Winterborn Spinone - Idaho Spinone Italiano Breeders

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About Winterborn Spinone


Dams: Fabrizia (top) & Sofia (bottom) ~~~ Flash (top & bottom) Hunting in Italy

Winterborn Spinone is located in Northern Idaho. We are a small breeder of Spinone Italiano, and our Spins are part of our family. We are committed to breeding quality Spinone and have chosen our pack from highly respected breeders with champion bloodlines. For more info please check out our website: WinterbornSpinone.com


Sofia x Flash 11 Puppies ~ "Fantasy" Litter (Pictured on Day 2)


The Colors of Winterborn



All of our Spinoni have been DNA tested by the AHT (Animal Health Trust in the UK); and are "CA Clear" (Cerebellar Ataxia Clear). This is a rare genetic disease that kills puppies at a young age. Bloodlines that are "CA Clear" never need to worry about this disease.

Our puppies are sold with full AKC registration. All of our puppies come with puppy shot records, microchip identification, tails docked, dew claws removed, health warranty, information packet, and a familiar toy.

Please let us know what you envision doing with your Spinone. Since each litter has a limited number of puppies to choose from, we will pre-screen the litter for the best candidates for your needs. From that selection we will give you a choice from that group (as long as they last).

Winterborn Spinone videos on YouTube:
Winterborn Otter At One Month: https://youtu.be/EFGehay-eYA
Winterborn Tessa Loves the Camera: https://youtu.be/mKtkqJ541hE
Winterborn ~ Sprouting Herbs ~ Day 14: https://youtu.be/MR4uqZMVYlo
Winterborn Progress Report ~ 4 Weeks: https://youtu.be/xt_NKbfdpik
Winterborn "Gunslingers" Litter ~ Day 19: https://youtu.be/LlzQvaWsEeo
Winterborn Spinone Fantasy Litter ~ Day 21: https://youtu.be/EwPfdhdTQHU

Winterborn "Elements" Litter ~ Day 17: https://youtu.be/kPALmP0DmcM
Winter At Winterborn ~ Preparing for Extreme Cold: https://youtu.be/-IP4iiCxWfY
Winterborn Spinone ~ "The Desserts" Litter ~ Thriving: https://youtu.be/YWbn7HmWb1I
Winterborn Spinone ~ Meet the Desserts ~ Day 22: https://youtu.be/j_4ExaM-lAk

Winterborn "Italian Cities" Litter, Fun & Games: https://youtu.be/KhyR1jT_H8U
Winterborn "Italian Cities" Litter, Days 14 & 15: https://youtu.be/-Mta94NNdM0
Winterborn "Italian Cities" Litter, Dinner Time: https://youtu.be/ITSotG1P-Ms

Winterborn Flash Playing with Puppies: http://youtu.be/mgdNKgxle4g
Winterborn Presents "Forli" Week 15: http://youtu.be/RYU8mfqHL94
Winterborn "The Borgias" Litter Day 25: http://youtu.be/gGGYELjpv8o
Winterborn "The Borgias" Litter Days 13/14 Walkin' & Talkin': http://youtu.be/go5pk2Mza24

Winterborn Artist Litter 2014 Highlights from 7th Week: http://youtu.be/RwdFyza6nYg
Winterborn Artist Litter 2014 "Comfy Crates" - 9th Week: http://youtu.be/AI5E_84etjI
Winterborn Shares Teaching the "Go Potty" Command: http://youtu.be/AuD-LLYACeU
Winterborn Artist Litter 2014 Playtime, Day 27: http://youtu.be/LkjAjuRuoxg
Winterborn Artist Litter 2014, Day 21: http://youtu.be/9QBxL4IHM9Y

When it comes to hunting, the Spinone is an all-terrain hunter with a steady trot, "hunting at a more human pace." When asked, "Does this hunting dog make a good pet?" my answer is, "Absolutely, but most are still hunters at heart so you will need a fenced yard."
Spinone are for people who like to spend time with their dogs.

In the Spinone Italiano breed boys are as sweet, or sweeter, than the girls.

