11/18/2025
Let’s talk a little bit about breeding….
I’m not here to judge anyone’s breeding practices. I do things the way they work for me, and others do things their way. Do I always agree with them? No. Do they always agree with me? No.
The point to breeding is to, in my opinion, to better the breed and the genetics of said breed. A lot of people still don’t do the genetic testing. I don’t do the OFA’s, but I do the genetic health testing on my dogs through Embark. With that being said, testing is readily available, and in my opinion, there is no reason why ALL breeders shouldn’t be doing at least some of it. We have the tools available to improve genetics in breeds, we should be trying to do that.
Secondly, and I will get on a high horse about this, but there are standards in these breeds for a reason, and regardless of the reason you breed, you should use them to pick your breeding dogs, along with health and temperament. I have chosen to take my Yorkies back to standard colors. Now, in my Yorkies and my Poms, I like my breeding girls to be on the upper end of standard, so ideally for a female Pom between 5-7 pounds, and the same for a female Yorky. With boys, I like them on the lower end of standard, so with both Poms and Yorkies, 3-5 pounds is my ideal size for the boys.
I don’t worry as much about size with the Cockers. I don’t want super tiny Cockers, but I also don’t want huge dogs. Ideally, I like both girls and boys to be around 20 pounds. 17-23 pounds is the range I like to stick to. I am not super picky about color, but I have chosen to not breed merle dogs. Some breeders do, and more power to them. I just don’t like the health risks that are associated with that pattern. Show breeders are incredibly picky because the breed standard is very specific about color. The solids are not allowed to have white on them in certain areas, and can be disqualified. That means you can have a dog that is exactly what you want in every way, but because it has a patch of white on its forehead or neck, it is disqualified. Same with sable dogs. Sable dogs used to be recognized in the AKC show ring, but it is now a disqualification. Talk about limiting the gene pool with these two things alone, so much so that you are seeing COI(inbreeding coefficient) in the 20%-30% range. That’s why I don’t mind a mismarked solid or a sable dog because they can add great things to a gene pool.
As I continue on my breeding venture, the two things above are really bothering me. I always keep back my own females, and buy males from other breeders. The issue I am seeing is that there is not a lot of quality out there. My goal as a breeder is to breed quality and healthy dogs, but it quite obviously is not the top priority for others. I make money doing this. It pays my bills, and it takes care of my family, but I will completely quit if I cannot continue to breed quality puppies. Why can I not continue to breed for quality, because other breeders are not doing simple health testing and are choosing to not breed quality, standard looking dogs.
There is a community of breeders out there, and in all communities, there are cliques of people that do their own thing. As I said, to each their own, but whenever the lack of quality to produce starts keeping me from doing my thing, that’s a problem.
Improving should be the only goal in doing this. If it isn’t, maybe you should try a new trade!!
