The 12 Days of Breeders is a series of interviews conducted with members of the Dog Breeder Society who are doing innovative, creative, and inspiring things in their dog breeding business. In each of these interviews we cover challenges each breeder has encountered, and how they’ve overcome those challenges to find success in their breeding program. Join me for all twelve of these interviews for inspiration, and countless actionable tips you can use to overcome (or avoid) challenges in your own dog breeding program! You can check out all of the interviews in this series here.
Meghan Whalen & Roo Roo Rat Terriers
How would you breed if you’re blind? Meghan is an incredible breeder, she has a heart of gold and she shares her story of how she breeds without using sight and how it might actually make her a better breeder! She also shares service dog training and helps you understand things you can look for early on with your puppies to better understand them on an individual level. You’ll love all the wonderful insight into breeding without your eyes in this episode.
Transcript
Julie Swan | 0:00
Welcome to the Honest Dog Breeder podcast with me, your host Julie Swan. Where each week we dive in to discuss all things dog breeding so you can build a breeding business you love, producing dogs that fulfill their owners dreams. I believe you can have an honest dog breeding program that also pays the bills.
So throw those pods in your ears while you’re cleaning kennels. I’d love to join you. You guys are in for a treat today.
We have Meghan Whalen of Roo Roo Rat Terriers in Wisconsin. Megan breeds for companion and service temperament dogs. And Megan, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Meghan Whalen | 0:38
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Julie Swan | 0:40
The exciting thing is Megan is blind and you’re a breeder. And when I first heard this, I was like, I have got to understand this. But before we dive in, tell us a little bit about you, your program, and then the other things that you do.
Meghan Whalen | 0:58
Sure. So I’m, I think 37. I usually lose track of how old I am, but I think that’s right now.
And I’m in Wisconsin. I’ve been breeding Rat Terriers since 2018. Other than that, done some work in website accessibility testing, did really boring customer service before that.
And I live with all my dogs in my home, which is usually very nice and sometimes a little chaotic. And outside of the breeding program, I also raise and train service dogs for myself and for others. So I do private contract work for that.
And then I do boarding for pet dogs, and board and train situations, phone consultations for training, and also I’m just getting a business rolling making service dog equipment.
Julie Swan | 1:57
Wow, this is so much stuff. It’s great. It’s great.
So tell us a little bit about the service dog equipment, like what that is.
Meghan Whalen | 2:06
Yeah, so I do some stuff that’s a little more universal could be used for pet dogs too. So, you know, leashes, collars, service dog leashes tend to have multiple length adjustments where, you know, pet dog leashes are just kind of the typical six foot with a handle on the end. And then different types of collars.
So Martingale collars, slip collars, just regular buckle collars. And then I’m just getting started. I had to find the right equipment, but I’m making guide dog harnesses.
And I’m hoping to branch into making harnesses for people who need maybe some mobility assistance, some pulling, balance, brace, things like that. And then also probably eventually rolling into making vests, whether that’s for a dog that says the dog is in training, or you know, other types of work where they don’t necessarily need their gear to do their job just for identification purposes.
Julie Swan | 3:04
Yeah, that makes sense. Wow. That’s some definitely, definitely good stuff.
And so you’re making this and I can link everything to your stuff down in the show notes so everybody can get it.
Meghan Whalen | 3:15
Yeah, that’d be great.
Julie Swan | 3:17
Yeah.
And so tell us a little bit about how you got into breeding.
Meghan Whalen | 3:25
So I got my first Rat Terrier from a shelter. I was 12. I saved up money to have a dog.
And then when my mom found out I’d saved up my money, she, I guess, wanted to reward that responsibility. So I brought a Rat Terrier puppy home to a house of three very angry cats. And he quickly became my partner in crime.
His name was Snickers. We did everything together. He was a really good dog with some pretty serious fear reactivity aggression issues, and taught me a lot about dogs and about training, and about being very intentional about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it with your dog.
So he was my first guy and he, you know, I wasn’t specifically looking for a Rat Terrier, but he’s the one that I clicked with at the shelter. And then when I moved away to college, I got a little female Rat Terrier puppy from a breeder. That was Mazda.
And I had her for 11 years. She passed away due to congestive heart failure. Snickers, my first guy had to be euthanized at 11 due to, he developed dementia and with all that fear reactivity and stuff, when the dementia kicked in, he was just miserable and like biting at everybody and everything for no reason.
And then I’ve also had a couple other Rat Terrier rescues who have had different medical conditions. One passed away at seven from DM, which is a genetic condition that’s can be tested for it and avoided. And then my oldest girl, Dosey Doe has double luxating patellas and really has a hard time getting on and off of furniture.
And so all these things compounded to make me think like there has to be a way to get this stuff right. And what do people do to prevent all these temperamental, physical and genetic complications that these dogs all dealt with? And so I read about responsible breeding versus just breeding to breed, and just really decided that that might be something I really wanted to do.
Because I, by that point in my life, had already started apprenticing under other trainers for service dog training and things like that. And I just thought that all that could come together really nicely from a trainer standpoint. I really was intrigued by the idea of raising puppies and teaching them from a very young age how to be successful in life.
