Oh Yeah, You Blend

They’re 13 days old and some exciting developments! Several of them have eyes, Popcorn (just like Demi, who was the smallest in the A litter) is the first to have two eyes almost all the way open, but they all have at least squinty openings. AND! Popcorn, Frito and Orson have all been seen STANDING UP on all four legs!

Frito standing up (sort of)!

Popcorn eyeballs!

The Fab Five 13 days old

Ruffles in a milk coma

Popcorn has eyes!

Ruffles

Orson

Chex

Frito

I wanted to take a moment to get on a soapbox, please feel free to stop reading if that bothers you. A throwaway comment by a client at work yesterday cut deep. She said, when she found out that I had a litter of puppies that I (dared to) breed ON PURPOSE, that I must be “in it for the money”. I am SO tired of the hateful, brainwashed rhetoric out there against breeders. Are there bad breeders? Sure. But most of us do this to preserve our breed, to produce dogs with predictable temperament, appearance, health and tendencies. And the shitty breeders out there should not be the standard by which all should be judged (not that it’s anyone’s business to judge me anyway).

If you do it right, you’re lucky if you break even. Purebred dogs are pieces of history. I’ve had rescue dogs, I think rescue is a wonderful and noble thing. But it is NOT the only way to ethically obtain a dog, and I am sick to death of hearing “adopt don’t shop” and that sort of shit. Dogs end up in shelters overwhelmingly because their OWNERS give them up.

I breed very, very rarely (the last litter I bred was the one in which the now-5 year old mother of THIS litter was born). I do NOTHING else when I have a litter of puppies, I lose money on missing time at work to care for them. I put a TON of work into my puppies, from training, testing and trialing the mother, to researching pedigrees, to breeding the litter, to not sleeping for 72 hours trying to keep a puppy alive, to clicker training, socializing, enriching and stimulating them in the hopes of setting them up to have the best possible lives. I screen homes carefully and agonize over that. I care about every single one of my puppies, I take responsibility for them for their entire lives, and I love each and every one of them. And this litter especially….I won’t even come CLOSE to breaking even on, this litter had cost me thousands of dollars (stud fee, progesterone testing, shipping semen, artificial insemination, ultrasound) before I had a single puppy on the ground, because the first litter was resorbed. And now that I have five beautiful puppies, they cost me thousands MORE to get them here (consult with a specialist, driving to pick up the stud, housing him for nearly 6 months then driving him back, progesterone testing, ultrasounds, more consults, medication, emergency cesarean section to save the last puppy (that surgery alone was one puppy’s purchase price), vet care and medication for Zhora afterwards when she was sick, special food, special feeding supplies, subcutaneous fluids and supplements for Popcorn to keep her alive until she could make it on her own, etc. etc. etc.) and that’s all WITHOUT taking my time into account, or the expenses yet to come. I don’t dare add it up. I assure you, it’s not about the money, that’s just laughable. It’s about love for this breed and these dogs. My dogs sleep on my bed and snooze on the couch, they want for nothing, they are beloved pets first and foremost.

So think what you want, but I would suggest that if you blithely wander around spewing hateful things about breeders, you’re truly ignorant of what ethical breeders do, and why they do it, and it might benefit you to learn a bit before you parrot the rhetoric.