Choosing the right breeder

When choosing a breed, it’s important to do your research. Some breeds have a lot of energy and exercising them can be a full time job, especially in the puppy years. A very intelligent dog is appealing in theory, but can be very challenging to own and train versus a dog who is smart enough to learn and obey commands, but doesn’t need a job to be happy or require mental stimulation on a daily basis in addition to exercise. Even my most active clients have enlisted our hiking service because their working dog has more energy than it’s possible for them to drain with a full-time job - even my ultra marathoner couldn’t run her Pointer enough to keep him happy and sane.

A breed that becomes very popular quickly is easily capitalized on and attracts non-reputable breeders who are looking to make money and not to produce healthy or mentally sound dogs because of their lack of experience or simply not caring. Often, you get what you pay for. The cheapest dog available may be prone to health problems. 

If your goal is to have a pet or companion, a working breed, however attractive, may not be the best fit. Picking the right breed will ensure you both have the happiest life possible. If you chose to buy from a breeder, which is the right choice for some people, we have some tips on how to pick the right one.

Our guest expert, Annie Angello, knows dogs. She has rescued in the past, but competes in several disciplines and has worked with many breeders to find the right dogs for her. I asked her to share her process to give you the best chance of picking a reputable breeder so your dog has the health and temperament they need to be a great pet for you for years to come.

Initially, there are three things to consider.

• Bloodlines: Is your chosen breed one where there's a distinct divide between show and working line? What are your goals with this dog? What do you consider important or desirable? What are your deal breakers?

• Distance: If you want a dog from a particular type of bloodline, there may not be anyone local. Are you willing to travel to pick up or work with the breeder to ship the puppy?

• Health testing: Every breed will, through the CHIC (Canine Health Information Center) program will have a battery of health tests which run through the known issues in the breed. Examples include PRA in the Collie breeds, Wobbler's in Dobermans, and congenital heart defects in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.

From there, begin the interview phase. For me this is basically emailing/facebook messaging/otherwise contacting a series of breeders, requesting information based around:

• If they feel their dogs would be a good fit for what I'm trying to accomplish

• What health testing they perform on their breeding stock

• Do they trial or show their dogs and if so in what venues

• What the goals are of their upcoming litter/what are they intending to produce (for example, working line GSDs come in a pretty wide array of levels of drive - a dog that is suitable for a pet home would probably not be the best dog for high-level IPO competition), 

• What do they like to see in the people who are considering one of their puppies

Asking for referrals and speaking to owners who have bought dogs from that breeder before is a good idea to be sure you know what other owner’s experiences have been. 

Does the breeder have a policy on returning a puppy/dog if he has health problems for some reason you cannot keep it? 

What's the long-term relationship like? Many good breeders stay in touch with clients for years to come if not the lifetime of the dog.

Make sure your breeder hits all of these bullets:

• Health test their breeding stock

• Acquisition of dogs that meet their criteria and breeding to complementary bloodlines

• Showing in whatever venues they choose

• Prenatal care...... this isn't cheap and neither are the puppies

Other questions you may want to ask:  

• Do they have any particular puppy raising protocol (like Puppy Culture) they follow? 

• What can I expect my puppy to have been exposed to or learned by the time they come home.

A breeder who hits all these points would be a perfect scenario but the right breeder for a given person might not meet ALL those criteria. It's important to decide what's most important to you as a puppy person and then do the research to find someone who lines up with your needs and values.

A good resource for locating reputable breeders are the parent club for the breed, sporting clubs for whatever you're interested in, and rankings. For instance if you wanted to get a Border Collie to do agility with, you might take a look at the USDAA or AKC agility rankings to see if there was any one breeder who has had dogs show up in the rankings there over the years. Know that it's different for every breed and sport. Show-line dogs tend to have lower drive and more likely to be ideal for pet-centric owners vs those looking to show. Also be aware that the AKC focuses on look more than temperament, so that shouldn’t be an endorsement for your pet as breeding for appearance can lead to health problems.

Every dog poops - What makes a good one?

A lot of clients have poo related questions, so I decided to go ahead and write a blog post so I could share what I know. This post contains a series of pictures and explanations to help you identify a healthy dog poop. Checking the quality of your dog’s poo is the best way to make sure your dog's food is agreeing with them. Dogs are mammals, so a healthy dog poo shouldn't look all that different from a healthy human poo. 

