his dad, but of the old dog I spent so much of my youth with — his fifth-great-grand-uncle.
Our door is open — we genuinely welcome visitors to come meet the dogs. If you think a Moro shepherd might belong in your family, we'd love to hear from you.