Good deal! Aloff’s Canine Body Language half off!

Dogwise has this wonderful book at half off for publisher returns (slightly worn, still totally readable). I think it’s a fabulous book to read after Rugaas’ books, to further expand the vocabulary you see being communicated between dogs and between dogs and people.

To lighten the mood: A dog training book that is chock-full of love

http://www.amazon.com/Champion-dog-Prince-Jean-Fritz/dp/B0007G5J6W

This may be one of the best obedience books ever written, and it tells virtually nothing about how to train. I read it for the first time when I was about ten and it made such a huge impression on me that I still have passages memorized. It’s basically the story of a guy with a dog and the dog was pretty well a genius, but the guy didn’t know how to train him. Every time he tried, the dog ignored him. And he never really did figure out how to train his dog; he just talked to him a lot. Constantly. In a quiet, conversational tone. He broke every rule of obedience that has been written before and since, and his dog went on to be an enormous figure in Cocker Spaniel history. His owner was not a hunter, but Prince Tom won the Cocker National Field Trial, which had never before been won by an American Cocker. He was titled to his U.D., which was the terminal degree at the time.

Who knows what details I’m leaving out – I haven’t read the book in probably twenty years – but what has stayed with me is the sense of joy that comes with just TALKING to your dog. Tom Clute’s success with Prince Tom would now be described using words like “continuous use of reinforcing bridging words” and “dog facial interpretation and mirroring” and “anticipatory behaviors” and a whole bunch of stuff that really all boils down to that they were best buds, and the dog liked hearing Clute talk and Clute liked talking to his dog.

DogRead, which is a Yahoo group I’ve been part of for several years, had Kayce Cover as the author a few months ago; she strongly believes that we should be using signals the whole time, continually, as long as the dog is performing the behavior. Sort of like Tom Clute did with his dog. She actually uses a series of g-g-g-g-g-g-g-g sounds, like “good good good good” compressed into one syllable, from the moment the dog begins the behavior until it’s done. That drove me crazy when I tried it, but there’s no question in my mind that the dogs understand the difference between “good, continue” and “good, done” words, and that they get a LOT out of just being talked to.

When I was walking all three dogs this morning, I got embarrassed by the fact that I never stop chattering to them, which must sound to people walking by like I am completely nutso. It goes “Clue, you’re getting too far ahead, slow down a little, oh, that’s excellent, that’s exactly where I want you. What a great job you just did. Ginny, stay with me, NICE job, perfect. Bronte, silly, you got all tangled. Can you move that leg? GREAT DOG. GOOD DOG. That’s just what I wanted. No, Clue, you can’t roll here, please catch up,” and they all really do know who I’m talking to, and whoever it is pays attention and the other two don’t follow the same command, and the whole time we’re briskly walking. So I guess I do believe in and follow constant bridging (and WOW do I break the rule of only using the command word once; I say it constantly as they’re performing the behavior), though I go about it in what I am sure is a totally bizarre way.

Digression: Also bizarre: Clue has nine nipples. Four on the right side, five on the other. Maybe her puppies will grow up to be left-brained. End digression.

Whenever I write a post that even touches on obedience, it takes me hours and hours and I get really nervous about it, because I am (seriously) such a BAD obedience trainer. I just cannot bring myself to get excited about a good heel; I actually think the current heel style with the dog’s head up looks crazy and completely dysfunctional – isn’t the dog supposed to be looking for danger ahead? Isn’t the dog supposed to be watching for, say, Sarlacc pits, and maybe he’s going to fall in and get digested over a period of a thousand years if his face is pressed into my belly and the only half an eye he’s got visible is focused on my chin? And the very fact that I just said that totally makes me an idiot, doesn’t it?

The answer doesn’t really matter, because I’m telling you right now I AM an idiot about obedience. I’ve never titled a dog in classical obedience; I seriously doubt I ever will. The only place that I feel I am allowed to make any comment is, seriously, on the level of “how to housebreak a puppy.” I am somewhat comforted by the fact that housebreaking is actually the foundation of your entire daily life with the dog (i.e., it’s dependent on YOU, not on the dog; you don’t ever let the dog fail and the dog will do nothing but succeed; you don’t correct the dog until you are sure the dog knows the appropriate behavior).  I can talk a little bit about the psychology of it, the behavior aspect of it, on predictability and consistency. I will talk, sniffle, and talk some more, for a really long time, about the crazy high that comes when you can take a dog who used to fight you and was terrified of everything, and you go for a long hike and the dog has as much fun as you do.

