Remember the Adopt-Don’t-Shop Movement? I wish they were easier to forget. This movement pioneered this push towards making breeders bad, and teaching the public that they were wrong for getting a dog from a breeder. It was in the movement’s best interests, of course. How unintentionally bred dogs ever compete with the quality of dogs that breeders produce: dogs that are bred with intention, health testing, DNA evaluations on the coefficient of inbreeding, and years of study and evaluation of the bloodlines they’re working with? You can’t.
Now there is the dark side of dog breeders, the puppy mills who prioritize income over the quality of life of the dogs they are producing. Interestingly, working on this side of the table, helping breeders, I would wager that less than 1% of all breeders would actually be puppy mills. Some breeders fall into some hardships with their dogs, unexpected health issues, or a miscalculation with facilities while scaling. That’s common enough. For a little while a well-intentioned breeder can appear to be a puppy mill, but it’s not the same thing. Most of these breeders are in over their heads with their business, and trying to find a way out. Honestly, it’s the reason I started this podcast: to help breeders do things more honestly by better understanding these difficult parts of breeding.
The Adopt-Don’t-Shop Movement got a lot of traction with buyers over the last few decades, blaming these unintentional crosses that were born because the neighbor dog down the street got out and bred the female in heat that hadn’t been scheduled for spay, nor the owner educated on how to mitigate this issue. Unknowingly, such folks were creating a litter of unique mutts that no one understands and who have conflicted drives and temperaments. These dogs come from uneducated owners much more than they come from breeders. I wouldn’t even call these sort of mixes backyard breeders; they aren’t breeders.
Yet, I digress. The point is that, for a while, the Adopt-Don’t-Shop Movement pooled all breeders together and said, “You breeders are the problem.”
We fought against this for a while, quietly doing our things, taking care of our dogs, our buyers, and setting our puppies up for success both in breeding selection, rearing, and aligning them in the right homes. We’ve done our homework and we’ve helped our buyers, opened their eyes to new ideas with proper care of puppies and dogs.
Here’s where it gets interesting: the script is flipping.
Before, buyers were often uneducated when they stumbled upon our programs. Maybe they read about the breed, but they hadn’t learned what made a good breeder. Yet now they are onto the idea. They are beginning to realize that not all breeders are created the same, nor is every breeder right for them. It’s an evolution of realizing that not every breed of dog will be right for them.
Ultimately, this is fantastic news! It means we are changing the tide in the world of buyers from uneducated to educated! And that means they desire to be more prepared—which is also good!
Now for the problem: they don’t have a real great idea on WHAT makes a good breeder. They just know they don’t want to support a puppy mill, and want a dog from a good breeder.
When I first started breeding, I read a lot of these website blogs, “what to look for in a dog breeder.” I guess reverse engineering and getting into the buyer’s mind has always been how I operate. In those articles—which are still quite prevalent today—are things like health testing (of course), being willing to talk with you and discuss their dogs and program (also good), and then there are other weird bits of advice, like the parents must be champions.
Well, we know this isn’t relevant, as scores in a ring don’t give the whole dog a fair assessment. I don’t care if the dog has a nice stack if it bites small kids or doesn’t play well with others. That’s a big problem for me. Further, the temperament and drive that is right for the families I’m breeding for may put me at a conflict of interest if I’m showing: what if one dog will show better, but the temperament and drive of another puppy is better for my families, but the dog doesn’t have the perfect ear set or rear angulation? Which should I choose to breed?
For me, I found that the show was not a great determination of what I wanted to breed, so I’ve opted not to show.
What if you’re a show breeder? No problem! It’s absolutely fine to do show, ESPECIALLY if it has intrinsic value for you. Many breeders love networking at shows, seeing other dogs, and they enjoy the competition. If that’s you, wonderful. Do it. However, if you don’t enjoy them, then don’t feel forced to show to prove your dogs. Let the success of your dogs in your buyers’ lives be your marker of success.