We look forward to hearing from you,
Sherry Durst

Forli ~ Eyes on the Prize ~ Pictured at 15 weeks
Hunting Dog Breeds Raised
Spinone Italiano
Breeder Contact Info
Sherry Durst
Northern Idaho
Idaho
Breeding quality gun dogs for over 11 years.
Click here to visit Winterborn Spinone website
Puppies for sale
Testimonials (37) You are viewing the 10 most recent - View all reviews for Winterborn Spinone
Submitted by: Jennifer on Dec 02, 2023
Thanks forever to Sherry for our wonderful Clarabelle. From the moment Sherry put her in our arms, we have adored her more and more with each day. Clarabelle is beautiful, affectionate, very eager to please, funny, quite adaptable to all kinds of experiences, fearless, and oh so smart. Over the time leading up to Clarabelle coming home with us, Sherry kept us up to date on the litter and provided us with every detail we could possibly have needed to be prepared. The work Sherry did in training was obvious. Clarabelle came to us perfectly comfortable and happy in her crate. She knew about potty training. She’s excited to meet any and all people who have come to our house. She loves her big Spinone sister and is becoming friends with the cats. Sherry has been responsive and helpful with all our questions since Clarabelle came home, and I know I will be able to count on her in the future.
Submitted by: Claudia & Rick Petry on Nov 17, 2022
Our experience with Sherry and Winterborn Spinone has been superb! During our vetting process Sherry exhibited tireless patience, answered all of our questions, and made herself readily available whenever we needed her, and there was no pressure involved.

We are not hunters, so we were looking for a family dog. Sherry reassured us that she works hard to ensure that she matches the right dog and its temperament with an individual or family based on their lifestyle and the type of personality they are looking for. Well, based on our experience, we would say that Sherry is a peerless matchmaker.

Our boy Lorenzo Rigatoni aka "Enzo" has been a fabulous addition to our family. He arrived house trained, with a sweet disposition. Obviously, he is a puppy so there is training and work involved, but we could not be happier! Sherry has also been there in the aftermath of our adoption to provide support and answers to our further questions.

Our Enzo is one handsome boy who turns heads wherever we go, has a sweet personality, and plays well with other dogs.

In conclusion: our experience with Winterborn Spinone and their leadership has been top-notch from end-to-end. Highest recommendation!
Submitted by: Daniel Passini on Sep 02, 2022
Our experience with Sherry and the Winterborn Spinone team has been top notch from start to “finish.” (I say that in quotes because we still maintain contact.) Initially we inquired about an available puppy, and Sherry spent over an hour on the phone with me discussing our family, lifestyle, and the available pup to make sure we’d be a good fit for each other.

After deciding to go forward, Sherry provided numerous packets with information on the breed, care, tips, tools, and tricks. She also provided lots of pictures of our pup for our family, and kept open contact throughout the process until we were able to pick her up.

We picked up Daisy, our white and orange girl from the Noodles/Pasta litter, and drove her back to Texas just over a month ago. Our family immediately fell in love with her, along with everyone that sees her. She was a great car dog the entire trip, and continues to be. She has transitioned well, and the Winterborn team did an excellent job having Daisy crate and potty trained before we brought her home. She also understood some basic commands, and has done amazing in the first few weeks of our training at home. (You can follow our pups journey on IG: @some_like_it_spinone)

Sherry is very knowledgeable about the breed, and provides high quality pups. The countless positive reviews are a testament to the quality of their work as a breeder and the amazing pups you will find here at Winterborn. You can also search the hashtag winterbornspinone on IG to see several thriving pups from this great family. I would HIGHLY recommend Sherry and the Winterborn team if you are looking to add a Spinone family member.
Submitted by: Willow Spicer on Jul 13, 2022
Our experience with Sherry and Winterborn Spinone was exceptional. We brought our lovely boy Ravi - from the Noodle litter - home a month ago. Ravi is incredibly smart, absolutely adores belly rubs, and has charmed all of my office mates with his sweet and gentle nature.

Sherry and the Winterborn team absolutely dedicate themselves to giving each puppy the best care, love and guidance for the first weeks of their lives. Whether you are a hunter or a hiker or looking for a therapy dog, the puppies are raised with you – a future member of the Winterborn Family – in mind. Puppy care and welfare is the top priority, and they genuinely care about placing each puppy with the best home for its temperament and potential.

The foundation these puppies experience at Winterborn set them up for success. It took two days for our little guy to learn how to use the doggy door, and within the week, he was starting to take himself out to potty. We ensured that he made it outside frequently (including for the 4:30am wakeup call before he could sleep through the night) and praised him abundantly for a successful potty (he loved this part). Over the next few weeks, he was reliably taking himself outside every time he needed to go.