SPEAKING OF… my dog whose nine nipples should be in some kind of museum of the strange needs to go out. I’m going to send her out to the end of the leash and chatter to her the whole time – hey, I’m trusting her to watch out for Sarlacc pits.

Trainin’ hatin’

I am just rereading When Pigs Fly and am newly annoyed at this issue.

WPF is a nice, simple, clearly written book on introductory clicker training/freeshaping (and you SHOULD read it), sandwiched between two diatribes on how terrible it is that anyone ever gives a dog a signal that they are doing something wrong.

In between the rather nasty digs at the people who create dead, depressed, defeated (she actually calls them “frozen” and “zombie”) dogs by having the abusive instinct to actually tell the dog “no” are lots of examples of behaviors that are the ZOMG! “proof positive” that clicker is the only way to go – like the fact that “after years” of training her dog waits to be released from the back of her car and doesn’t just jump, or how after weeks of treats her dogs will respond to their own names and won’t do what she told another dog to do.

Here’s why this attitude drives me absolutely bonkers:

1) It ignores the fact that the entire discipline of dog training, for the last several hundred if not several thousand years, has been based on the two aspects of creating/rewarding drive and signaling to the dog that he or she just made the incorrect choice. All the obedience exercises were created because they build the vocabulary a dog needs to live a normal life in a conversation with you, not as an end in themselves, and ALL of them have been successfully taught to all breeds of dogs by working the tension between drive and “no, please.” I just don’t think ANY trainer, regardless of individual success, gets to say “The last 4000 years of dog training were all colossally wrong; aren’t you glad I’m here to save you from that.”

2) Trainers who successfully use wise and mild aversives to train will immediately dismiss anything good in this book – and there’s a lot that’s great – because they will look at their own dogs, tails whipping madly around as they complete an exercise, and say “This chick obviously doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

3) I am NOTHING special as a trainer, and within an hour of having a dog at the house it will look at me, TAIL WAGGING AND GRINNING, before it moves through a door or into or out of a car. When we have the giant crowd at the house, it’s two corgis, a Papillon mix, a dachshund/Jack Russell, a Rottie, a Catahoula, and a Malti-Poo (i.e, at least two of those are “Pigs Fly” dogs and I’d actually say more like three or four), and I can open the gate and say “OK, I want Clue and Ginny and the rest of you stay put,” or “No, not Bramble, just Sparky and Wilson,” and the right dog(s) separate from the HAPPY DANCING pack and come through the gate. Those are not miracle behaviors. They are very, very basic house manners that every breeder I know has firmly established in their SHOWY, GLEEFUL dogs.

4) I am completely, totally intimidated by the more advanced training involved in, say, forced fetch. I am not even going to FAKE trying to tell you how that’s done. But I can tell you that forced-fetch dogs are friggin’ maniacs in the field and are having the time of their lives. They’re making their own decisions, they are independent workers, they are ANYTHING BUT zombies. Forced fetching has taught them that once they pick up the bird or other animal, they cannot let it go, no matter what, no matter how much it hurts, no matter if the thing is still live and fighting. (It has nothing to do with natural retrieving instinct, by the way – it’s a learned response that they must maintain a calm, even bite at a certain pressure, even under the most unpleasant conditions. It actually has a ton in common with protection work bitework, which is how I got interested in it.) The old pointer and retriever guys (and a few remarkable women) that I’ve corresponded with – well, let’s just say that I would not want to be the one telling them they’re creating dead, depressed dogs.

The point of this is not that I am espousing one method. The point of this is that I’d be making the same list if someone was hating on clicker training.  I just plain don’t like hating. I don’t like blanket statements, I don’t like people saying that x method or y method is only done by dumb, stupid, bad trainers.

What you should do when you are training a dog is find the method YOU CAN USE RIGHT. I think that free-shaping behaviors is an amazing way to elicit phenomenal stuff. But I think that if I had to use it to teach seven dogs, only four of which are owned by me, to not run me over at the door I would go absolutely nuts. You may be able to see that as a fantastic free-shaping experience, which makes you a way better clicker trainer than me, and you should run with that. You have to find whatever method, combination of methods, or lack of method you can implement CONSISTENTLY (because a confused dog lives in a very icky world), GENTLY, ELEGANTLY (i.e., with the fewest wasted efforts or extraneous signals), and in a way that produces a happy dog.