These articles about finding a good breeder might also discuss that, if the breeder has different pricing for colors, patterns, or coat types, then they’re automatically a red-flag breeder—which we know also isn’t the case. For example, merles in some breeds are extremely popular, whereas their other standard colors are less popular. People will wait longer to get a merle pattern, or will only buy if it’s a merle, in some cases. I see this commonly with Australian Shepherds and a lot of their derivatives. It is reasonable in these situations to price your merles differently in an effort to make the standard colors more desirable because they get a great temperament at a lower price.
In my breed, as you may recall, the solid-liver-colored GSPs are less popular. Everyone online wants the roan dogs, which are ticked-looking. For many years, solid liver dogs were passed up frequently in an effort to get a roan dog. You can’t make your buyers take a dog they don’t want, so you do have to cater to these things a little. My approach was doing my best to stress the importance of temperament and personality over the pattern. However, there are still buyers who will pass on a perfectly matched solid liver to wait for another litter to get a roan. It’s okay. It’s what they want.
Yet, this past litter was a good mark on the situation. We had 5 boys born in a litter, no girls, 3 solid livers, and 2 roans. Based on temperament, my three solid boys were selected over a roan choice each time. It was very unique for me. It is a perfect example of what we’re seeing, more educated buyers in the market. Again, I love this.
However, there are some pain points coming as well. Because the buyers are reading these outdated articles on what makes a good breeder, they are falsely marking many good breeders as bad breeders. And now it’s becoming entertainment, especially on TikTok.
In the past month, I’ve spoken with two breeders who were the subject of different TikTok “warrior” accounts who were acting as buyers and reviewing the breeder. In one instance, the TikTokker was reviewing a website of a wonderful breeder. She breeds some off-standard colors in her breed, and this girl hammered her for it. The assumption was that she was only breeding for color and not for health. Yet, I’ve personally worked with this breeder. I know her dogs, her standards, how she health tests to a high degree, and I’ve even gone through the copy of her site with her to make sure that we addressed this common assumption that breeding for color means cutting corners with quality. It’s a big deal with off-standard colors, patterns, and coats, as you may guess. This TikTokker specifically ignored all of these sections of her website, to merely show what she wanted to prove, that this breeder was a bad breeder.
It was irritating, to say the least. The breeder took it really well, knowing that people would look her up and it would improve traffic. However, it was disheartening to know that people will see that video, and it will project the wrong picture of all she does.
Another breeder contacted me last week, and she had a woman call her and attempt to secret-shop her, acting as an interested buyer, but asking such a ridiculous list of questions that it became quickly obvious she wasn’t really looking to buy a dog. She wasn’t even educated on the breed. The breeder figured it out quickly and called her out on it. Thankfully, that ended, and she made sure to tell her that she did not have permission to post about the encounter.
Yet, I also had a similar situation a few months back. A buyer contacted me asking a lot of questions about my breeding practices, and even attempted to make it seem normal to breed brother and sister dogs. Her question was a little like this: “Do you breed brothers and sisters, you know, in an effort to bring out more of their traits?” To which I told her that was not part of my breeding practice, and didn’t keep a low-enough coefficient of inbreeding. It was odd, to say the least, and I was really glad when she stopped messaging me, which I began to instigate with more questions to her about her intentions with the dog. For all I know, she could’ve been one of those crazy TikTok accounts.
I’ll be honest, I don’t have TikTok on my phone. I know a lot of breeders like it, but it seems like it boosts a bit more garbage than Instagram and Facebook. Yet, that’s just my opinion.
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WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?
These moments are really good at getting your blood pressure up. I felt for these breeders when these things happened, and I remember questioning people’s abilities with common sense when the girl was asking me if I bred siblings. However, in the end, we have to see these things for what they are: a move towards more educated buyers.
We want this. Well, at least we want more educated buyers. However, it does change the game for us a bit.
