As someone who has bred, shown and worked dogs for many years, but who is now only involved in rescue, I feel very strongly that lumping all breeders together (as the Animal Rights nutters do) is shortsighted and lazy. Without the small core of responsible and ethical breeders who really are the guardians of the breeds that we love, the breeds would disappear within a very few generations. The problem lies not with these breeders (whose dogs rarely, if ever come into rescue) but with the vast majority of breeders who are greedy, irresponsible, money oriented amoral lowlives - totally unconcerned with the breeds they make money from and the implications of their breeding.

My own breed is the Siberian Husky. The handful of excellent, ethical, responsible breeders in the UK:

(i) will test their sires and dams for all the health conditions known to be prevalent in the breed. If a dog/bitch fails those tests it will not be bred from and will live as a much loved pet instead.

(ii)They will carefully check pedigrees, temperament, conformation etc to ensure that the sire and dam are compatible and likely to produce excellent pups.

(iii)Prospective buyers for the pups will be interviewed, homechecked and generally made to jump through hoops to ensure that they are suitable owners for a pup.

(iv) They will insist that the buyer signs a contract agreeing to return the pup to the breeder (at any age) if they, for whatever reason, cannot keep it.

(v) They will endorse the pup's KC registration so that if the dog is bred from, no resulting pups will be KC registered until all the appropriate health tests have been carried out.

(vi) They will always be available for help, advice, information and support for the lifetime of the dog.

Breeders who work by these guidelines are not and never have been responsible for the rescue crisis which affects so many breeds.

Those responsible are the backyard breeders, puppy farmers and, increasingly, the naive/stupid/greedy "pet breeders" who breed their poor quality bitch to any old male simply for the money they can make.
In 2007, my wife and I founded The Siberian Husky Welfare Association (UK) - SHWA(UK) for short - and since then we have rehomed almost 1500 unwanted Siberian Huskies. By helping and supporting struggling owners, we have been able to ensure that thousands more have been able to stay with their families. Of the dogs that we have rehomed, only 0.3% have been bred by breeders that we would regard as good ethical and responsible. In a couple of cases, the owner had died suddenly and the family didn't have the breeders details. In a couple more, the owners were too embarrassed to tell the breeder that they didn't want the dog any more. In all the cases involving good breeders, the breeders stepped up to their responsibilities and rehomed the dogs themselves. The other 99.97% that we have rehomed were bred by unethical, irresponsible, money-oriented 'breeders.' These are the people who need to be stopped.

Gorgeous, Mups, just gorgeous.

Gorgeous pups. Are they your Mups ?


I saw a lovely cross breed the other day. It was beautiful, soft curly coat that didn't moult. All the attributes that a dog lover would like. It cost £1000, basically for a mongrel !

If we continue to pay high prices, then the dog breeding business will continue to grow and I fear, in not very scrupulous ways.

Yes, a lot of 'back street breeders' are only in it for the money,