If your tools end up being a clicker and target stick, if they end up being choke chain and leash, if they end up being e-collar and dummy, if they end up being a BANANA AND A WASHING MACHINE, you are in a big fat pool of WIN if your dog is happy and eager and can participate in every part of your life. Don’t forget that THAT’S supposed to be the goal.

PS: While I was typing this, Clue got annoyed because Ginny was being particularly obnoxious about a toy, and she trotted over, knocked Ginny over, and stood on her chest for about 30 seconds while Ginny swore violently from the floor but did not struggle. This happens about once a week – most of the time Clue lets Ginny have a lot of leeway in her status obsession, but every once in a while Ginny crosses a boundary and Clue flattens her and stands on her. Make no mistake; Ginny does not offer her belly. Clue uses her chest and front feet to push her over. When Ginny has relaxed enough, Clue gets off and Ginny stays there for another two or three seconds before getting up and shaking off. This is the exact behavior that a whole bunch of trainers say NEVER NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS EXISTS AND IT WAS ALL A LIE AND DOGS HAVE NEVER DONE THIS. But it happens in my living room reasonably constantly. One more reason that I really don’t like big blanket statements.

Edited: After I let this sit for a while I realized it made it sound a little too much like I’m anti-clicker-training. I am NOT. I think clicker is FABULOUS. I just hate the hating.

Videos and DVDs for new dog owners – what do you like?

Please DON’T stop commenting on the leasing post, because I am definitely still looking for information, but I want to help Bethany out.

Hi Joanna, this is off topic, but i am wondering if you have any good videos you could recommend to a future (pet) dog owner (that would be me. ) I suddenly have a lot of time on my hands due to a back injury. Thanks! ~B

First of all, OUCH! I am so sorry.

Second, I am going to ask the Internets to help with this one because I know a few but I do NOT know all.

The one that I have watched that’s a sort of a Puppy Kindergarten in a box is Jean Donaldson’s Perfect Paws in Five Days. It’s the stupidest name ever because it is NOT five days. It’s more like five or six weeks. But I guess they wanted to say that the five days equals the five puppy kindergarten meetings that you attend with your puppy (the first one is usually just you). Anyway, a good introduction to teaching basic puppy manners.

I like Sirius Puppy Training Redux by Ian Dunbar as well. Especially good is the idea of rewarding the dog and then letting it go again, so the puppy does not think that coming to you means the end of play. When a trainer told me this I noticed a huge benefit in terms of the recall obedience of my own dogs.

One note on these: Donaldson and Dunbar train in a very specific way, and the people who are passionate about that type of training will tell you that there’s NO OTHER WAY TO DO IT AND EVERYONE ELSE IS CRAZY AND ABUSIVE and a lot of other all-caps.

I totally disagree.

I think that you can be a GREAT trainer and use many different methods. Personally, I wouldn’t know how to raise a puppy without having a clear negative signal for when the dog is failing, and I do use (gentle) physical aversives. But I do use tons and tons of treats and positive methods and shaping methods for training specific behaviors. So while I love Dunbar and Donaldson’s methods for puppies and I want any puppy K class I attend to be very similar to one of their classes, I find it much more effective to train house and kid manners in more of a classical “no,” “off,” “What are you, crazy? We don’t let dogs on the counters” method.

The way I do it is not the only way or the right way for you. The important thing is for YOU to find a method or combination of methods that work to get your dog happy and stable and obedient.

So I would also recommend that you watch The Dog Whisperer, but NOT for Cesar’s corrective methods. He’s a good dog person but most people can’t do the leash corrections well. Watch it for his emphasize on exercise, for his body language, for the way the show demonstrates good dog-to-dog communication.

Also see if you can find Monks of New Skete books and DVDs; again what you’re looking for is those aspects of the method that you can see working for you. If you say “Oh, yes, I totally understand that and of course it works,” that’s something you can probably implement in your own life pretty well.

