Label Him a Professional Breeder

The Beauty and Tyranny of Labels

We make sense of our world through labels. Language – a meaningful set of words or labels – allows us to associate objects, events, thoughts and emotions with mutually-agreed upon sounds or letters, and to use the same to communicate with people who share our language. With our language we label things important to us. This is the beauty of language – of words and labels. Thus, we have family, partner, friends, house, hobbies, pets, etc.

Within the dog-and-human realm, labels also proliferate. We profess to be dog lovers. Some are breeders, exhibitors and animal welfare advocates. We have trainers, groomers and veterinarians. These are the good labels – we value or take pride in knowing or carrying one of these labels. At the other end of the spectrum are the notorious labels – pet abusers, backyard breeders and puppy millers. I believe these people deserve the stigma attached to their labels.

It is in the gray areas of the dog world that we find the injustice or tyranny of labels. Within the pet dog world, two strong tides of public opinion are pervasive. First, human society’s widespread and deepening love affair with dogs brought forth a growing cadre of enthusiasts who go the extra mile for their companion dogs. Second, the irresponsible acts and the continued profitability of puppy millers leave a bad taste in the mouth of the dog-loving populace.

For the love of their dogs, many dog owners buy super premium food; hire the services of a top-notch vet and groomer; and spend a fortune on dog clothes, grooming products and canine equipment. For these people, their dogs deserve only the best. Man’s growing material affluence allows this group of owners to carry-on with these activities with passion. Intrinsically, there is nothing wrong with these pursuits – the dog lovers are simply sharing the fruits of their material success or hard-earned labor with their well-loved doggie companions. Difficulty only arises when other dog lovers are compared with this group. Here lies the tyranny of labels. There is silent pressure to provide one’s dog with the best available care. To give less is to love your dog less. It is also this social pressure that causes the cost of dog care to escalate. Manufacturers and service provides know that dog lovers are a captive, price-insensitive market. While all true dog lovers want the best for their dogs, dog owners differ on their capacity to provide. This social reality is a given. We hope to remove the stigma though – the unjust label that those who provide their dogs with simpler products and services love their dog less. Beneath the thinness or thickness of one’s wallet lies the one label that truly matters – “dog caring person”.

The other wave of opinion stems from the public’s outrage over irresponsible practices of puppy millers. The dog-loving public decries seeing sickly, frail and substandard puppies being peddled by puppy millers through online ads and dingy pet shops. These poorly bred pups often end in clueless pet homes. The public outcry is understandable. Puppy milling is wanton disregard of breed standards, health concerns, and basic honesty – all in pursuit of easy profit. Dog breeding is turned into lucrative business by unscrupulous puppy millers. The outrage and the opinion backlash are such that anyone who makes money from breeding dogs becomes suspect.


In Search of A Label

A dichotomy exists in the dog breeding world. Hobby breeders vs puppy millers. Responsible breeders vs irresponsible breeders. Rightly or wrongly, the responsible label is accorded to the hobby breeders while the irresponsible tag is put on puppy millers. There is no doubt about the puppy millers’ tag. On the other hand, the dog world lauds the efforts of the hobby breeders who use personal resources to improve the breed. That the hobby breeders often times suffer net financial loss in this noble pursuit only makes their efforts more laudable.
I admire the dedication of hobby breeders and consider myself as one. On the other hand, I cringe at puppy milling and pray for karmic retribution. Nonetheless, I honestly find the following statements unsettling: “One should not make money out of dogs”. “Dog breeding is about improving the breed; it is not meant to be a profitable business”. I am bothered by the sweeping generalizations and implications these statements make.

The root of evil is not money; it’s the unquenchable thirst for it. So is the pursuit of it at the expense of others. As a person who has lived through dearth and surplus of money, I see money simply as a means to purchase one’s needs or wants, and as a measure of work effort – paid in terms of salary, professional fee or entrepreneurial profit.

A blanket, negative label on making money from dogs maligns the work of veterinarians, trainers, groomers, dog product manufacturers, and other canine product or service providers. These people would either be salaried employees, professionals or entrepreneurs making honest living directly or obliquely from dogs.

In a world teeming with hobby breeders, I often wonder why there is no professional breeder. In truth he/she may be out there – silently doing his/her work, wary of stigma, and waiting for the right label.


