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When Sh*t Happens in Your Breeding ProgramHost Laura Reeves is joined by Aimée Llewellyn-Zaidi, Project Director, IPFD Harmonization of Genetic Testing for Dogs, International Partnership for Dogs, for part two of a challenging and informative conversation about when sh*t happens in your breeding program.“If you have a stud dog,” Llewellyn-Zaidi said, “and I'm gonna use stud dogs because that's what tends to be the bigger contributor to a genetic breeding plan. If you have a stud dog or you're using a stud dog or you've used a stud dog and there is a problem. Step number one is to not panic. Genuinely, that's the first kind of step, because you will know in yourself that you've made the best decisions in that moment with the information you had up until that point.“You now have maybe new information. So then the second step is investigate and you gave some great examples. Is this something that is heritable? Is this something that isn't in the breed, but maybe actually is in the breed? And if you start asking, you start realizing that you're not the only one that has been observing this challenge.“So just do a little bit of investigating, get a diagnosis for when there isn't a genetic test. Do a little asking around with friendly people to see if this is something that it is heritable or potentially heritable, and then if it's something that is kind of unique to your lines or if there's potentially a broader breed conversation.“I keep wanting to throw traits because very understandably we focus on poor health, but actually many, many breeders want to be focused on the characteristics that are valuable and important.“The more we're able to think about our individual breeding plans as part of a whole, the term collective action, I think the more successful we will be at meeting our goals and reducing the risks of inherited diseases.“Whether you're in a healthy breed that has no breed specific health conditions but being a dog means you're going to have a health condition. Or whether you're in a breed that has maybe a different path that they need to take to get back to where people feel there's a better balance between health and the traits that they want, collective action is key.“And that's the thing. It's like the collective action on your individual part is are you communicating with your puppy owners? Are you communicating with the bitch owners if you have the stud but don't keep the bitches. Who are your breeding friends that you've used your stud dog to. Are you keeping those accurate records? Are you including a friendly vet into your system that can kind of help you with identifying or investigating any of these health issues?“In summation, we're not gonna panic, we're gonna investigate, we're gonna maybe pause breeding and we're going to think about the steps that we need to take to have those collective action solutions, that's going to include you and your breeding plans and your breeding partners.”FPEn291cE5TKEepi1hJv
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Resources for Veterinary Medicine Practices and StaffDr. Marty Greer joins host Laura Reeves with advice for veterinary medicine practices, vets, techs, staff and clients alike.“The veterinary field is full of really, genuinely great people in a way that we don't see in a lot of other career choices. It's an amazing field to be in,” Greer said. There are, though, plenty of challenges for staff and clients both.“Most veterinarians come out of veterinary school without a lot of experience, they understand how to do the medicine, they don't know how to do the business part. I remember being in vet school and they tried to teach us to us and we're like, ‘No, no, we want to just be a doctor.’ Well, that was kind of short -sighted. And a year out of vet school, I started a practice. I'm like, ‘I should have been listening.’Greer offer her top recommendations for vet practices to succeed.“Number one, join IVPA, join a VMG group, join some other buying group so that you have the opportunity to improve your cost of goods, to understand the management techniques and principles, that's number one.“Number two get a great accountant and a great attorney that understand the veterinary practices. There are many veterinary specific accountants and veterinary specific attorneys. Use one of them.“You have to spend time working on your practice, not just in your practice.“Hire yourself a practice manager. It's really hard. It's really hard when you don't have enough money. You can't figure it out. Hire somebody to help you with your HR and with your bookkeeping and with all the parts of practice that you have to have because their practice manager can be a God Send.“A lot of people are afraid to start a practice because they think that because they have student loans that they can't afford to start a practice. And in reality, owning a practice is proven to be the fastest way to pay your school loans back because the profitability is better as an owner than it is as an employee.“We have a sign on the wall, ‘WWJHD.’ What would James Harriet do? I love that because I want my staff and my doctors to think about what fits the needs of their client and their client's pet.”