Initially, we had contacted Winterborn Spinone because we were interested in this breed and believed it would be a good fit for our lifestyle. After connecting with Sherry by email, and then over the phone, we knew she was the right breeder for our family. Sherry is incredibly dedicated to this breed, and the care she provides to her girls and puppies is top notch. We waited almost two years after placing a deposit on a puppy for the right time to bring a puppy home. Through this time, Sherry was incredibly professional and communicated clearly with updates on expected timelines.

While we waited for our puppy, the reviews found here provided reassurance and information. It helped us to get through what felt like a long (but completely worthwhile) wait. Now that we have brought our puppy home, we can confirm that the glowing reviews are accurate. If we ever decide to expand our Spinone family, we will do so with a Winterborn Spinone.
Submitted by: Crystal Sutfin on Jul 08, 2022
We have had our beautiful orange roan male Spinone for almost one year now. He has been an amazing addition to our family. We named him Archie. He is in a home with three young boys ages 8 and under and a young male cat named Pistol. He has an amazing relationship with our cat and kids. He is gentle, loving and smart. He does well on a gentle leader leash and never disappoints out in public. I literally have people comment any time I take him out. We appreciate everything!
Submitted by: Jim Gainey on Jun 18, 2022
We just got our Spinone puppy from Sherry. He is a brown roan male we named Hatcher. Obviously our entire family has fallen in love with the little guy.

I highly recommend Sherry as a breeder. Everything she did was professional, informational and complete. That includes our own family interview, her care for the puppies, her ease of transfer and follow-up information. We live in South Florida and Sherry is in Northern Idaho but we purchased from Winterborn based on Sherry’s reputation as a first class breeder and the quality of her dogs.

If you are looking for a Spinone I highly recommend you contact Sherry!
Submitted by: Mark Caine on Jan 02, 2022
We first connected with Sherry in fall 2020, and after several informative and enjoyable phone conversations we put ourselves on the waitlist for a Winterborn puppy. We are so happy that we did: as of November 2021 we have received our puppy, who has - along with Sherry and the Winterborn team - exceeded our expectations in every possible way.

Four aspects of our experience with Winterborn Spinone particularly stand out:

1. Information: Sherry is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about the spinone breed, and highly generous with her knowledge. In the early phases of the process she shared valuable insights and resources on spinones, which helped us confirm that this was the right breed for us given our lifestyle, home environment, and plans for the future. Sherry is more than a breeder: she is a veritable authority on spinones and a leading player in furthering the breed in the USA.

2. Family matching: We are not hunters, but rather an active young family who lives in a city but spends a lot of time in nature. We also have a rescue cat at home and will soon be having children, so our home situation and lifestyle call for a certain temperament of dog. Sherry was very attuned to the importance of a dog's fit within a family/home environment, and having had our dog for 2+ months now we are amazed at how well she matched the dog to our particular needs and preferences. Our dog has already become an integral member of the family, and we are astonished and incredibly grateful at just how well her temperament and energy fit into our lifestyle, home environment, and plans for the future.

3. Quality of Dogs and Early Puppy Care: Beyond her great fit with our family, our Winterborn puppy is just an overall wonderful dog. She conforms well with AKC breed standards, and more importantly she has a wonderful personality, a high level of intelligence, and a remarkably sweet temperament. Based on the feedback we have gotten from our vet as well as her behavior around the house, it is clear to us that she enjoyed both excellent parents and a nurturing early puppyhood while in the care of Sherry and her team. This includes valuable early training foundations, including potty training and crate training, which have made our subsequent training efforts so much easier and more productive than they might otherwise have been.

4. Communication and Ongoing Support: From the our first phone call to the present day, Sherry has been extremely communicative, responsive, enjoyable to work with, and generous with her knowledge and experience. It is so wonderful and reassuring to know that Sherry's commitment to our dog and our family goes beyond the pick-up date.