The only trainer in public view I really can’t stand is Victoria Stillwell (It’s Me or the Dog). WOW. She’s the kind of trainer who gets dogs euthanized. I’m watching her “assess” a big bully-breed puppy right and she’s freaking out because the dog has chewed on stuff, and she’s talking about how a dog who chews on furniture is going to bite people. That is nonsensical, wrong, and completely idiotic. It’s like saying that a baby who breastfeeds is going to grow up to suck people’s brains. TOTALLY different instinct and totally different needs. The puppy is just critically underexercised, needs appropriate chew toys, and needs somebody to tell him what he should do. She’s also HUGELY anti-breeding, talks about a desire to breed dogs as though the owner has basically announced that she’s going to go out and knife someone, and blames every problem on an intact dog’s testicles. I could go on and on (she’s anti-crating, she can’t read dog body language for beans) but suffice it to say that I start yelling at the screen every time I watch the show.

Moving away from training, Turid Rugaas’s DVD on dog calming signals is amazing. I know that there’s some controversy in the highest circles of dog behavior as to whether what she’s capturing is a deliberate signal or not, and a few other nit-picky things, but the fact is that she TOTALLY changed the way we look at dog behavior and she absolutely changed my life with dogs.

Rugaas helps us correct this:

It’s a huge moment when you realize that dogs have been talking ALL ALONG, have a rich and deep language and are having “conversations” ALL THE TIME, with us and with other dogs. We’ve just been too oriented on verbalizing or on our own primate-oriented behaviors to notice.

My final recommendation is a program that Animal Planet sometimes shows, called Wolf Within. If you have TiVo or a DVR, search for it periodically; it’s a good one.

OK! That’s my little list of recommendations for new owners; I own more that’s what you’d call “advanced,” but I never had tons of titles. I am hoping LOTS more recommendations come in so I can build my library as well.

A blog that should be added to your reading list

Hooray! Suzanne Clothier re-did the Flying Dog Press website and has a blog: http://flyingdogpress.com/content/blogcategory/16/52/

I love Suzanne’s writing and recommend it highly to all puppy people and those who want to learn more about dogs. What I enjoy perhaps the most about her is that she is led by watching her dogs, rather than by forcing a pre-set philosophy of motivation on the dogs. Her excellent comment on how foolish it is to insist that all agility dogs tug (rather than saying “tug is a GREAT motivator, but of course every dog loves something different”) is an exemplar of this instinct. 

I’m working on a longer post on training methodologies in general, but if I can distill it to a very short statement it’s “Use what works for you and for your dog.” So I appreciate this wherever I find it. Clothier is also living with eleven dogs and a couple of calves (yes) in one house, so she is putting her money where her mouth is in terms of field-testing her training methods.

Followup from the author of Professional Dog Breeders Secrets

Here is my question to her:

