Today I'm taking another pass at the ever popular subject of Finding A Good Breeder, a subject I have visited before in various ways from Another One of those Stupid “how to find a good breeder” lists….. to Rin Tin Tin, or Run Run Run? This time from the perspective of finding a breeder that shares your values.
As part of my new podcasting project I kicked off with how I define a Responsible Breeder and Substandard Breeder I've detailed out the Ethical Breeding Standard we use ourselves and I'm presenting it here for you in visual and PDF form. I find the Breeder Standard to be a vastly more functional way of identifying breeders I want to support and work with than most other such resources out there, because of it’s focus on core values, relationship building, and mutual understanding.
The Breeder Standard also cuts through the general fog on this subject that occurs when we obscures what really matters in favor of things we have been taught are more important than they really are.
Primarily what I mean by this is the blanket assignment of ”good” applied to breeders producing dogs for competition (show/sport) and the blanket ”bad” applied to breeders who do not breed dogs primarily for competition but instead for companion homes. This age old “find a show breeder” advice just misses the mark and has led to so many problems in the dog community that it’s long past time we move to something more meaningful.
Why? Why is the ”find a breeder who titles their dogs” advice damaging to the dog community?
Why is the advice to beware of breeders who don’t also damaging to the dog community?
Read the full article, including downloadable PDFs, in our newest take on how to find the puppy of your dreams.
Want even more? Explore our free mini course, which includes a full discussion of The Breeder Standard, and our step by step Breeder Interview Checklist.
For more information on the 5 Freedoms check out this and this and perhaps if there is enough interest we will have a more in-depth discussion of the 5 Freedoms in another episode.