Breed Type

If you show your dog, or are involved in the world of dog breeding, you will often hear the phrase ‘typey’. You will read critiques telling you that a particular specimen has type in abundance. This topic generates hot debate and has been written about since people began crafting breed standards. I am sure…

The Enrichment Effect

Animals raised in enriched environments have been shown to have the following physiological changes over animals raised under standard laboratory conditions: •Larger brains •More new brain cells and neural connections •Better brain cell survival. The result of these physical changes in brain structure result in the following intellectual emotional benefits: •Improved ability to learn remember…

Thoughts On Breeding

Many people starting out at breeding and rush to use the current highest scoring dog without any research and they are gambling against the house. That wonder dog may have been the odd one out in a sub-standard litter and the pups are likely to be like them. Next, of course, is the fact that…

Breeding The Big Picture

In the canine world, inbreeding is defined as breeding closely related dogs to each other, i.e. parent to offspring (vertically) or brother to sister or half-brother to half-sister (horizontally). Let me stress right away that inbreeding in itself can be a valuable tool to ‘fix’ certain desired genes and should not be quickly