> Sylvia, I want to thank you for bringing up so many very interesting and
useful ideas over the last three weeks. I’ve been reading with avid interest.
>
> I’ve also been sitting with a calculator and a pad and pen, running a hundred
or so calculations and looking over my records for the last ten years. I’ve had
another breed and then Cardigan Corgis in that time.
>
> As show breeders or serious performance breeders, we feel morally obligated to
finish (or at least steadily show) *every single breeding animal,* unless he or
she has a purely cosmetic fault that keeps them out of the show ring (a tail
docked due to injury, for example). In the case of performance breeders, every
single bitch and dog is trialed and titled, hopefully advance titled. We feel
that otherwise we cannot ethically advertise show-potential or
performance-potential dogs.
>
> This is very, very seriously peer-policed; if you claim to be a
show/performance breeder but do not show/trial/title the overwhelming majority
of your bitches you will find very few of the best stud owners willing to touch
your girls and your reputation among your peers will be pretty low. Which is, I
think, proper–if you can’t put your money where your mouth is you shouldn’t be
claiming to make puppies that will show successfully. It really is an ethical
issue.
>
> What I see as the investment to get a bitch in shape to breed (as someone who
shows, but I believe the investment to be as high or even higher for the
performance breeders) is the following:
>
> 1) Normal feed/vet bills for two years (about $2,000). I do not do shots
beyond puppy shots and I do not run to the vet at every squeak–this is the
annual exam, SNAP test for hw/Lyme, rabies when needed, normal blood panel and
any necessary meds, an average of one visit per year for minor injuries or
illnesses, plus 300 lb of chicken, organs, and veggies per dog (I use a
restaurant supplier, so raw feeding is MUCH less expensive than kibble for me).
>
> 2) Showing and associated expenses (travel, training, equipment, grooming,
etc.). This runs from $500 per point awarded to over $1,000 per point awarded
depending on whether a handler is used. I would say a minimum amount to finish a
very nice bitch is $10,000 or so (that’s puppy K, additional training, handling
classes, ten weekends at the shows with associated hotel, car, meals, grooming,
etc.–the whole package from birth to age 2).
>
> 3) $1,000 in health testing (hips, eyes, heart, thyroid, brucella–doesn’t
include elbows, vWD, etc. because those are not endemic in my breeds)
>
> 4) minimum of $1,000 for a stud fee, which is substantially cheaper than
raising and finishing my own stud dog (he’d be ten to fifteen grand to finish
and special, and another grand or two a year to maintain, so it’s a lot less
money to pay a stud fee). Double that if I have to do an AI.
>
> 5) minimum of $2,000 per litter to get puppies from birth to eight weeks. If I
have a c-section, double that (my last section was $1,600). That includes feed,
worming, equipment, supplementing, vet checks, airline approval, etc.
>
> That’s a total investment of a *bare* minimum of $16,000 to get to the point
of having ONE litter go out the door. It has been a LOT more than that for most
of my puppies. You can see that the costs would dramatically increase if I had
to purchase her as a puppy, if she had even one health crisis, if I used a
handler, if any breedings did not take, if I had a c-section, if she took longer
to finish, etc.
>
> Each additional litter requires $5,000 (the cost of repeating relevant health
testing, stud fee, raising the puppies, and normal feed and vetting for her for
the year).
>
> In other words, at normal puppy prices for my breed (about $1000 per puppy on
average), if she has six puppies per litter, even under ideal conditions she’d
have to produce SIXTY-SIX puppies, eleven litters, before I made even a dollar
of profit. At litters one and two, on paper I’m ten grand and nine grand in the
hole, respectively, which is pretty close to what really happens as backed up by
my tax returns .
>
> And that’s what happens if I don’t keep anything from her! I’d normally keep
at least one puppy from each litter.
>
> Even if I doubled the puppy price (which would be laughable–NOBODY charges
that much in this breed) I’d be well into my third litter from that one bitch
before breaking even.
>
> I know you have specific guidance on the money end of things in the book, but
I didn’t see a breakdown like the one above. And so I have sat for three weeks
with my calculator and my notebooks, and I still can’t make it work.
>
> Is there any way for show/performance breeders, who believe very strongly that
1) successfully shown parent dogs, and 2) very careful stud selection, so you
are routinely paying stud fees even if you have boys at home, MUST be part of
the “ethical” definition for a breeder, to even break even?
>
> Joanna K.
> Cardigan Corgis, NH

Her response:

I have never heard that [she is speaking of the obligation to show every parent dog] before! You would
think that with all the time I spent in the profession it would have come up
somewhere!? If you have two bitch sisters, you would show both of them? What
about brothers? Are you also “morally obligated” to campaign your finished dogs?
How long? Till they reach #1 or until they are too old to compete anymore?

I don’t believe morality has to do with showing or competing with your dogs. It
may be easier to sell puppies that way, or it may mean that it would be more
difficult to place a puppy in a show home, and if the pedigrees behind your
breeding stock are completely “blue collar” you really can’t claim to be
breeding performance quality puppies. Morality, for me, has to do with
misrepresentation, stealing, lying, cheating, abusing animals or children. Just
because you and your friends in your breed have this philosophy – doesn’t make
it a moral judgement. It is a philosophical belief. This is very different than
feeling that you are morally superior to those who do not have the resources to
show dogs every weekend! Maybe you have a breed with small numbers. Take a
Bloodhound to a show with 4 dogs and you have an automatic 5 point major! Your
dog will get “finished in a few weekends” – but take a Labrdor bitch and you are
going up against literally huge numbers just to get a 3 pointer. If you have
political judges that know the professional handlers, you may never finish the
bitch without paying for a pro to handle her! ait is a necessity to limit your
showing to only your best candidate. Sometimes showing has more to do with
attitude in the dog than to quality of its structure or gait. Same can be said
for hunting tests and field trials – a tough hard dog will do better in Field
Trials than a soft, pliable dog. It takes incredible focus and heart to qualify.
that doesn’t mean the dog isn’t high quality for breeding and regular hunting.