There is much more that I could write about our experience with Winterborn Spinone, but suffice to say that we could not be happier with our experience, our dog, and our ongoing support from Sherry. As soon as we are ready to welcome another spinone to our family we will be coming right back to Winterborn Spinone!
Submitted by: Charles Rimpila on Nov 28, 2021
I recently received a puppy (Ella) from Sherry and her family and I have to say it's been an amazing experience. They are professional and very sincere in their methods of raising the pups and providing a wonderful environment for them to grow. The information that they also provided was outstanding. Ella is so well behaved, even for a 3month old. She's potty trained, crate trained and also the sweetest dog I've ever met. I couldn't be more happy with Sherry and her team. I highly recommend them if you are serious about Spinone!
Submitted by: Ryan Berube on Aug 30, 2021
Sherry and her family exceeded all expectations. We had been talking to her for several years, and after putting a deposit down for a litter last year, our living circumstances prevented us from feeling confident that it was the right time. Her understanding and flexibility stood out. Winterborn Spinone's care for our puppy was SO impressive. We are happy beyond measure with our brown roan boy (Frank! We're in love!). Sherry set us up for success, and her respect and dedication to the breed should be where the standard is set.
Submitted by: Dina Jadallah on Nov 07, 2020
Since puppyhood is joyous and wonderous, but fleeting, I thought it might be helpful to write an updated review that addresses how our ten-month-old Winterborn puppy, Lucrezia from the Kings and Queens litter. has matured....
With every passing month, Sherry's exemplary work as a breeder and as a resource on all things spinone becomes more apparent... and deeply appreciated.  Winterborn Spinone is impressive in every way. Sherry has been wonderful and invaluable, generously sharing her vast knowledge with us whenever we reached out with a question. Our puppy has exceeded all our expectations. We couldn't be more grateful to the Durst family for breeding marvelous spinoni that are incredibly sweet, intelligent, sensitive, beautiful and eager to please.
In one of our conversations with Sherry, she mentioned that at Winterborn, they raise puppies with families in mind and that they aim to "spread spinone love." Initially, I didn't truly understand the scope of "spinone love" that Sherry succeeded in breeding into her line of spinoni. My husband and I have never had a dog that was as loving, as gentle, and as attached to us as Lucrezia. Lucrezia has yet to exhibit the typical "teenage rebellion" phase of normal puppyhood and I'm not sure she will... Coming when called, even outdoors with distractions, is one of her greatest joys. I can garden in the front yard, open the garage door, and leave her where I tell her to stay. She does not try to escape even when people or other dogs pass by. We're keeping our fingers crossed this attitude lasts! 
Sherry also said that Winterborn focuses on breeding very intelligent dogs. On that front, Lucrezia has proven herself a super smart cookie! She already learned tens of commands, usually after only one or two lessons. Moreover, she has amazing retention, recalling new commands surprisingly well at later dates. She is an avid and happy student, even prodding me to start our training sessions at the usual time! She knows most of her toys by name and loves to retrieve and "find" the ones I hide. Her nose is very keen. While we are not hunters, she nevertheless finds and points hiding quails when I take her for our morning run. True to breed descriptions, she loves to stay in close range even when I drop her leash on (safe) sections of the trails while we're running. She also loves a challenge and makes up games (usually pushing, hiding and stalking a tennis ball or running around with one of her rope toys) to entertain herself when I can't play with her.
In raising the puppies, Sherry and her family expended notable efforts to raise well-behaved dogs for families. We continue to benefit greatly from all their foundational work. Lucrezia remains very thoughtful, cautious, and polite in her greetings. For example, she goes into an expert, and totally adorable and charming, army crawl to greet other dogs, especially when they are smaller than herself. She is especially careful around little dogs so as not to scare them and empathetically adjusts her playing style to suit the demeanor of the dog she meets. She is always polite when greeting humans as well. We take her almost everywhere we go, including to restaurants for outdoor dining two or three times a week. She lays down patiently while we eat, does not beg, and is invariably polite with people dining near us. She likes to think before she acts and is generally cautious. She also is delightful and makes us laugh every day.
Lest you think that I am biased, I most definitely am!! I admit that my husband and I find Lucrezia irresistible: it's hard to pass up kissing and petting her every time we look at her fuzzy head and long-lashed green eyes... Her house manners are impeccable (thanks in large part to the solid foundations that Sherry instilled). She has never destroyed or harmed anything in the house and my garden survived her young puppyhood almost intact! Her responses to commands indoors is perfect; but she still needs work outside not pulling on a leash. 
Over the past several months, we have found Sherry's recommendations regarding pet products to be incredibly useful... and unerringly correct! Sherry is an encyclopedia about spinoni and about dogs! We often feel so very grateful to her for generously sharing her knowledge and wisdom; not to mention for breeding our fantastic Lucrezia! 
I cannot end my review without mentioning that it is always a real pleasure to talk with Sherry: her personality, insights, integrity, and sense of humor are truly exceptional and uplifting. We can't say enough great things about the Winterborn team and their terrific, beautiful, smart, and lovable spinoni!! Getting on Sherry's waiting list for a puppy and being patient while we waited was well worth it. Now Winterborn Spinone has spoiled us forever. Nothing else will do in the future...
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