So it kind of all just came together. And then in 2017, I got the opportunity to work from home for my current employer at the time. And so that gave me the space to get my first prospective breeding pair.
So I brought home Mayhem and Chaos in August of 2017, raised the two of them up and they did both pass all their health clearances and were really nice dogs. And I had my first litter in October of 18. And it’s just been a gradual acquisition of more Rat Terriers and more puppies.
And that’s kind of how it all got going. And now I’m to the point that that’s all I do. I don’t have a secondary job anymore.
So I met that goal last summer.
Julie Swan | 6:34
Great. That’s great. Yeah.
And I feel like Rat Terriers are hard to have just one, like you do kind of collect them. It seems to be.
Meghan Whalen | 6:41
They’re highly collectible. Yeah. And they’re just, you know, I have five of them laying around me right now.
They’re just like, oh, you’re sitting down, we’re sitting down. So they’re just very adaptable and easy to live with.
Julie Swan | 6:53
Yeah. And you, you have a Wime with you, right? A Weimaraner?
Meghan Whalen | 6:58
I do. Yeah. She is, that’s Tribby.
She is just about 16 months and about, I don’t know, she’s probably got maybe another month if I really buckle down another month of training before she’s learned everything she needs to. She’s my next guide dog. So she’s functional at this point and just has a few more things to learn.
Julie Swan | 7:19
And you’ve done all her training?
Meghan Whalen | 7:21
I have. Yeah. I got her at about three months old.
Julie Swan | 7:24
So how does that, how does that work? How do you, can you give us a little rundown on how you train a service dog to do guide work?
Meghan Whalen | 7:33
Yeah. So, depending on the dog and their maturity and all that stuff, I’d say roughly the first nine months, nine to 10 months is just socialization, obedience and setting expectations. So it’s all about getting them out to as many different environments as you can.
And in some ways being as inconsistent with that as possible, because if they have a very routinized puppyhood, that’s not going to keep them super adaptable. You might take them to, you know, five different, very challenging environments, but if that’s all they ever do, those five things, aren’t going to really set them up for success. So it’s a lot of, you know, today we went to the mall tomorrow, we’re going to go to a baseball game.
Maybe the next day we’ll go to a festival and then, you know, maybe we’ll take a day at home and then we’ll just walk around the neighborhood and watch traffic, you know, that kind of thing, it’s just a matter of really switching it up and getting them used to all different things. So, you know, in her first few weeks with me, she went to a musical, she went to a whole bunch of different stores, a lot of restaurants, things like that. So it’s just getting them used to being in all these environments and then working on basic obedience.
So sit down, stay, come, all that stuff. And then basically just working with them so that in all environments, they’re just as reliable with all those obedience commands. And then the other thing that they learn, I don’t know that everyone does it this way, but as young puppies, I teach them how to do pivots to the left and right.
So they learn left and right. They learn those commands as little puppies and learn how to back up and just like a lot of body awareness, and kind of how to move their bodies, so that when they’re older and their responsibility is to take me around and avoid obstacles, that footwork is very natural for them when I start teaching them what I need from them. So then around roughly a year old, somewhere between a year and 15 months usually, they can start learning how to pull in the harness.
So then as a guide dog, their job is to travel in a straight line, stop for changes in elevation, whether that’s one step into the street or a whole flight of stairs, also indicate obstacles. So if a kid leaves their bike in the sidewalk to take you around that safely, overhead obstacles too. So tree branches, things like that.
And then the ability to judge kind of the trajectory of travel and be able to work with moving obstacles, which is usually kind of the last thing, because that takes a little bit of like a little more mental maturity and kind of the ability to, you’re going this fast, I’m going that fast. We need to move at this point. And that’s just something that they learn through experience.
So I’m trying to think if there’s really anything else to it. I mean, those are the biggest things. And I guess the most basic way to sum up a guide dog’s job, is just to expand their body awareness from not walking themselves into walls, to not walking themselves and the person next to them into things.
So it just expands their bubble from being dog size to the height of the person and the width of the dog and the person. That’s obviously very oversimplifying it, but that’s really in the end, all you’re teaching them to do is just like, because the dog wouldn’t walk into a pole, right. But also being aware that they’re responsible for all the space that you take up as well and making sure you don’t walk into that either.
Julie Swan | 11:03
Yeah, that makes sense. So, I mean, the obvious question is if you’re training a guide dog to be a guide dog for you, how do you do that?
Meghan Whalen | 11:13
Right. So there’s a few things to it. It’s best to start in an environment you know really well.
So my neighborhood, I’ve lived here for almost six years now. So I know this area very well. And when I first started teaching her, I carried my cane with me too.
So I could keep track of where we’re at and praise her when I could tell she got things right. Because that can be a really hard transition because a cane is an obstacle finder. So you tap it in front of you, it bumps into something, you know it’s there and you go around it, where the dog is an obstacle avoider.
So that is, I’d say the fastest way to get lost as a blind person is with a guide dog because you’re trusting that they’re going around things and turning when you need them to. I mean, it’s up to the handler to tell them where to go, but ultimately they are still animals and could make mistakes. So it’s very easy to get twisted around.
