A Dog Breeder's Guide for Finding the Right Breeder

Finding the right breeder can be a lot of hard work. I have personally been researching breeders because I have a few dogs who will be aging out of my first generation Labradoodle breeding program in the next few years. I have spent quite a few hours looking for a new Labrador puppy, and I am not going to lie, it can be extremely frustrating to find a breeder. In the hours that I have spent looking through websites trying to find a breeder that I can trust and a puppy that is the right fit for my program, I have realized how difficult it really is to pick a breeder.

As a breeder, the first place that I am going to look on a breeder website is the health testing standards that they have for their parent dogs. Because of our own health testing standards for our breeding dogs, if a breeder is not doing adequate health testing for their breed, then I do not want a puppy from them. You would not believe how many breeders that I have talked to over the years who don't even do a DNA genetic test like Orivet, Embark or GenSol for their dogs. In my mind, depending on the bed, this is the absolute minimum requirement. If a breeder cannot even spend approximately $150 per breeding dog to make sure that their dog pairings will not be passing on any genetic problems to their puppies, then I have a hard time trusting the long term health of the puppy. For a Labrador, this is essential, as I do not want a puppy with genes for:

• Exercise Induced Collapse,

• Progressive Retinal Atrophy (prcd-PRA)

• Centronuclear Myopathy (CNM)

• Stargardt Disease

These are genetic diseases that are as I said, easily detected with a genetic DNA test. Please note, that some of them do require two copies of the gene for it to be a problem. A good breeder is happy to talk to you about the test results and they are happy to explain if a result is a problem or not.

The next thing that I am looking for is consistency . If a breeder is going to say that they have certain health standards, then I want to see that they actually are following them. I recently was on a Labrador breeder's webpage and their health standards page did an excellent job of talking about how important DNA testing and hips/elbows testing was. Everything that they said was true and very much talked about how high their standard of testing is, but when I went over to the parents page, they had not followed the standards that they talked about. I have seen similar issues with breeders on sites such as Good Dog. I am not going to tell you that exact health standards that you want, since different breeds do have different potential health concerns, but you want to see consistency between what the breeder says they are doing and what they actually are doing.

Once I make contact, I want great communication. I appreciate breeders who are willing to answer questions and who make a point to keep me in the loop. I will be honest, that as a breeder I feel the pressure to walk the line between following up with families that have expressed interest in my puppies and being perceived as pushy. If you haven't put in a deposit, know that most breeders will feel the same way that I do. You may receive a few messages or phone calls and you may be added to their email list, but most breeders do not want to be "high pressure.". Once you have put in a deposit, communication will depend on when your puppy or litter will be available. I would make sure to ask your breeder what their communication pattern looks like once you put in a deposit. For my breeding program, I tell all of my families that they can expect bi-weekly communication after their puppy is born. Before a litter arrives, there isn't much happening, so I let families know when a litter is expected, when we confirm pregnancy and when the litter is born.

Transparency is the final thing that I will address. I want a breeder to answer my questions honestly and represent their program with integrity. For me, this includes the use of AI. I don't think that it is honest to use AI enhanced photos. I don't really care if a breeder gives their own shots, has dogs on site or in a guardian home, because to me, these do not make a breeder good or bad, it just makes them different. A bad breeder is someone who lies to you or lies about their program.

Lastly, sometimes the right breeder is worth going back to even if they are a long ways away. After lots of research, I have decided to buy a puppy from O'Dell Labs. I have purchased a few adult breeding dogs from Amy and they are wonderful dogs. I had hoped to find a breeder who was a little closer to home, but after all my hours researching, I have decided that the extra transportation fees are worth the quality that I know I am going to receive with Amy's dogs.

What are you looking for when you are trying to find the right breeder?