The other night Houdini, one of the Wees, put her feet up on the bed and woke me up. She whined a little and pushed her head into my chest. I put my arms around her and gave her a cuddle. She wanted on the bed and there was no room for her, so she cried a bit and got some attention and went to lie on the floor.
Houdini is one of four bitch puppies I kept from Trinity and Napoleon’s litter. She is three-quarters Afghan hound and one-quarter Saluki. I had a good idea, but wasn’t quite sure what to expect from that litter. I got four very good little bitches, all with their strengths and weaknesses. At two years old, I am still not sure which one I will choose to breed on from. I may choose two. By keeping all four, I have plenty to choose from. I am not stuck with just one.
If the Wees somehow turn out to be completely unsuitable, I can go back to Trinity. Or her sister, Izma. Or I could breed, as I plan to, another litter of Halfghans, unrelated to the previous one, from Nazgul, or Frito, or Sweetums, or Anya, or Loki. Cross-breeding of this kind is by it’s very nature experimental, and it’s best not to put all your eggs in one basket. Or one bitch.
I usually keep my bitches intact until they are six or seven whether I breed from them or not. Neither Sheepsie nor Freya will ever be bred due to their food allergies, but they are both still intact. Freya will be due to be spayed in a couple of years. I may never spay Sheepsie, because her heavy coat indicates she may be part Yak, and once spayed, there is a strong possibility that she will grow a thick, unmanageable spay coat that is even harder to get clippers through than her current coat.
Counting Houdini and her three sisters, Brunhilde, Shiva, and Domina, Trinity, Izma, Nazgul, Frito, Sweetums, Anya, Loki, Sheepsie and Freya, I have named thirteen intact bitches. Only two of those I would consider breeding in the next two or three years. The others are in a holding pattern, they made be bred from, or not.
Yet because of the number of bitches I keep, I would be considered a commercial breeder under the bill up for consideration in my state. It doesn’t matter that I would need to breed several litters a year and charge a very pretty penny for the pups just to break even on my dog expenses. It doesn’t matter that the IRS would laugh in my face if tried to claim my dog breeding was a business. It doesn’t matter that logically, the purpose of a business is to make money, and therefore, logically, regulating breeders by the numbers of pups they produce and the amount of their total income generated by puppy sales would be the way to go. Logic doesn’t matter.
I keep a bunch of bitches because it provides me with a large genetic and phenotypic base to choose from for the next generation. I will not be able to continue my cross-breeding program without the ability to keep several pups from a litter, and keep them intact until they are old enough to breed from, which may be as old as six or seven. Even older for males. I will not compromise the way I’ve been doing things, slowly. If I cannot do it right, I will not do it at all.
If this current piece of legislation passes as written, I will be spaying all the bitches involved in my cross-breeding program in order to keep my bitch numbers below the commercial threshold of eleven. Saluki bitches Frito and Minna, and Azawakh bitches Tia and Lilly will be left intact. The entire cross-breeding program will be…kaput.
This legislation, once again, is being backed by HSUS. They claim to care about the future of dogs. Let me tell you something: the future of dogs is people like me. People who are willing to work both within the purebred system of closed registries, and outside of it. People who understand science. People who will need to keep a number of dogs to provide a decent genetic base for their programs, because half the established dog world will freeze them out simply for bucking the system.
You cannot have a breeding program with three dogs. Oh, you can breed dogs. A three dog breeder will supply the pet or show market just fine. A three dog breeder can network with other breeders of the same breed to keep their genetics diverse. Until that three dog limit eventually squeezes the gene pool until suffocates, by keeping breeders from keeping more dogs intact, by keeping breeders from retaining more than one pup from a litter, by forcing more and more breeders to stop breeding simply out of despair. Despair at the inability to do it right. To do what’s best, in the long run, for the dogs.
The principles of population genetics tell us that the closed registry system spells eventual doom for the purebred dog. The fastest way for doom to fall is to severely limit the breeding of dogs. Twenty-five, fifty years from now, when the old guard of dog breeders is gone, the ones who believe that impurity of blood is a form of disease and that even thinking of cross-breeding makes one completely unethical, the new guard will be ready to step into place, to bring about a renaissance in dog breeding, one governed by knowledge and science instead of superstition and tradition.
By then it will be too late. At least in the US, the restrictive legislation being pushed by HSUS will have decimated the genetic pool of the purebred dog population, by pushing considerate, educated breeders out the hobby. Breeders who care.