So the first, I don’t know, probably 10 workouts for sure. I carry my cane in my right hand, have the dog guiding in my left hand, and then we stay in areas I know well. So then I’ll put away my cane, but carry it in a bag with me.
It folds up. So if I need to point out anything to her, teach her, show her anything, I can bring it back out. And then it’s just slowly building that trust from, okay, you know how to take me around our neighborhood and walk these routes that I’ve been taking you on since you were a puppy to, you know, we’re at the airport and I’ve never been here with you before.
And you took me around all the people in all the suitcases and found the escalator for me to, you know, everything. It’s just, it’s an incredible progression. And the hardest thing is letting go of the control.
So going from, I’m teaching you to, I taught you. That’s like the hardest transition if you train your own.
Julie Swan | 13:07
Oh, that makes sense. Yeah.
Meghan Whalen | 13:10
It’s confidence, not only in the dog, but in the fact that you taught the dog everything they need to know. Right. Exactly.
Julie Swan | 13:16
Exactly. Do you ever go through it and then you’re like, oh, I guess we’ll need to like redo that one.
Meghan Whalen | 13:22
Yeah. Yep. And I sometimes go out and do things knowing like, okay, she’s not so good at clearing things that are like at shoulder height on my right-hand side.
So I just kind of have to accept that we’re maybe going to have to mostly be working, but do some training too, you know? So that’s, it’s kind of a hybrid approach. Sometimes it’s not just like this dog is in training, and now this dog is trained.
Sometimes there’s some environments where they’re fully trained and ready to go. And then some things that for whatever reason she and I haven’t worked on yet. So yeah, it’s kind of a really neat experience because if you get a dog trained through like a guide dog program or whatever, that dog comes to you fully trained, you know, they, they know everything they need to.
Julie Swan | 14:09
Yeah.
Meghan Whalen | 14:10
So, but yeah, it’s very, very rewarding. And also, a lot of work.
Julie Swan | 14:19
Yeah. Yeah. Do you think it makes sense for people to consider?
Like a lot of people want to train their own service animal. Do you think that makes sense, or would you recommend anything, or thoughts to think about?
Meghan Whalen | 14:31
I would say if it’s something you’re interested in, look for resources. That’s one other thing I didn’t mention is occasionally a friend and I do an online course. It’s eight weeks and it’s, we meet once every other week.
So I guess it’s eight courses over 16 weeks. Eight courses, I can’t talk today, eight classes. And we walk them through all the way from how to select a puppy, like, you know, common breeds used, that you don’t necessarily have to stick with them, but these are the popular breeds that are used, to how to evaluate the temperament of a puppy.
Or if you’re going with a young adult, how to evaluate them. Everything you’re going to need to do as far as socialization, training expectations.
Things that you need to consider, like at what point something behavioral may be a reason to pull that dog. Like if they’re growling at people out in public and you can’t get that to stop, that’s that dog’s not a service dog quality temperament. And then we go all the way through puppy raising, getting them to the point that they’re very reliable.
The whole process I talked through before. And then we teach them how to teach all the guide dog skills, how to pull in the harness, how to move around obstacles, how to stop for curbs, how to do a street, a straight street crossing, all those things. And I know there’s similar programs for dogs, for other types of work too.
Julie Swan | 16:02
That makes sense. Yeah, other service.
Meghan Whalen | 16:02
Right PTSD response or yeah, all sorts of things.
Julie Swan | 16:09
So yeah, that makes sense. You’re not opposed to it, but there should be some sort of guidance and how you’re going about that process.
Meghan Whalen | 16:16
Yeah. And I’d say, yeah, just understanding that the most important thing is to pick the right dog. The rest of it is of course very important, but if you start with a dog that’s lunging and barking and growling and whatever, like that’s just not a good foundation.
So yeah, start with the dog who has the inherent tendencies for the job.
Julie Swan | 16:37
Oh yeah. Definitely makes sense. Great.
Well, let’s move forward and talk a little bit about some of the challenges. Cause I know like me, I heard that you were blind and you breed and I was just like, how, how, how, how? So how do you select breeding dogs?
Meghan Whalen | 17:00
Yeah. So definitely if I’m keeping back a puppy from my own lines, that’s very easy. Because I have my hands on them from the day they’re born and I can watch them grow up, and feel how their body is developing, how muscular they are, what their head structures kind of developing as, you know, I’ve seen about 150 puppies from birth to eight weeks now and starting to be able to tell really probably, I don’t know, three or four litters in starting to really be able to look at even just like the shape of their face at four weeks and starting to tell like, okay, this puppy is probably going to have more of this structure
This one’s, you know, this one’s probably going to be a little snipey in the face or going to have, you know, their stops going to be too sharp or too not sharp. You know, so I really looking at that kind of stuff and then just continuing to watch them as they grow. And also with those puppies, when I’m selecting one from my own program, I pay very close attention from when they’re first born, not just physically like what their structure is, but how they respond to touch, how they feel in my hands.
Like, is this puppy relaxed in my hands when I pick him up? Like, do all his muscles go loose? Will he lay on his back in my palms?
And if he does, is he doing that with all his feet in the air? Like just doesn’t care, happy, relaxed, or is he on his back with all his paws tucked in, like accepting it and not enjoying it, you know? And so I pay attention to all those things too.