The Professional Breeder

The professional dog breeder is someone who makes a living from selling quality puppies he himself carefully planned and raised. As a professional, he sets and benchmarks himself against work standards, continuously improves his craft, and lives within a defined code of ethics. At the minimum, the professional breeder knows his breed standard by heart, sets his breeding objectives and plan, passes the professional bar by finishing champions, keeps detailed genealogy and client records, guarantees puppy health and integrity of the pedigree, provides dog care tips to clients, and continually learns from fellow breeders, research and the canine public.

The question remains. Is the world ready for a professional breeder? Can it be done? Can one improve the breed and be adequately compensated for it?

In the strictest economic sense, profit is a surplus that remains from the price paid/received after all costs have been deducted. Expenses include the cost of a professional or entrepreneur’s time and foregone interest revenue he could have safely earned from time deposit if he has not foolishly plunked capital into the profession or enterprise. Should the professional breeder at least break-even, then he is justly compensated and his endeavor is deemed a success.

Babies and dogs have long conspired to entice us humans to spend more pesos than what are really necessary to raise them. Years of evolution gave babies and puppies goo-goo eyes, cuddly bodies and charming antics that we adults can’t help but succumb to their spell. This poses the first challenge to the professional breeder: how do you rein in cost while raising well-bred, well-adjusted puppies? In principle it can be done. May God bless you with strong will and restraint.

The next challenge is determining the optimum breeding scale. How many litters will you have to raise to keep yourself paid without comprising quality and service? While the challenge seems daunting, to say it cannot be done because others have failed is to belittle the abilities of the imaginative, resourceful and determined. For the visionary, dreamer or pragmatist, we leave the door ajar. Should you succeed, the skeptics would be grateful believers. Should the task prove Herculean or too taxing, please err on the side of quality and bear the monetary loss with dignity. In the meantime, we cheer you on. You have been bestowed a label worthy of your aspirations. Please guard it well.

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Caveat Emptor: Let the Buyer Beware

I just put down the phone after talking with a pomeranian seller. He was pontificating on the virtues or inadequacies of certain local Pomeranian lines. I was listening and asking respectfully about the sire and dam of the puppies he was selling, but I kept getting condescending answers and remarks like “Ano bang hanap mo?”, “Chrisden/Canton lang ‘yan” and “Di naman lahat ng pino-produce nila maganda.” I can tolerate lack of knowledge or misconception, but I put my foot down on mouthing of top kennels and champions and masquerading as a breed expert. I am also new in the breed, but I had to say good-bye to the hot air and the rudeness emanating from the other end of the line. This scenario is just one of things a pomeranian seeker will have to contend with.

Almost a year ago I decided I want to own, breed and show pomeranians. I thought 3 years of watching toy dog shows; reading about breed standards and bone structures and ; searching for and breeding toy poodles prepared me enough in my search for my first pomeranian. I was dead wrong. I knew that the safe and tested route in getting good breeding stock was to secure one from the established breeders. However, I had scarce financial resources then and I convinced myself that I should try the small-time breeders first. I reasoned out that if my foray into Pomeranians failed, I had at least limited my loss to a smaller amount and less tears. I said to myself I would just work my way up to eventually producing a show quality pup.

I began my pom quest by browsing through Buy and Sell ads. I probably bought at least 6 issues; later on my wallet convinced me to try the online version. I had yet to discover Dog Tracker Online and Philippine Pet Finder forums then. I did a parallel search within petshops in Cartimar and Tiendesitas (I know, I know, I violated the pet rule book again).

I got my first pom (a female!) while checking the Cartimar shops. It had a champion grandsire, familiar names in the pedigree, and double digit number of red marks. It seemed small and fluffy enough. There were two females but I got the less pretty but more active one. I hoped to mitigate the risk from getting a pup from a petshop. Physically, the pup was beautiful – not splashy for show but within breed type.

A month after getting my first pom, I was back scanning the ads. I was already doing a lot of pre-visit phone interviews to weed out the undesirable breeders. A lot still slipped through my net. I checked a pom in Caloocan and reminded the owners that they had to first transfer ownership of their dam to themselves. I got excited over pom pics I saw in Adpost only to get bowled over when I saw the pups’ living conditions still in Caloocan and the sorry physical state of the spitz-looking dam. I checked out a breeder in Alabang; the kennel seemed promising but there were still traces of spitz blood. I saw a pom in San Juan that looked and weighed like a chow-chow puppy. In Merville, I viewed a sweet black pom that was way oversized. All these supposedly had papers and of standard size. Well, they do fall within Philippine pet pom standards – only these standards differ from international breed standards. All along I thought only the Americans want their cars and most things big.

