
Yesterday I wrote about the problem. Today I’d like to propose a solution. Because if good breeders are difficult to find, perhaps the answer isn’t waiting for families to somehow find us. Perhaps it’s time for all of us to put a stand by the road. On farms, the best produce is often discovered at…
Every litter is different, and every mother is different. I have used colostrum with many of my dogs over the years, but I do not think I have ever gone through as much colostrum with a nursing mother as I have with Chianti. Looking back, I am incredibly grateful that I had it on hand.…
A few evenings ago I was carrying a bucket of chicken feed toward the coop while three guinea fowl conducted what appeared to be an emergency press conference regarding a leaf, which would have been amusing enough had they not displayed the level of urgency usually reserved for tornado warnings, loose predators, or the collapse…
There were moments when I wondered whether I was walking in the wrong direction simply because so few people seemed to be walking with me. Choosing natural rearing. Preserving reproductive hormones. Feeding raw diets. Questioning routine practices. Focusing on preservation breeding in a world increasingly captivated by trends and marketing. None of those choices came…
Most breeders know how much calcium they are giving. Far fewer know whether all calcium sources deserve to be treated as nutritionally equivalent. That question changed the way I think about reproduction, growth, recovery, raw feeding, and supplementation as a whole. Key Takeaways: CALCIUM IS NOT CALCIUM A few years ago I was sitting beside…
A few days ago, Dr. Kristy Wilson asked me a question that opened the door to a much larger conversation. The question was not whether hormones matter, but what responsible hormone preservation looks like in everyday life. How do families manage intact dogs, prevent unplanned litters, and navigate the realities that come with preserving reproductive…
A few evenings ago I found myself doing something that has become entirely too common around here, which is sitting down with the intention of reading a few pages before bed and somehow ending up several hours later surrounded by books, notes, open browser tabs, cold tea, sleeping dogs, and the growing realization that whatever…
Well y’all, I’m sneaking back into the Juliette series. 😆 It’s been one of those weekends filled with overlapping responsibilities, constant interruptions, and the unmistakable feeling that the clock is moving faster than everything on the to-do list. Between preparations for puppies expected to arrive at any moment, breeder responsibilities demanding attention from multiple directions,…
After spending the better part of this week revisiting Juliette’s books, studying old photographs, tracing the historical world that shaped her observations, thinking about constitution, development, preservation, the modern dog, and all the things that seem to have quietly drifted away from canine life while society was busy calling the process progress, I keep finding…
A few evenings ago I was walking through the house turning off lights long after everyone else had settled down for the night when I noticed one of Juliette de Bairacli Levy’s books still sitting open on the kitchen table exactly where I had left it earlier that morning. The tea beside it had gone…