And then if I am getting a puppy from another breeder, I ask them questions about how the puppy is interacting with his littermates, once they’re up and running, is he the first one out of the pen in the morning? Or is he pushing all the other puppies out of the way at the food bowl? Or is he like eating the scraps after everyone else came to the bowl, kind of what’s his place in the litter?
And then I also do ask them, what does he do when you pick him up? Like, do his muscles get tight? Does he like go right to licking your face or does he like, will he let you hold him on his back?
And if you can do it, is he relaxed or is he just stiff, all those things. So I ask a lot of those questions of them and just try to really, rather than just like, hey, what’s this dog’s temperament, unless it’s someone I’ve worked with a lot and trust that they understand what I’m asking for. But if I’m working with somebody new, I ask those questions to get the information I need.
And then I also do get pictures and share them with friends. And I have one friend who’s really good and she’ll look at a puppy and she’ll be like, yeah, that looks like, um, you know, kind of like Mayhem’s build with, um, I don’t know, Chaos’s face or something like that, and then I can start to picture like what that puppy or what the parents might be like.
Julie Swan | 20:01
That’s kind of how initial, where I’d like to buy my next breeding dog from. And it’s true because Rat Terriers are not particularly consistent. I think there’s a lot of variation.
The breed itself hasn’t honed down in the way that say like my German Shorthairs are pretty similar.
Meghan Whalen | 20:21
Right.
Julie Swan | 20:23
That’s interesting.
Um, that’s good. What else? So, okay.
So, so that makes sense. But then like, so for whelping, right? Like, how do you, how does that change?
You know, like, do you know when she’s coming in to have her puppies? Like, how do you know they’re coming in heat? Like, how do you do this?
Meghan Whalen | 20:39
Yeah. So I of course, keep good records about when they were last in heat. I set reminders on my phone.
So it’ll start like, I don’t know, maybe a couple of weeks before I think someone’s going to do it, come in. I’ll just get a reminder. That’s like, check on Pizzazz, see how she’s doing, whatever.
So, what that is for me, rather than looking for blood is I will start touching them really gently, just like below their tail, you know, like right above their vulva right there. And before they come into heat, I’d say at least four days to a week prior, the tissue there just starts to firm up a little bit, even before it swells. And so I start watching for that and then I check for discharge.
And of course, since I can’t see if I wipe them with a tissue, I can’t see if there’s blood. I just, I go by touch. So I just will, when they first wake up, pick them up and check them.
When I was first starting and hadn’t really gotten comfortable with all that, I would wipe them and just send dirty tissue pictures to my breeder friends. But, you know, it worked. It was a system that worked for me initially.
And now I know my dogs and, you know, I’ve been through enough heat cycles that I know all the signs. And trust my boy’s judgment too. I know which ones are eager early, and which ones are right.
So just kind of a series of things that I pay attention to. I pay attention to her. I pay attention to how the pack as a whole is acting. I know when they’re all just extra vocal that we’re getting very close to the time that I need to put her with someone, if that’s the plan.
And so that’s how I do that. And then, I definitely find the reminders on my phone, very helpful just to remind me when I need to start checking them though. But, I do also just kind of try to tactically just look over everybody every day anyways, just for their own health and, you know, see where they’re all at.
I keep nail clippers right by the back door so that as they’re going outside, I can be like, Nope, sorry, do a nail trim and then let them out. So it’s all very much by touch as far as whelping. I keep them with me pretty much constantly the week before they’re due.
So my dogs rotate, so they take turns sleeping upstairs with me and then spending the night in their kennels overnight. And so my girls, when they’re getting ready to whelp, they spend every night with me and I keep them on a leash so that if they try to like jump out of bed and go have puppies under my bed, that’s not an option. And then same thing, there’s just, there’s a lot of tactile information, obviously from their milk dropping, to when they start shedding their mucus plug, to usually on the day they’re going to whelp.
There’s just differences that you can tell tactically with like her vulva is different. It’s like softer, different, you know, whatever. So, a huge part for me as a breeder is like, it’s hard for me to bring in like a four year old girl just for one litter, if that would benefit my program, because I am so tactile that I have, you know, I have no choice, but to be.
And so I want my dogs to be very, very comfortable with touch. So if I bring in a just for like one litter, I want her to come in maybe the heat before I plan to breed her. So we can get very comfortable with each other and she can learn that, you know, I’m going to have to touch her a lot, you know, touch her, her face, her everything, just to know, make sure everything’s okay with her.
There’s nothing I can check visually. So, it’s very important to me that my girls are really, really comfortable being handled, because once they’re whelping, I have to, you know, I don’t intervene, but I have to have my hand on them to feel, you know, as they’re pushing, I can’t tell if they’re pushing unless my hand’s on their side. They whelp in a pack-and-play inside of like a little bin inside the pack-and-play like one of those cement mixing bin things from Home Depot.
I just have it set up in my master bathroom and then I have a chair next to it and I just sit in the chair with my hand over the side, just resting on her side and petting her and keeping her company. And I can tell if she’s had a contraction, I can tell if she’s pushing, there’s a difference in the way that feels. And, um, and then once she starts pushing, I just gently put my finger like down by her, same spot where I check if they’re in heat.
