Are you a Backyard Breeder?

[corgipower]

Does your dog meet this standard according to an AKC judge? If not, your dog is pet quality.

Hmmm..I know a number of dogs who don't meet the AKC standard but who are certainly breeding quality. Working line GSD's, throwback corgis, mals who are smaller than AKC wants them to be...

Originally Posted by Renee750il

I can drive down any rural highway and pass at least a couple of hand lettered signs, painted on a board, set up on a relatively permanent basis, advertising "AKC Registered __________ Puppies For Sale!"

I am friends with a breeder who does advertise by putting up a hand painted board whenever he has a litter available. He has sold many of his pups that way. He also trains and competes his dogs, health tests them, vets the puppies as needed, temperament tests the litter, screens the buyers, requires obedience training on the puppies, many of his puppy buyers come back to him for training, and all the rest of what a good breeder should be doing.

[Renee750il]

Your friend is the exception, Corgi. All these signs I see almost NEVER come down . . . they keep two or three females and just keep breeding and breeding and breeding and if you talk to them, they'll stand there and tell you how much money they've made on puppies over the years.

[Lilavati]

Originally Posted by noludoru

Lilavati, I really think your post there is worth a thread of its own.

I have moved most of my post (with a few additions) to its own thread, so if you want, you can argue about it there.
Or here.

[Zoom]

Of course there are going to be exceptions to the original post. There's not enough room allowed to get all the nuances that we, as DOG people, know about. But again, your average PET owner IS going to fall under most of those stated points. How many people have you run into that have a dog that is so far away from any sort of standard, but because it has "papers" and is intact, is somehow automatically assumed to be of breeding quality?

Have we perhaps raised the bar a bit too high? Perhaps. But as someone sort of mentioned, it's better to find a breeder that meets all the "biggies" and maybe skips one or two of the "negotiables" and is still a "good" breeder. For example, the Cavalier breeder I mentioned on another thread didn't show one of their breeding bitches to a championship, even though she is show quality--doesn't have the temperment to do well in the ring. But she meets breeding quality in every other respect and was paired with a very outgoing male to counter her shyness in the ring.