One time in Commonwealth I got lucky and stumbled upon one of the prettiest pom faces I have seen in a pup. The breeder seemed a caring individual who gave me puppy food, dextrose powder and detailed instructions for the care of the pup. The dextrose powder was for hypoglycemia to which poms and other toy dogs are supposedly susceptible. I came home happy with the find and I lovingly gave the pup food and drink with powder to help it cope with stress as I was instructed. I left the pup to attend a family affair; hours later I saw a stiff body stuck between my gym bag and the wall. That was one of the few instances I cried in my life. My heart and spirit sank with grief, loss and guilt. Up to now I couldn’t fathom why the pup squeezed herself through a 1-inch gap between a heavy bag and a wall. Why couldn’t it simply backed off when it met resistance from the bag? Was it young puppy ignorance, canine neurosis or panic driven by hypoglycemia? I had had pups who romped around in my supposedly puppy-proof living room without any incident. I have used crates since then but up to now, my mind burns with guilt and my heart with grief whenever I try to picture how the pup struggled. A month later I saw on the pedigree that the puppy was a result of inbreeding. Was this a factor? I wished I knew.

Two months after I acquired my first pom, I had to say good-bye to it when it succumbed to epileptic fits and heart attacks. My small petshop pom with redmarks died on me. This was the second puppy death within a narrow period of 2-3 months. I was devastated. Prior to the tragedies, I have seen puppy diarrhea, ticks or fractured bones at worst, but I have never had a puppy die on me – certainly not two in a row.

The events made me reassess my motives and my means. I still want to be a pomeranian breeder and produce my own dainty little foxy dog for show. On hindsight I realized I should have spent the sum I used to purchase the two now-dead poms to purchase a single quality pup from a reputable breeder. With whatever was left with my breeding funds, I sought to seek another pom. This time I would simply get the healthiest pup I can afford. I found a litter happily suckling from its dam. For me this was a good sign that the puppies are healthy and well-adjusted. The puppies were small and healthy, but the dam seemed to lack enough undercoat to produce the stand-off coat and puffy ball silhouette characteristic of show poms. Still smarting from the pom deaths and the disappointed with other puppies I saw, I bought not one but two of this healthy litter. I simply wished to successfully raise a pom and planned to pair it with the best stud I can afford.

I was eventually able to raise my two sister poms past the critical 6-month age. This landmark emboldened me to get another female – hopefully of better stock. I was back to searching the ads. In Commonwealth I saw a healthy, plump, big-boned and doll faced puppy being sold at affordable price. It was a chance too good to be true so I grabbed it. Indeed the pup was too good to be true. It turned out the puppy sold to me was very young so it still looked very cute and within breed standard size. The cute little pup remained healthy but it grew big and tall. The soft baby doll features transformed into foxy spitz with long muzzle, piercing eyes and pointy ears.

I realized I had been stubborn long enough. I followed the rule book this time and got a show prospect male from a top breeder. It cost me a fortune but the pup continues to give me dividends of joy. I am presently showing this male. This male will be a cornerstone of my pomeranian breeding.

I also got another female of reasonably good pedigree and known to have profuse undercoat. The pup is not perfect and the breeder was open about this, but I know this pup will complement the breeding stock I have. I am currently in the quest for an even better female. I am just saving so I can get from the reputable breeders.

My melodramatic pomeranian saga helped me develop an eye on how puppies offered for sale will turn out. The warning signs of undesirable poms are aplenty: pointy and widely spaced ears; slanted eyes with white areas instead of dark, round or almond eyes; big foot pads; puppy skulls bigger in diameter than a coke can; 2-month puppies way too big to carry easily with a single palm; too weak to stand or walk, etc. I insist on seeing the dam. Normally, the stud will be better looking so the dam will tell you how bad the pup can turn out. I shun sellers with multiple ads in multiple forums, certain studs and lines that are favored by puppy millers, sellers who are know-it-alls, rumor-mongers and those who only know the good traits of their pups.

To people looking to get a pom, I say this: Let the buyer beware. It is a nasty world out there. The pom is a favorite of puppy millers who produce pom-colored dogs from spitz-like dogs and over-used pom studs. I tried to save and cut corners but I was burned. Choose the path to take. I do hope you become guided by my experience.

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