And then I can feel when the puppy starts to come down the birth canal. And I can tell by then just how it feels like right away, if that puppy is breach or head first. And so that kind of lets me know how much I have to expect her to continue to push, if she’s cleared the head already or not and all those things.
And then, as the puppy’s born, I just gently touch to verify the whole puppy is out. And then I let her clean the puppy for a little bit, but I reach in every 10 seconds and just check and make sure that she’s got the face cleared, et cetera, et cetera. And so they’re all very comfortable with me reaching in and being part of that.
I make sure that they don’t feel threatened. I don’t take the puppy away. I have a scale that I keep right next to them so I can weigh the puppy right away.
Because that’s part of, I mean, I know everyone weighs their puppies, but that’s part of how I keep track of them when they’re first born is like, okay, this was the smallest, this was the biggest. And then I have an app on my phone. Now this is just in the last year maybe, that I can take a picture of that puppy and through AI, it’ll tell me what color it is.
And that’s, that’s super helpful. But if I get two in a row that it says little black and white puppy, and they’re both girls, then I need to call somebody like, Hey, could you, I’ll do video chat with a friend and say, can you describe this puppy’s marking so I can keep track of them? Maybe one has a bigger blaze or one has more spots on her back, or maybe one’s black with, you know, a white collar and the other’s pieballed or whatever.
Julie Swan | 27:15
Yeah.
Meghan Whalen | 27:16
So, yeah. So that’s how I keep track of them from the beginning. And then when I weigh them every day, same thing, either video with a friend or that app, depending on colors and patterns. Sometimes, you know, sometimes I get lucky and it’s really easy.
I have, cause I have a teeny bit of vision. I can see like some light and dark contrast. Um, so if I have like two boys and two girls, for example, and one boy and one girl are piebald and one boy and one girl are a solid color.
Well then I’m going to be able to tell them all apart, without any help. Or I also sometimes get some natural bobtail puppies and yeah. And then sometime, you know, that narrows it down to, and I don’t need any help, but yeah, I just use video or AI to identify everybody.
I tried a little, like slip hemp collars for a while and did like one knot for the first born, two little knots in it for the second. And those kind of worked, but the moms were taking them off or they’re getting tangled in them and pulling them off each other. So it made me nervous.
So I stopped using those.
Julie Swan | 28:21
That makes sense. That’s pretty neat. So does the scale, does it talk to you and it just like reads off the weight?
Meghan Whalen | 28:27
Oh yeah. Yeah, it does. I have a little talking kitchen scale and I also have a talking thermometer.
Julie Swan | 28:36
That’s handy. I feel like there’s a lot of moms could use that in general. So we can’t, there’s so much going on.
Meghan Whalen | 28:44
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 28:45
Yeah. So that’s perfect. And then, okay.
So then, you’re knowing these temperaments so, so well. So you have like, well, I remember the first time we were talking about some stuff and I was asking you questions and you were like, oh yeah, I know. Like on day two, what the puppies will be like, I was like, you, what?
Tell us how that works.
Meghan Whalen | 29:12
Okay. Yeah. So I’d say it’s true about 90% of the time.
And a lot of it is paying attention to, like I was talking about a little bit before, how they do or don’t relax when I pick them up. I do early neurological stimulation, partially because of all the benefits of it, but it also gives me a ton of information. It tells me which puppies learn quickly.
It tells me which puppies, like how they feel about things. So it’s not just a series of exercises to activate their stress response and et cetera, et cetera. For me, it’s the way to gather tons of information about these puppies. So, you know, one of the exercises is holding them on their back in your palms. And there are puppies who hate that and scream every time I do it.
And there are puppies who just relax and are cool with it every time. And then there are some who like kind of almost like shut down just like, “okay, we’re doing this, I’m just going to curl in a little ball and wait for it to be over.” So, I really pay attention to that.
Usually the ones who are kind of a little crunchers are the ones who grow up kind of needing the time to stand back and observe before they try something new. And those are the puppies that I will not put in a really quiet home that just wants a couch potato, because that dog’s gonna be so understimulated that they’re just going to kind of get stuck in their head. So they need the families who are like dog savvy.
They don’t need to be experts, but they need to be people who want a dog to take places with them. So that that dog continues to have to exercise that ability to learn new things. Those are things I look at and then things like, so the last exercise I do always is where I put them on the cold surface.
And so I always do the same order for the exercises. And there’s some puppies who, as I’m finishing the little tickle their toes shenanigans, they start kind of like, you can tell they’re anticipating that cold coming next and some that don’t. And so it’s like, that tells me like this dog is really smart and really pays attention to what’s going on.
And is observant and already processing and thinking and experiencing the world. So, yeah, I learn a ton from that. And then it’s interesting too, cause a lot of times I can tell, even though I can’t see when their eyes open.
I can tell when their eyes have opened based on just their changed responses through those exercises sometimes too.
Julie Swan | 31:57
Really? Like, because they can see, so they, yeah.
Meghan Whalen | 32:02
Yep.
Julie Swan | 32:04
That’s crazy. What about working with buyers? Do you ever get any pushback cause you’re blind?