I get hate mail because I cross-breed. People leave spiteful comments on my blog. I’ve been libeled in a breed club magazine. If I talk about genetic diversity or cross-breeding, people accuse me of hating purebred dogs. I have considered quitting any sort of breeding, because frankly, it’s very difficult to do something you are proud of and believe in and have people spit on it all the time. It sucks away the joy I feel when I look the Wees, only my second generation, and think about how pleased I am with them, and what their puppies might be like.
Every year, this type of anti-breeding legislation comes up. Every year for the past three years, my breeding program has been in jeopardy because of nonsense legislation aimed not at providing a better life for breeding dogs, but at limiting dog breeding altogether, so that it becomes so difficult that people won’t even bother with it. Every year, HSUS spits on me and other breeders like me. They are calling this a ‘large scale commercial breeder‘ bill. I guess that means that no matter how few litters I breed, and last year it was none, I am a large scale commercial breeder. Is it actually productive to consider a breeder like me the same as a breeder who is producing twenty or thirty litters a year? Is it productive to spend money, time and resources, regulating a breeder that doesn’t even breed a litter every year? Only if you want to limit dog breeding across the board, both large and small scale.
It is depressing for me to watch the Wees running around the yard, joyfully leaping over each other and the other dogs, running to me for a bit of attention then running off to play again, and realize that they are in all likelihood a dead end. I will not be able to cuddle one of Houdini’s daughters in the middle of night, eight or nine years from now, if this stupidity about dog breeding continues.
Unless I buy my own island, which is unlikely.
Past articles on the same bloody subject:
More Creative Dog Breeder Math
Is this being pressed in the Texas legislature?
I am opposed to these laws, because they are so stupid.
If people would do the following things:
1. Stop buying puppies from pet stores.
2. Stop buying puppies from online brokers.
You would kill the mass production industry.
These bills do not kill the mass production industry. They merely make so only those with a lot of capital can maintain them, even at these breeder cap letters. That means the Hunte people can still operate– they will just decentralize their suppliers– but people with actual breeding programs will suffer.
This one is pretty much the same as the one they pushed last year. RPOA and the hunters/ranchers got last year's changed to twenty litters for a 'commercial breeder.' IIRC the legislative session ended before it could be voted on. There is a very strong animal rights presence in the eastern half of the state, where most of the population is. I figure they reverted back to the eleven bitch cutoff because it worked in Missouri with Prop B. The WVa bill also has eleven bitches as the cut off.
I am getting really tired of this. This is never going to stop, and I'm starting to think I may as well get out now and save myself some heartache.
I think we are largely a 'good enough' society… meaning that over the last century the attitude of doing things half-assed has become pervasive.
There is a time and place for 'good enough,' but breeding should not fall into this category. (Legislation is a whole 'nother story.)
Yet you've carved out what you need to maintain high standards. It is a path taken by few. Those paths are the most difficult, and that difficulty should be expected on some level… but it makes what you're doing remarkable. Out of the ordinary.
Good for you, and I hope the challenge doesn't outweigh the benefit (if only for the reason that you're showing the world refreshing, authentic dogs.)
If it takes its toll, then I hope you find yourself on Wee Island somewhere.
The WV Bill is DOA.
The Ag Commissioner has said “No more kennel restrictions,” because his agency simply has no money to enforce the laws.
And he's much more concerned with keeping invasive species out and promoting state agriculture.
I'd be very surprised if this law passed.
Anyway, our acting governor is a big time greyhound breeder.
I don't think he would sign it, even if the greyhound industry was exempt, which I believe it is.
Jess, let me just say that I for one am very glad that you persist in your breeding program. I've kept a lot of dogs – purebreds from working lines, randombred rescues, purebreds from show lines, crossbreds from working lines, and even a Carolina Dog (the American version of the Dingo) who came from a rural area and evidently lived semi-feral for about a year before I got her. There's a place for all of those dogs in this world, and most of them would not have existed if AR people got their way.
When are we as a society going to realize we can't legislate the world into becoming what we want it to be? Siiiiigh. More laws we can't afford to enforce are not going to help the situation, only cause aggravation for people like you.
It is obvious to me just from reading your blog that your every actions stems from you love for the dogs, your desire to do what's best for them, and your intensive long-term research into what exactly IS best for them. Item #3 there sets you apart from the rest. Please never give up.
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