I looked over your “calculations” and never in my life did I spend $2,000 a year
to feed one bitch or to provide routine veterinarian care. I would never charge
my showing hobby expenses against my kennel profits. That is an activity you
elect to do for your own pleasure. You aren’t winning purses or earning million
dollar prizes! I can see writing off your stud dog because that makes more money
for you if he is titled. A stud dog is a genuine investment. Your kennels must
be the equivalent of the Hilton for a dog.

You are right – I don’t think my book applies to what you perceive as
Professional Dog breeding. And maybe the breeders that you associate with are of
your same mind set. If it is morally wrong from their point of view, or because
of their unique moral obligations they believe it is impossible, to actually
make a living from breeding dogs then nothing in my book will be of help to
them. when someone is already locked into that way of thinking – they are almost
embarrassed if they make any money on their puppies. It makes them feel guilty!
I believe this simply reinforces my claims that hobbyist breeders do not
appreciate the value of their puppies. If something costs $5000 to produce why
would you sell it for $1000. I am not altruistic and I never claimed to only
breed dogs exclusively for the improvement of the breed. Hence the designation
of “Professional Breeder”. Websters defines “professional” as “engaging in some
activity as a renumerated occupation” So if you are not making a profit you are
not a Professional Breeder.

Thanks for your comments and for this important discussion. Sylvia

_________________________________________________________________

Begin me (Joanna) again: I have spent many hours looking for the records of the Labradors from her kennel. Remember, she claims to be a 30-year breeder of champion Labrador Retrievers. In fact, she has produced hundreds and hundreds of dogs in that time. She has finished FEWER then TEN, verifiably, and possibly fewer than FIVE. I believe you can see above why she was able to make so much money, and how she intends you to do so.

Book mini-review: Dog Breeders Professional Secrets: Ethical Breeding Practices

This is a book currently being discussed on the DogRead discussion group (it’s a Yahoo Group). The author is Sylvia Smart and it’s published by DogWise.

I think that DogWise usually picks some good authors to publish, so I am not sure why they apparently tripped and fell into a puddle of stupid on this one. That probably gives away a lot of what I’m going to conclude, but for the sake of fairness I want to begin with the stuff in the book that is actually decent:

The Good: This book is there to fill a real void of education in the novice breeder world. There are very few ground-floor resources for people who would like to begin breeding dogs but haven’t the slightest idea where to begin. There are resources for showing dogs (Show Me! is a good one), on whelping specifically (Myra Harris, though I vehemently disagree with her on some stuff, is very good for this) and there are some very high-level resources for refining breeding programs (Battaglia’s book and Trotter’s book come to mind), but I can’t think of good nuts-and-bolts manuals for someone who literally doesn’t know that you have to feed puppies more than once a day.

This book falls into that gap–and maybe that’s why DogWise published it, that nobody’s ever done a better job. It’s very similar to the “How to Breed [Fill in the blank] the Modern Way” livestock books that used to be sold at the feed stores in town. Basic housing, care, veterinary resources, worming, feeding, a little on showing, etc.

The reason I give it credit for what may seem like a simple quality is that, all too often, we breeders forget that we spent a LONG time picking up some very elementary rules for care, and we forget that ignorance is not the same as willful disobedience. You know this is true–if someone approaches you about buying a show puppy, and they say something really dumb about care or feeding or health or their plans, do you spend three or four e-mails, or an hour on the phone, figuring out whether they’re just new to this or whether they really do have bad intentions? No, of course not. None of us do. We figure we’ve dodged a bullet on that one and we throw their application away. I know that’s what I do–I say a little thank-you prayer that I didn’t send a puppy to that person and I never think of them again.

The other reason a book like this (I would say not this book, but one like it) is needed is that good mentorship can be a hard thing to find. I know plenty of more experienced breeders than I am, but I count only a very few as true mentors. Others I respect but haven’t clicked with for one reason or another. Some others I recognize for what they’ve done that is good, but I’d not touch their advice with a ten-foot pole. If you’re brand new to the idea of breeding, you don’t know how to tell the difference between these groups and you don’t know if the advice you’re getting is good or crazy. And there’s very little out there by way of authority so you can check what this person is saying against what you know to be a “best practice.”

So I give kudos to an author who is ballsy enough to get out there and try to provide some kind of basic “how not to be a complete disaster at this” guide.