Meghan Whalen | 32:09
I really, I thought I’d get a lot. I thought I’d get a lot of questions and a lot of judgment from, I guess I really thought I’d get it more from other breeders than I have, but especially from buyers, I really thought I’d get questions about like the quality of care the puppies were receiving or, you know, how do you know if there’s something wrong? But I really haven’t.
I’ve had one breeder who, so I’m understandably not a great photographer. And when I announced the litter, I always post a picture of the mom laying in the whelping box with all her puppies lined up in front of her. And a lot of times, my good friend, Leah will take that picture.
And sometimes I take a bunch of them and send them to her and she picks a good one and sends it back to me and I post it. Cause I can, you know, line up the lens and pull it back and just like trajectory of the angle, know that the dog’s in the frame. And so there was one where just the way she was laying, Charisma is just kind of naturally got like a bonier spine, even when she’s not pregnant, hasn’t had puppies.
And so I guess the angle just made her look bony. And so instead of talking to me, another breeder just like went to another, like an acquaintance of ours and was like, “Oh, you know, you really need to talk to Meghan about the care of her dogs and this dog’s emaciated and now she’s being asked to raise a litter and blah, blah, blah.” And so when that happened, I, you know, of course my friend came to me and told me about this.
And so I just posted another picture of her standing up, not looking emaciated with her puppies laying next to her. And just politely said, “Hey, you know, just so everybody knows it was brought to my attention that this picture looks this way. It’s no surprise to anybody I’m blind.
And I did not realize that was apparent in this photo, that she looked that way. She isn’t emaciated, you know, my dogs get the best of care. And just so you know, if you have questions, it’s a much better to go to the person than to go above them.”
So I just made it very public. Cause I figured if one person had a question, there was probably at least someone else who thought that too. So I just try to, yeah, just head it off right away before it can turn into anything and try to make it clear on my page, like at the top of my Facebook page, it says right in like my pin post, I’m blind.
So photos aren’t my strength, you know, please be patient. If you’re interested in a puppy, I can get you, you know, video of the puppy, whatever, whatever.
So it’s definitely just like, Hey, this is who I am. And it’s not a big deal. Like, I just try to make that clear to people.
Julie Swan | 34:53
I like that. And so your friend Leah, she comes over and she’ll help you when you have to get a little bit more specific.
Meghan Whalen | 34:59
Yeah. So yeah, she tries to come over like once a week when I have pups and we do a weekly update of pictures. Sometimes, like right now, I have a few older pups. They’re about 16 weeks old.
And so I just take video of them and talk about them, you know, have them on my lap or have them playing or whatever. And then I just send it to her to make sure that, you know, they’re actually in the frame and whatever.
Then she’ll just take a look at it and be like, yeah, it looks great. It’s cute. And then I post them.
Julie Swan | 35:29
It’s good. And buyers just don’t care because you’re upfront about it. So if it was weird for them, they just wouldn’t contact you.
Meghan Whalen | 35:35
Yeah. That’s kind of it. And like, you know, if it’s a problem for you, that’s fine.
Like, you know, if you didn’t want to spend money at Lazy-Boy, you go to Ashley Furniture, you know, whatever. Like if you don’t want to work with me, that’s fine. There’s somewhere else to go and you don’t have to, and you don’t have to tell me you don’t want to work with me.
It’s fine. Just do what feels right to you. That’s, that’s life, you know?
Julie Swan | 35:55
I think it’s great. Does anybody ever find it weird that you have a different breed for your guide dog?
Meghan Whalen | 36:02
Um, not really. I’ve had a couple of people ask me if Rat Terriers can do it. And I think they have the brains for it, certainly.
They just don’t have the bulk. So, I haven’t really gotten that too much.
I do have, oh, three or four of my dogs now who are doing different types of service work, mostly like psychiatric, some diabetic alert type stuff. So, I do have dogs out doing jobs, just not, not guides.
Julie Swan | 36:41
No, that makes sense. I think a Rat Terrier, for anybody doesn’t know, they’re pretty small. Most of them are going to be under 25 pounds and some as small as 10 pounds.
So yeah,they’re a little. Yeah. Oh, and you had mentioned talking about photos.
You got me thinking, you mentioned that you did accessibility work on websites, and you were kind of explaining to me how that works for you, because my understanding is you use like a screen reader, which is like a, what a browser extension that’s going to read what’s on the web to you. Is that how that works?
Meghan Whalen | 37:15
Yeah. So it’s, um, software you, well, it depends on the device, I guess. So on the iPhone, it’s just a native software you have to activate.
So it’s built in already. And then on the computer, like on my Windows PC, it’s a separate program I had to install. There are some browser extension options too, that people use occasionally.
But the software approach is usually more reliable and more common. Yeah, it reads any text on the screen and activates a series of different, in the case of the iPhone, different gestures, so when you’re using your phone to select things on a touch screen, you just touch it and it goes to it. The only way of course, that I can explore what’s on the screen is by touch.
So in order to activate something, I have to tap it twice. So I’d say that’s the biggest difference. So if I touch the screen, it’ll tell me what I’m touching.
And then if I tap it twice, it’ll activate it.
Julie Swan | 38:21
Oh, okay. That makes sense. So it kind of reads you off your options.
