Category: WHAT KIND OF BREEDER ARE YOU REALLY ?

Part 13 of The Breeder You Become series I wrote a puppy care guide for my families that is nearly 200 pages long, which might sound excessive until you think about how many decisions are made for a puppy before he ever leaves the breeder’s home. I wanted families to understand what I had done,…

Part 12 of The Breeder You Become series I watched another puppy leave recently and, as always, I had already said everything I could think of saying before the car ever pulled away. I had talked about food, sleep, travel, stools, stress, adjustment, what was normal, what might not be normal and when to call…

Part 11 of The Breeder You Become series I used to think the difference between a good breeder and a bad one could be found somewhere near the beginning, as though the person who entered breeding out of love for the breed, concern for its future and a sincere desire to produce healthier, better dogs…

Part 9 of The Breeder You Become series I have sat with pedigrees, health information and future breeding plans many times and watched something make perfect sense on paper that made very little sense once every piece of it had to live inside an actual home. The older female carried something worth saving, her daughter…

Part 8 of The Breeder You Become series I was sitting at my kitchen table one evening with receipts spread everywhere, a dog asleep under my chair and another one standing beside me with her chin resting on my leg as if she might be able to help, when I made the mistake of trying…

Part 7 of The Breeder You Become series I was going through seed packets one afternoon trying to decide what I could still plant when I found an old envelope with only a few seeds left in it. It was a variety I cared about, which was exactly why I had saved it. There were…

Part 6 of The Breeder You Become series I was sitting on the floor beside a litter one evening, watching puppies who were still young enough to move with more determination than coordination, when one of them stopped in the middle of the pen and studied me. Nothing miraculous happened. She did not strike a…

Part 5 of The Breeder You Become series An old pedigree lay across my kitchen table one evening, its paper softened by years of handling, while the dogs whose names filled its columns slept in the next room. Some of those names belonged to animals I had known. Others reached back through people I had…

Part 4 of The Breeder You Become series One of the hardest things to teach a piano student is that playing the notes and understanding the music are not the same accomplishment. A child may arrive with a difficult piece already chosen because someone performed it beautifully online and made the whole thing appear effortless.…