And that’s the other good thing about this book: If you follow the advice in it, you will not kill your dogs. You will not let them starve, freeze, die of parasitic infections, etc. You’ll keep them basically clean and dry and warm(ish) and at least somewhat exercised. You will be miles above the level of the careless or thoughtless breeder who does not know anything about the extra care that has to be devoted to breeding dogs and tiny puppies.

Smart also encourages some very good things: She wants you to do some showing, she wants you to do at least some health testing, she wants you to be a club member and give back to the sport. If you do everything this book tells you to do, you will be a mediocre but not disastrous breeder at the end of it.

One final point goes to Smart for saying that it’s a GOOD thing to breed. It’s a GOOD thing to want to be a breeder. There’s no reason to be afraid of intact dogs and there’s no reason they can’t be good pets and companions (oh, how terrible and pervasive this lie is). It’s a wonderful and VERY rewarding thing to be involved in.

The Bad: Expect to feel slimy when you’ve finished reading it. Because this really is about dog breeding as a BUSINESS. Profits are mentioned immediately and are hit at every opportunity thereafter. Every piece of advice is couched in terms of making a good bottom-line decision. For example, don’t choose a breed that has big litters, because you’ll spend so much time supplementing the litter that you’ll lose money on it. Choose a breed in the top 50, numbers-wise, because that is an expression of the demand for that breed. Try to choose a segment of production that meets the most profitable segment of demand–if you’re in a college town, choose a breed that the administration and professors will be willing to spend big bucks on. Go for the breeds owned by doctors and lawyers.

I can give about a hundred examples of this: Feed based on profit/loss. Show because champion-sired puppies are worth more; show only your best dog and the rest stay at home pumping out puppies. Keep water bowls thawed, because if the dog has to eat snow you’ll have to feed more to keep him in good weight (no, I’m not exaggerating–that’s as close to a direct quote as I can use). Every action that is typically defined as part of ethical breeding and is usually justified on the basis of being the right thing to do, for the well-being of the dog, or for the betterment of the breed, she defines as the best way to make money.

For a LONG time, I thought (hoped?) that what I was reading was a sort of sublimely ironic joke, trying to get people to do the right thing by appealing to their base instincts. Chris Walcowicz has something a little like this in one of her books, where she tells people that it’s fine to buy a puppy from a pet shop as long as you can verify that both parents have had appropriate health testing and good temperaments for the breed, and you can call and talk personally to the breeder–if you think about it for more than a second, you realize that there’s never been a pet store puppy on earth that actually satisfied those requirements.

I really wanted this to be similar, for there to be some point at which I’d see the “slow take” toward the audience and realize that Smart had just boxed the reader into a corner and in fact didn’t want you to only thaw the water to save money on food.

But, as far as I can tell, from the book and from Smart’s own comments on the DogRead list, she really is serious. In fact, she speaks of the breeder’s “responsibility” to turn a profit, and hits again and again the “fact” that the “vast majority” of good breeders make “very good livings” by breeding dogs.

And how, exactly, are you supposed to do this? Well, exactly the way you’d picture. You don’t show all your dogs, only the one that will finish fast and therefore bump up your puppy prices. It is strongly implied that you should produce to your market when it comes to show/pet types–for example, if you breed Chihuahuas you can have half your dogs be the big leggy dogs and half be show-type, and sell the first as pets only (which, yes, will make you quite a bit of money, since you have nothing invested in showing). You price your puppies to make sure you make money, and you produce enough puppies to get there. She recommends breeding all bitches back-to-back and then resting for a year, and provides the helpful calculation “so that means with five bitches you’ll have ten litters of puppies one year and five the next.”

(my note: There is NOTHING wrong with breeding a bitch back-to-back, or even back-to-back-to-back. That’s actually not my objection here. It’s that it is EXTREMELY difficult to do the incredibly careful stud dog selection, finding the very best dog for each bitch, that we’d consider a best practice, if you’re doing it seven to ten times a year, every year. In order to avoid thousands of dollars in stud fees and impossible travel requirements you’d have to have all the dogs in-house, which means you need to have at least as many stud dogs as you have bitches. You CAN do this and be a good breeder, but housing that many dogs would kill your profits because stud dogs don’t make money for you the way bitches do. To make a long story short: what she’s talking about are not bitches being bred to a bunch of outside dogs or even bitches being bred to your own five or ten stud dogs; this is a stable of bitches being bred again and again to a single champion or field-titled stud dog owned by you or by a friend. )

She neatly ties up this make-money message by saying that you need to keep the money-making secret or private, that every breeder denies making money if you ask them directly.