If you’re tapping something and then you can make a selection. That makes sense.
Meghan Whalen | 38:32
Yeah. So you can like flick through the options, you know, swipe around the screen and stuff like that. So Mayhem’s dreaming.
Julie Swan | 38:40
Yeah, she’s cute. As far as website development, because I know a lot of breeders are working with service animals and occasionally working, you know, with people who might be using screen readers as well, is there anything to keep in mind? I know you were explaining a little bit on how it translates.
If you could explain.
Meghan Whalen | 39:01
Yeah. So a few easy things you can do to make your website more accessible would be to describe pictures. For instance, Mayhem is laying in the whelping box with her five puppies.
They’re all various patterns of chocolate, or something like that. And then for videos, you can do the same thing. Like this is a video of the litter of puppies racing around in the grass and they’re climbing on different play structures and whatever, you know, you could even say like for more information about individual puppies, please reach out or something like that.
Because a lot of videos are, you know, just like with music. So you have no idea what’s going on.
Julie Swan | 39:46
Yeah.
Meghan Whalen | 39:46
And then another thing is any text that’s on the screen to actually have it be text, not like an edited image with text. So actually, you know, type out the text rather than put up a picture of like a paragraph of text or something like that. And then if you have headings on your page, a lot of screen reader users just jump from heading to heading to kind of get a summary of the page, that’s a really efficient way to be able to do that.
Julie Swan | 40:20
So that means that the headings are organized one, does it tell you two?
Meghan Whalen | 40:29
Yeah, it’ll tell you heading level. So it’ll say like heading two, you know, welcome to our breeding program or whatever. Heading three, you know why we started or whatever, you know, things like that. So it does tell you the heading levels.
And then the other big thing, another thing that I regularly do when I’m browsing a website is there’s a way to just bring up a list of all the links on the page. So rather than having to navigate through the whole page and find links, you can just get like one big list of all the links. So, it’s very helpful to not have links called click here.
Because then I just get a link list of, you know, 17 click here’s, and I have no idea where I’m going with those or read more or, you know, things like that. Just generic.
Julie Swan | 41:18
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay.
Meghan Whalen | 41:20
So if you, if you wanted to have read more, you could say, read more about the litter born on April 27th or something like that.
Julie Swan | 41:27
And then that whole thing would be the hyperlink.
Meghan Whalen | 41:30
Yep.
Julie Swan | 41:31
Perfect. That makes a lot of sense. Okay.
And that gives you a much better picture of the website and what’s going on with it. Yeah.
Meghan Whalen | 41:39
Yeah. And definitely with sites that I know, well, I can usually navigate them faster than if you have to look to navigate it, but figuring them out as a little bit obnoxious sometimes.
Julie Swan | 41:52
It’s probably like you navigate your house at night way better than I navigate my house at night.
Meghan Whalen | 41:58
Yeah right, yup.
Julie Swan | 42:01
It’s just fascinating to me. What I’ve found in, because I think I’ve known you a little over a year and a half, I think.
Meghan Whalen | 42:11
I think that’s about right, yeah.
Julie Swan | 42:13
I just, in the beginning I was like, how in the world, you know, could this be going okay. And then the more I talked to you and learned about how you run things and do things, I actually have come to see you being blind as a superpower.
Like you have this ability to read the animals on such a level that I just don’t think using our eyes can give us. And so it’s like all of your other senses play into it and you just know.
Meghan Whalen | 42:45
Yeah. I mean, typically people get about 80% of their information visually and I can’t do that. And there’s no way I’m only getting 20% of the information in the world.
You know what I mean? So I don’t actually have better senses than other people, but I use them. And so they’re much more, refined, I guess.
Right. Like I have to rely on them. Like with whelping even, I can tell just based on like as gross as it sounds on odor, right.
If there’s like, I can tell if a puppy comes out and the fluids, maybe not the right color, whatever. I can tell if the placenta is maybe going to come out a little questionable. Like I can tell when she starts pushing sometimes like, oh geez, this puppy might have some problems because it all smells different.
Yeah. You can tell even when they’re in heat, like, you know, it can tell like the transition from like when they’re heavy bleeding and they’re very coppery to when they’re ready to breed and they smell more like musky, you know, it’s just different, all that stuff is information that I can use, and I do as I need to, you know. Part of me definitely resisted at first, like, oh, people are going to think that’s weird. Like, oh, how do you know when your dog’s in heat? Well, you can smell it.
Okay. Well, that’s gross, but you know, it’s really not gross as long as, I mean, it’s. Just, it is, it’s what I have to do.
So I do it, you know? And so, I mean, I’m not like, you know, up in their business or anything, there’s definitely just, there’s a notable difference, and that’s information I’ve learned and I use. That’s just the reality of it.
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 44:33
I do the same thing with like Giardia poop, because it has like a different smell to it. And I can always be like, yep, that’s that one. You know, I’m actually, you get to the point where you’re like almost excited to smell normal dog poop.
Cause you’re like, oh, that’s wonderful.
Meghan Whalen | 44:48
Yes, absolutely. There’s that too.
Julie Swan | 44:51
Yeah.
Meghan Whalen | 44:53
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 44:54
So funny.