In short, our buyers want more education and transparency so they can confirm that they have purchased from a good breeder, and made a decision they are proud of. That’s all they want, so how can we give it to them?
HOW BREEDERS CAN ADAPT TO THE CHANGE IN THE BUYER MARKET
As you may have guessed, this all comes down to educating our buyers while also being transparent. Great, Julie, what does that look like?
It means that it’s simply not enough to say what you do in your marketing materials and conversations with buyers, but you need to explain the why behind those decisions. There are thousands of decisions in breeding, as you know, so each decision was a decision you made. So why did you make it? What information went into that decision, and why did you ultimately choose what you did?
For example, I still dock tails and remove dewclaws on my GSPs. This is a decision I made, and you may make a different one. For my dogs, I find that it doesn’t affect their quality of life at all, but it greatly affects the quality of the situation with the dog in the home of my buyers. Many of my buyers have little kids, and my dogs are a bit reckless for the first few years. If I kept their long, skinny tails, tails at the perfect height to knock a toddler over by hitting him in the side of the head, that causes a lot of problems for my buyers. It increases the probability that the dog will get locked up more, or that the child will become afraid of the dog. Further, my buyers wouldn’t see my dogs as respectable hunting dogs if I didn’t dock their tails. They wouldn’t see me as a professional hunting-dog breeder. So, for my program, it makes the most sense.
When I put on my website that I dock tails and remove dewclaws, I can no longer just state these facts, I need to explain them, given the explanation I offered above. I have to make sure to address the benefit to the dog and owner, and how I’ve concluded and made this decision based on my experiences, and how I’ve made sure to track my dogs to make sure it hasn’t been detrimental to their quality of life.
Same goes for ENS or ESI. I can’t tell you how many times I go to a breeder’s website and they write that they do ENS and ESI, and don’t explain it to the buyers. Buyers have no idea what that stuff is, and, more importantly, they don’t know why it matters or what the purpose is. Explain it!
When you take these decisions you’ve made and explained them on your website, you will not only educate your buyers, but you’ll also be more transparent, both of which build trust and authority with your buyers. Some things you might worry will repel buyers if they knew, such as my docked tails. But at this time I’m not going to change my practices, and so, if that doesn’t work for someone, even after I explain it, then it is best they read it and look for another breeder, thus saving me the time working with them.
Before I let you go, one quick word of caution. Some breeders opt for sharing EVERYTHING in an effort toward full transparency. This can backfire. I’m not suggesting you lie, but timing is important. For example, I’ve dealt with Parvovirus before. I will share that with my buyers. However, when I was going through an active Parvo infection with a litter, I didn’t post about it on social media. The only people who needed to know were the current buyers of the litter whose puppies it was affecting.
If someone asks, you shouldn’t lie, but there’s no need to advertise that you’re struggling. That puts strain on your buyers, makes them worry you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s hard for them to understand all the ins and outs of things like parasites or parvovirus, so it’s best to wait to talk about those things until you’ve conquered them.
The easy way to remember this is “share your scars, not your wounds.” If you’re still sorting through it, it’s still a wound that’s healing. You need to let these things heal—AKA find a solution and be through it–before sharing. You need to wait until the wound has become a scar.
Well, there you go! The changes in buyers–the good and the bad about them wanting to be better educated with their decisions. I know you’ll be able to make a few pivots in your program and marketing to better support this in your program.
If you’re looking for actionable steps to support you, consider joining the Dog Breeder Society. These are the very things we work with on our live calls, in our MasterClasses, and in our monthly Marketing Maneuvers. We’re here to support you the whole way, no matter if you’re just starting, or if you’ve been breeding for decades.
Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Honest Dog Breeder Podcast, with me, your host, Julie Swan. Sometimes it gets wild out there, but I know no one is better suited to handle it than the Honest Breeders inside this community! Thanks for being a part of it! I can’t wait to see you in the next episode.