The main factors I evaluate are size, density, color, smell and frequency. For each of these factors, I'm looking for moderation - the poo shouldn't be too big or small, too firm or soft, too light or dark, too stinky or acidic smelling or too frequent. 

While dry dog food is the most convenient and common way to feed a dog, it is a fairly recent invention for dog diets, popularized after World War II as an easy and affordable way of feeding our dogs. While dogs have adapted to the diet, not all of them do well on kibble and, given their evolutionary history, that is no surprise. Before dry food became popular, dogs were fed a combination of scraps from the table and the butcher. 

Today, those who don't feed dry food either cook for their dog or feed a raw diet (ideally the whole prey model). 

Some of the dogs in my pack today are fed a raw diet, including my own. If anyone is interested in learning more, please contact me! I am a huge proponent of this diet and have seen dogs with troubled digestive systems have the first healthy poo of their lives after eating raw. 

That being said, and as you will see in the photos, there are also dogs that do well on dry food. Your dog’s poo is the best testimony to your food! If you are so inclined, keep reading to take a look at the photos of today's dog poo and my evaluations of each. For purposes of privacy, the dogs will be kept anonymous. I am not a veterinarian, but I am around a lot of dog poo! Taking out 5- 8 dogs a day, I am guaranteed to see (and pick up) more that most owners see every day. Over the course of a year, that adds up! From dealing with dogs of different sizes, history, breeds and ages and talking to owners about different foods, I have learned a few things I would like to share.

Not so good

This poo is light in color and very soft and shapeless by the end, the consistency of frozen yogurt. You can see the solid first nugget at the bottom of the photo, then this poo quickly deteriorates. This is still pretty early in the hike, so the poo shouldn't be of such poor quality. I would definitely change this dog’s food.

A sneaky raw poo

If you can spot it through this grass, this raw poo is an A+ on color (nice and dark but still brown, not black), size, density and don't smell. These poos break down into white dust in a few days. Raw-fed dogs are easy to distinguish by their poo.

The pinnacle of health

This is a raw fed dog's third poo and it happened towards the end of the hike. As you can see, it's still a good color, density and shape. Don't get tricked into thinking that exercise is a good excuse for the complete deterioration of the quality of dog poo. It is possible for the poo to look good no matter how active the dog is - as long as their diet is agreeing with them.

This one is okay

Here we have another kibble fed dog who has struggled to find the right food. This poo is appropriate for her size, good color, but a touch on the light/orange side if I am being picky. It came out in two chunks with good density and didn't smell. This owner had to try a lot of foods to find one that worked and should stick with it!

This poo looks great

This is an older dog who loves her kibble. The size is appropriate for her weight. The density is good. It has shape and contours. It feels firm and solid through the bag. The color is good, not too light or dark. This was her only poo on this hike, so frequency is great and it didn't smell. Perfect poo!

Yucky puppy poo

This poo has some shape and density at the start, but becomes fat and fluffy, breaking down to the consistency of frozen yogurt or peanut butter. The color is too light, more tan than brown. She is a big girl, but the size is still on the big side. Ideally the poo is nice and firm so it can naturally express your dog's anal glands. This poor pup even had to do the squat walk to squeeze it out.

Poor pup!

Within 10 minutes after the first poo, the puppy squeezed out the rest. This poo is more like melted frozen yogurt, as you can see from the bubbles on top and lack of shape or density. If this happens occassionally, especially after a dog has eaten something outside of their normal diet, that is ok, but if you are getting poos like this on a regular basis, you should be as concerned as if your own poo was looking this way and implement a change in diet. Again, we are early in the hike here so this is diet, and not exercise, related.

Another raw poo

This is a bit bigger than the first and has a range of color (dark at the start on the right, very light in the middle and getting a bit darker at the end on the left). The density also ranges - the start and end look great and are firm with nice contours while the middle is a bit soft and shapeless. This is the middle of the hike so this dog has been exercising. Still, I would still say this poo looks pretty good!

Not a dog poo

I took a photo of some scat on the trail My research tells me this belongs to a racoon. You can see the whole berries in it and how the density and shape more closely resemble the raw fed dog poo, but s o much darker it makes it easy to tell that some dog owner wasn't negligent in cleaning up the trail).