Oh, you were telling me a story. Your, the breeding female with you right now that you had spayed. How you say?
Meghan Whalen | 45:04
Oh, yes.
Julie Swan | 45:05
What happened?
Meghan Whalen | 45:06
So I bred her, I think, let’s just say for easy numbers, she was due like July 15th. And the breeding, it’s the only breeding I’ve ever done that didn’t take. And I was about two weeks later, she was, she likes to lay on her back, all stretched out, like on my stomach when I’m in bed and I’ll rub her belly.
And I was like, geez, your, your stomach feels weird. Like it feels kind of almost like there was like a, um, a bunch of like wet tissue in her stomach. Like Kleenex, you know, like that kind of like squishy gloppy feeling.
I don’t know how to explain it, but whatever. It just felt very weird. And it was like, that’s strange.
And then I checked and she had like a little bit of discharge and it had no odor. And I sent a picture to a friend and it had no color. I was like, well, these two things are not adding up.
This is not good. So I took her into my vet the next morning. I was like, I think she has pyo.
And they said, okay, well, we’ll check her blood work. I said, if she does, I want to get her spayed. So they checked her blood work and everything was normal.
They saw like a little bit of that discharge, but they were like, you know, maybe it’s just like, let’s just check her again in a couple of days. I was like, no, because they had slotted her in for an emergency spay. I was like, I just want to do it.
Like, it just doesn’t feel right. And so they took her in for her spay. They opened her up and it was, her uterus was huge.
And at first they thought that it was so full. They thought she was pregnant. And I had missed that she was pregnant.
She’s like, I looked down. I was like, there’s no way Megan doesn’t know this dog’s pregnant, but this dog has to be pregnant. And then she opened up her uterus and it was just full of pus and like had clearly just started.
So, yeah, so I’m definitely very grateful that I pushed for that. Yeah, it was just like nothing I’d ever experienced before, but just having read about pyo, I was like, I just didn’t want to mess with it.
You know? And I’m so grateful I didn’t give it a couple of days. Because I don’t know.
I just hate to think where it could have gone, but instead it just ended up being, it was so early that it was just pretty much a routine spay. Like there was no rupture, there was no leakage, there was no anything, but they were just blown away that, that I caught it that early.
Julie Swan | 47:32
Yeah. Just anyone to catch it that early. That’s crazy.
Meghan Whalen | 47:35
Yeah.
Julie Swan | 47:37
Wow. That’s incredible.
Yeah. I’ve always like in talking to you, I’m always like, man, I wish we lived closer because I would just love to like see you in action. Teach me things.
Meghan Whalen | 47:46
Yes. I am able to also, at, 30, 35 days in that stretch, I can palpate and tell if they’re pregnant and I’ve never been wrong about that either.
Julie Swan | 47:59
That’s pretty cool. You are your own ultrasound. That’s amazing.
Meghan Whalen | 48:03
Yes. I’ve never done an ultrasound. I’ve always been able to tell.
And I’ve also been able to tell, like I’ve palpated at that time and there were puppies and then I check again, like, you know, about a week later and I could feel them. I was like, okay, push her due date out about a week. I’ll start watching her at the due date I thought we had.
But I’m guessing she’ll have them five days later then I thought, and it’s always been right.
Julie Swan | 48:27
Wow. Wow. That’s pretty incredible.
Meghan Whalen | 48:32
I can usually get the count. I can usually tell how many she’s going to have if it’s her first litter, but once she’s had a litter or two in her uterus is a little more stretched out, I just can tell if there’s puppies or not.
Julie Swan | 48:43
Oh, that makes sense. That makes sense. That’s great.
Anything else you want to share that might be useful for people to understand or know?
Meghan Whalen | 48:52
I’d say, I’ve gotten feedback from my families that their puppies are the most affectionate they’ve ever had, that they’re just very, you know, they always want to be. Like they’re not codependent, but they really enjoy touch and being held. And so I would say as much as you can make yourself, like rather than just peeking in on your puppies to check on them, pick them up, touch each of them every time that you check on them, because, I think that makes a huge difference and that’s part of why my puppies are the way they are.
And so many of them are as intuitive as they are because they’ve been not just handled from the time they were born, but they’ve had like very constant contact. And, you know, it’s just, I think because I can’t get any information visually, they are so comfortable with everything and like, you know, they’ll take them in for their first vet visit, even the vet’s remark on just how, uh, how comfortable they are. So I just say there’s no such thing as touching them too much.
Julie Swan | 50:01
Yeah.
Meghan Whalen | 50:02
And you’ll probably learn new things about them if you do.
Julie Swan | 50:07
Yeah, I think you’re right. I know I’m going to be trying some new stuff with my recent litter. Where can people find you?
Meghan Whalen | 50:18
I’m working on a website, but right now, I’m on Facebook. So it’s just facebook.com/roorooratties. You can also email me roorooratties at gmail.com.
Julie Swan | 50:34
Perfect. All right. Well, I’ll get all that in the show notes.
People want to contact you.
Meghan Whalen | 50:37
Awesome, perfect.
Julie Swan | 50:38
Thank you so much, Meghan.
I really appreciate you coming on the show.
Meghan Whalen | 50:42
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.
