Kylie Kelce introduced the family’s new German Shepherd puppy, Bernadette, in the March 31 episode of her Wave Originals series, FAFO, saying the addition came after she and Jason Kelce had already discussed whether he would be “peeved” if she brought home another animal. The reveal landed with the kind of open admission that fit the moment: Kylie said, “I can’t help myself,” and added, “Someone let me loose in a rescue and this is what happened.”
The puppy is the latest change inside a household that already includes Jason Kelce, 38, Kylie Kelce, 34, their four daughters — Wyatt, 6, Bennett, 5, Elliotte, 3, and Finnley, 12 months — and the family dog Patricia. Kylie said Jason agreed to the adoption only if he got naming rights, and she said “Bernadette” was a frontrunner before the couple settled on Bernadette Kelce as the final name.
Kylie said the adoption was six weeks in the making, after she first teased that a new addition might be coming. She also said she had been pushing for a cat, but was not ready to adopt one yet. Jason, by her telling, was not a fan of the idea; Kylie said he told their daughters cats were “poisonous,” a claim that sat in the middle of the family’s running cat saga. That tension gave the puppy reveal its edge: the animal arriving at the house was not the one Kylie had originally been campaigning for.
Her path to Bernadette ran through Main Line Animal Rescue in Pennsylvania. Kylie said she met kittens, Great Dane puppies, barn cats and a very vocal duckling at the Chester Springs rescue, and that she had been tipped off about German Shepherd puppies at the rescue’s Philadelphia location. She said, “I love German Shepherds and they said, ‘We might have the thing for you!’ And it turns out they did. I’m here now to hopefully pick a puppy.”
The new puppy also sharpened the family’s long-running joke about how much more room there is for animals in the Kelce house. Kylie said she and Jason had discussed whether he would be mad about another pet, and she asked viewers to rate his reaction “on a scale of one to 10.” She later made clear where the family stood on cats for now, saying that when she is ready, she will go back to the PSPCA to find one that wants to come home, but “for now” Bernadette is the new arrival. That closes the loop on the question Kylie raised before the reveal: Jason was warned, Jason bargained for naming rights, and the family ended up with a German Shepherd puppy instead of a cat.
