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  • WHAT KIND OF BREEDER ARE YOU REALLY?

    PART THREE: FOLLOW THE MONEY. THEN FOLLOW THE RISK. Let’s talk about money because conversations about breeding always seem to land in one of two places. Either ethical breeders are expected to lose money because breeding should be done only for love, or anyone questioning the price of a puppy is told they do not…

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  • WHAT KIND OF BREEDER ARE YOU REALLY?

    PART TWO: REGISTRATION IS NOT A STANDARD OF BREEDING In Part One, we began with selection. We asked who prepared the breeder to make decisions that may influence generations and why two particular dogs were chosen. Now we turn to one of the greatest sources of confusion in the dog world: the difference between being…

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  • WHAT KIND OF BREEDER ARE YOU REALLY?

    PART ONE: SELECTION BEGINS BEFORE THE BREEDING Nearly everyone involved in breeding dogs today has learned how to use the right words. Puppies are “raised with love.” Parents are “health tested.” Litters are “carefully planned.” Dogs are described as part of the family, and websites are filled with references to temperament, socialization, nutrition and responsible…

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  • WHEN THE MIDDLE GROUND DISAPPEARS

    My cat Thomas taught me something about modern veterinary medicine that I have never been able to forget. When he developed a urinary blockage, I was presented with two choices. I could authorize approximately $5,500 in treatment, or I could euthanize him. Somewhere between comprehensive hospitalization and death, every other possibility had disappeared. That moment…

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  • THE LIGHT IN THE OTHER PRACTICE ROOM

    THE LIGHT IN THE OTHER PRACTICE ROOM Before allowing myself to stop practicing at night, I would look down from the boarding-school dormitory toward my friend’s practice room, and if her light was still on, I felt as though I could not leave. Leaving first felt like losing. My sister and I left home to…

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  • THE BITCH: A WORD WITH A NOBLE PEDIGREE

    Long before people turned the word bitch into an insult, it was simply the proper word for a female dog. It remains the correct terminology in the world of purebred dogs and conformation. Males are shown as dogs and females as bitches, competing for placements such as Winners Dog, Winners Bitch, Select Dog, and Select…

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  • Grooming one moving target is challenging, but managing five puppies who believe the grooming table is a playground becomes a whole different sport. 😂 At approximately ten weeks old, the puppies had their very first bath today, and they all did wonderfully. Chianti also had her bath and grooming, which meant washing six dogs altogether.…

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  • The Work of Remembering.

    Life is not what I once thought it was. It is stranger, harder, more beautiful, and far more purposeful than I could ever have imagined. The older I get, the more I realize how much of life is spent unlearning what we were taught to accept without question, peeling away assumptions, looking beyond what is…

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  • The 10 Things Dog Breeding Should Be :

    The 10 Things Dog Breeding Should Be :

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  • THE FUTURE OF CANINE HEALTH BEGINS WITH BETTER QUESTIONS

    I’ve spent years, like many of you, trying to encourage people to look beyond the surface when it comes to canine health. I have written, researched, shared, questioned, and spent my life building a breeding program around one simple belief: we cannot create healthy dogs by only treating disease after it appears. We have to…

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