Wht's the difference between a good backyard breeder and a 'proper' breeder?

[Slubberdegullion]

I have no intention of breeding from my bitch but I'm genuinely interested in the difference between the two, and what makes a true breeder.

Say you have a pedigree bitch, with good parentage/lines and you want a litter from her. You get some books, chat to the breeder you got your dog from, maybe chat to people in the breed club or on a breed specific forum. Then you do all the health checks and they come back clear or with excellent scores. Then you find a sire with good lines and good scores. You find out everything you can about whelping and care/socialisation of the puppies afterwards. You check out your potential puppy buyers thoroughly and you offer lifetime support for that puppy.

I'm sure I've left out loads, but you get the picture. You've ticked all the boxes. And yet (I think) you'd still be called a byb.

How does a byb become a true breeder, and how can a potential puppy buyer tell the difference?

The Kennel Club are a registration body, nothing else. If someone wants to find a good breeder, they should go via the breed club, not the KC.

Inbreeding rarely occurs these days and hasn't for years, when it does happen, it's mainly with puppy farmers and that's for economic reasons.

silent

preps flamethrower<

the issue there is that the KC doesn't do enough. On the other hand, it is one of very few bodies that does anything about breeding issues.

breed clubs are generally better and have a higher ethical standard, and generally breed club members care very deeply for their dogs, and for their breed.

it actually takes very few generations to vastly reduce the incidence of some genetic problems when tests are dveloped and breeders use them - and this is being done by breed clubs, with some helpful accreditation from the KC.

and i know exactly how inbred my dog is because her ancestry is traceable, and a record of it has been held by an independant body. an owner of a non-pedigree dog can't say the same - they only have the word of the vendor. you may not like the fact that, say in a four-gen pedigree the same dog may appear twice, but if you have no pedigree, how do you know your pup isn't the produce of a father-daughter mating? or brother-sister?

some of the worst breeders care so little for their dogs they don't even know which dog fathered the puppies they sell - nor do they care.

bugger, what midori said would have done.

Beta, she's a lab. I walked away from lots of litters (mostly on the phone) because of lack of health tests.

midori the KC are muddying the waters a bit though with their accredited breeders scheme though aren't they. If you are starting from scratch and want a pedigree puppy the KC is the first place you would think to start. That they provide listings of litters would to anyone not in the know (me) appear that they were endorsing them.

I wish now I hadn't been on one of my mn breaks when I was conducting my puppy research, not that I'm unhappy in anyway with my choice.

Slubber, the breeder you mentioned isn't a good breed, obviously.

There are so many factors that make a good breeder, it is no one thing.

If you are breeding for money, then you are seeing your animals as a business. Breeding properly costs a lot of money. That's if things go right. If the go wrong, it can cost thousands. Even something as simple as a c-section. If you are breeding for money, what do you do if a pup you breed has a correctable congenital problem that will cost thousands to fix and you need to wait until the pup is 6-8 months old to fix it? Put the pup to sleep?

Showing is expensive. Around £100-£200 per show, depending on how far you have to travel, if you have to pay for overnight accomodation etc. Entering Crufts and the expenses it incurs add up to around £1000 for most people. Puppies from Show Champs don't command higher prices than pupppies that aren't.

The KC allow six litter per bitch to be registered. That is too many for any bitch to have. Two is the maximum most breeders I would allow, three, maybe four if there was an extremely good reason for doing so. Anything over four is very unethical and cruel to the bitch. So, is someone breeding for money supposed to breed the bitch for three years of her life and then discard her? Paying to keep a bitch that cannot breed wouldn't be very finacially sound. Or should the just breed the maximum number if six litters and then get rid of her? Or, should they do what puppy farmers do and breed far more than six litters from a bitch, breeding her every season until she's nearly dead and then just cut their losses on the litters which cannot be KC registered and sell them for less?

Money should never come into it. I could have sold my last litter (3 years ago) a hundred times over. I didn't think 'well, there's a great market, I'll breed some more', I took the opportunity to cherry pick which people I wanted to own my puppies.

Yes, I agree with you. The accredited breeders scheme could be such a good thing and it isn't. It can give buyers a false sense of security.

The KC are not without their faults, but the are working on them. KC registration is a starting point when looking for a pup, but it is no mark of quality, which is sad.

I (and I am not alone in my decision) will not join the AB scheme because as it stands I don;t see it as a good thing, just a money making scheme for the KC.

I agree totally about what others are saying about Breed Clubs.

TBH the Kennel Club is quite far removed in many ways from the grass roots of pedigree dog showing and breeding.

no no no. Oh gosh you have misunderstood me.

Obviously making a living as a day job from ethical breeding is impossible, as you have pointed out.

When I started looking for puppies I found out the average price of a pedigree lab was between £600 and £1000. Fine. When I called a breeder one of my questions was the price, and yes they all came in at around the same price tag. This was regardless of if they'd had all the health tests, and as it turned out the litter in the disgraceful conditions was up there at £800 iirc.

If as an excellent gold standard breeder you set your prices higher than that, say £1500 and you said my puppies this price because of
Excellent health scores for both parents/grandparents etc
Excellent facilities for whelping etc
Excellent pre and post natal nutrition
Excellent pre and post natal vet care
Excellent puppy care/advice when you take your puppy home
etc etc
then firstly some people will pay that - to get a puppy from a gold standard breeder - BUT it would also motivate buyers to start asking for these things and push for increased quality in breeding.

Earniing some money or at the very least breaking even would be a by product of increasing your prices for ethical reasons.

Believe me, we are in a world now where good ethics is a saleable commodity.

If I'd phoned up someone and found out their puppies cost £1500 my next question would be why?

Cue sales pitch...

sales pitch for selling what a good breeder should offer, not just to sell your puppies iyswim

I don't want to charge £1500. Even if I did, I wouldn't break even when breeding a litter once every three years, when I take into account the costs of keeping the bitch for 14 years plus and the costs fo showing. I don't want to breed more often because I am not prepapred to risk my bitches life to supply public demand.

My dogs are my hobby. Hobbies cost money. When I had horses I spent absolutely thousands of pounds without ever expecting a penny back. What I get back from my hobbies is something far better than cash.

If I break even on an individual litter (without considering extra costs not directly associated with that litter) then that is great. If I don't, well, then I suck it up, I make sure I can afford it. I like to keep my prices in line with what others in the breed club. with similar ethics are charging. This is enough to put off most of the non serious buyers (well, they can get a dog of the same breed for half that down the road and they watched 'THAT@ programme and all KC dogs are inbred and all show breeders scum anyway) and make people think about their purchase, not be able to afford it on a whim. It is also enough for me to cover my costs in most circumstances.

All that aside, you can't always have a litter just because you want one. I have spent around £800 getting my bitch mated this summer. She is not in whelp.

Well I completely agree about hobbies costing money and you get back far more and something far better than cash. And I can understand why you would not want to view your beloved dogs and their puppies as a money making enterprise.

Sorry to hear your bitch is not in whelp.

Out of interest how many litters are the dogs allowed to sire according to KC rules?

I cant remember ever seeing a limit for Sires.

a wise breeder doesn't let their stud get used too much - every usage endangers your good name and decreases the rarity of what you have in your line...

there is no welfare limit though.