The REALLY Ugly: Remember how I said you wouldn’t kill your dogs by following this book? You’re not going to help them thrive either. A huge proportion of the book is out of date or does not reflect current recommendations, and a whole bunch is just flat-out wrong.

Some of my favorites:

*Breeders cannot and should not ever participate in rescue or fostering, because those dogs will bring in disease.

*Never feed a raw diet, because it’s risky and expensive and you won’t do it right anyway. Kibble is the only way to go.

*It is completely normal for bitches to eat several puppies; it’s how they survived before they were domesticated (when they do not leave the whelps for several days). You may need to muzzle her to prevent this, but it’s normal. (Joanna sez: it’s NOT normal, it’s NOT how wolves survive, and if your poor bitch is attempting it it’s an excellent sign that she’s critically low in calcium and heading toward eclampsia.)

*Don’t let buyers put one over on you–she tells a story of selling a puppy and having someone try to return it, but the puppy they tried to return was a “ringer” (another puppy, not the one she sold). Her “win” in this situation was that she showed them to be deceptive and she never heard from them again. No mention of the poor dog she sold, no hint of worry that she totally lost contact with him.

*In the chapter called “To Show or Not to Show” she advises you to enter the Am Bred class because that gets you a blue ribbon, then get your photo taken; that way puppy buyers will see your dogs as show dogs.

In addition, there’s a bunch of stuff in the reproductive/whelping advice that’s incorrect: the idea that small puppies are younger than big puppies because the breeder let the dogs breed for too many days (totally ridiculous), how to wean and feed baby puppies (she wants you to use Gerber baby cereal, which is nonsense for puppies), feeding growing puppies, etc. The horrible advice to euthanize puppies by putting them in the freezer is once more passed along to another generation of breeders–please, for the love of all that is holy, don’t do this. It’s a painful, slow death that is worse than almost any other way you can think of. If you think you’ll need to euthanize a puppy and you have absolutely no way to get a puppy to a 24-hour vet to do it (and no, “it’ll cost me too much money” is not a reason), ask your vet for some ether or find someone who knows how to quickly and painlessly kill an animal and put them “on call.” This is a horrible duty that none of us wish were necessary, but sometimes it is. (Personally, I would use an ER vet; I used to have access to ether and I know how to use it, but my old Bio prof who would have given it to me has now retired.)

What you should be asking right now is “So where’s the ‘ethical’ in all this?” The answers come in “ethical dilemmas” she sets up and asks you to answer. One is whether you’d feel comfortable breeding a bitch that is there to be bred to dog A to dog B, and passing the puppies off as the offspring of dog A. Another introduces two litters, one worth twice as much as the other. The cheap litter is 12 puppies, the expensive one four. Would you sell some of the cheap ones as the puppies of the expensive dam? Surgically altering and marking up dogs, showing ringers, and influencing judges are some others. In other words, the “ethics” she wants you to follow are somewhere in the realm of “are you an actual criminal?” They’re so far from being “dilemmas” that I truly worry about anyone who would find them difficult to answer.

In the end, reading this book made me very uncomfortable. The strong message is that all of us who breed dogs have “secrets,” and the biggest one is how much money we make. If a prospective puppy owner reads this, and then asks you if they can make money breeding dogs, they’ll think your incredulous laughter and quick denial is your way of hiding your “secret” from your possible competition. Another “secret” is that lovely one I mentioned above, getting a ribbon from Am Bred because the dog can’t win an Open class. Listing these frankly skeevy behaviors as “secrets” implies that the best way to be a successful breeder is to create a picture of yourself that is, honestly, deceptive.

According to Smart, you’re an ethical breeder if you don’t dye your dog in the ring and don’t falsely register litters–as long as you don’t do that, you can have ten bitches sitting in a kennel two hundred feet from your house and never let them feel carpet under their feet except when they’re whelping twice a year.

There’s an adversarial tone when it comes to puppy buyers, and a willingless to accept puppies going off into a place that may be much less than ideal. Where she’s not warning you that puppy buyers may try to rip you off, she’s giving you instructions on how to get the most money out of them, and how to write a contract that protects you from having to pay more than would be fair.

Do we need a book of best practices? Yes. I think we do. I think there’s a hole here that needs to be filled. But I would recommend strongly against filling it with this particular book.