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Dog Behavior Expert on Nature vs Nurture. BONUS Purple Leash[caption id="attachment_13263" align="alignleft" width="363"] Dr. Annie Valuska, Principal Scientist – Behavior, Global Pet Behavior for Nestle Purina.[/caption]Dr. Annie Valuska, Principal Scientist – Behavior, Global Pet Behavior for Nestle Purina joins host Laura Reeves for a deep dive on dog behavior.“I think even for any animal, (nature vs nurture) is a challenging question,” Valuska said, “but I think for dogs in particular, that might be the muddiest waters out there. Dogs have been domesticated for longer than any other species on earth. They have this long history of kind of co -evolving with us. And as a result, in my opinion, it is now in dogs' nature to be nurtured by us.“And so that just really, really blurs the lines. Everybody that loves dogs, you don’t have to be a scientist to know that there's something really special in that bond. But the science behind it is really cool. And it all started with the domestication.“So dogs diverged from a common wolf -like ancestor about 15 ,000 years ago,based on the latest science and there's a lot of evidence that they kind of domesticated themselves. That the friendliest, most outgoing wolves, we'll call them, were willing to approach people for the benefits that we could provide, mostly food.“And then those wolves produced more offspring. They survived longer. They had higher fitness and evolutionary terms. They reduced offspring that were also friendly, tame, curious, approachable. And then over generations, we've ended up with the dogs that we know and love today.“And while there are several differences between dogs and wolves, most of the big ones are really defined by the fact that dogs have this relationship with humans. They have, for example, changes in their digestive system that allow them to digest carbohydrates much more effectively than wolves can. They have changes in the muscles around their eyes that allow them to make that puppy-dog-eye expression and show the whites of their eyes that we respond really strongly to.“So they kind of hijacked that in us. And one of the coolest changes in my opinion is that dogs are so much better just naturally at paying attention to and responding to what we're doing. So things like where we're looking, they will respond to our pointing gestures by going to where we're pointing. They do this pretty much innately. Puppies are kind of made to respond to people.“Wolves just can't do that, even when they are raised and socialized exactly like the dogs are in these studies. And so that certainly speaks to something about the DNA. The genetic changes, what makes a dog a dog, makes them attuned to us and wanting to build that relationship and that bond with us.“I think of the genetic component as starting the dog somewhere on a spectrum. It's like dropping that dog on the spectrum from extremely fearful to extremely friendly, their genes are giving them a starting place. I think that the socialization and training that the dog gets throughout their lifetime can absolutely move them on that spectrum.“Now, a dog that has a genetic background that is resulting in them being on the very far fearful end is probably never ever going to be socialized well enough to get to the very far friendly end. There is a limit to how far on that spectrum they can move from where their genes drop them. But I think there is generally a lot more wiggle room there than many people give credit for.“And one of the interesting studies on this that came out just a couple years ago in 2022 was looking at breed specific genetic backgrounds. And what that study found was that while the genetics of specific breeds were pretty tightly correlated with physical traits, there was really not much behaviorally, which surprised a lot of people because there are many beliefs that, ‘Oh, Golden Retrievers have this temperament and...
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How Breeds Have Managed Population-wide Health CrisesHost Laura Reeves is joined again by Aimée Llewellyn-Zaidi, Project Director, IPFD Harmonization of Genetic Testing for Dogs at the International Partnership for Dogs. The wide-ranging conversation covers how different breeds have managed population-wide health crises.Llewellyn-Zaidi discusses specific issues with Irish Setters in the UK and Pointers in the US, as well as Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and French Bulldogs in Finland. She also uses knowledge of the inbreeding in dairy cattle to address some of our questions about the potential of "inbreeding depression" in dogs."Education is us making the best decisions we have with the information we have in that moment," Llewellyn-Zaidi said. "And then where those unintended consequences can go wrong. Bear with me, I'm going to pivot from dogs for just a minute and talk about the dairy cattle industry because I think that is a great warning to the dog breeding world about what we want to keep in mind when we're making our breeding decisions. (This gives insight into) how we might want to work collectively to solve some of these problems that we're all facing and also collectively how we might want to achieve the goals and the positive traits and positive characteristics we have in our breeding stock."The dairy industry historically had a philosophy of not particularly using a wide number of stud bulls. Their goals when they're breeding dairy cows are not our goals when we're breeding dogs. They're wanting to produce animals that have a very specific trait characteristic, but also are not required for longevity. Generally speaking longevity is kind of a priority for dog breeding. So they had two challenges with that and that if you don't include longevity or if you are removing those cows at a certain age before their natural lifespan would end then you don't really know what may be coming into middle or older age."There's a study in 2015, so 10 years ago, where they looked at where the genesis of modern American dairy cattle came from. They realized that all of the American dairy cattle at the moment descended from two bulls from the 1880s. Those were the bulls' lineages that have survived various breeding strategies over the years."If you are a livestock nerd or if you're interested at all in dairy cattle, you probably have heard of Toy Story, who sired over half a million offspring and he's within living memory. What's interesting and, harkening back to our previous conversations again about genetic diversity, funnily enough, in dairy cattle, they started noticing that infertility issues were coming into dairy cows."What they didn't think about or they didn't really maybe appreciate how inbred those female cows were as well. Because essentially Toy Story was breeding over and over and over and over and over again with his daughters and granddaughters and nieces. So the inbreeding was compounding and they were already inbred to begin with."Listen in to hear Llewellyn-Zaidi's conversation about how different breeds and clubs have solved health issues and genetic diversity questions in positive and constructive ways. And don't forget to tap in next week for part two.
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Nancy Talbott on Dual Dogs and Breed Specific JudgingAKC judge Nancy Talbott joins host Laura Reeves for an in depth discussion on the philosophy of dual purpose dogs and breed specific judging."I didn't really embrace or understand the significant division between show and field until I started showing more and conformation," Talbott said. "And then it started to really strike me, and increasingly, and continuing to strike me at just how extreme, not just conformation and conformation breeders, but also field and field breeders had become. The word extreme should never be in the vocabulary about a Golden Retriever in any way, physically, mentally, energy level, any of that."As we know, if you specialize in a high level sport, there is a tendency to go to extremes. Modern day field trials, not hunting tests but modern day field trials are so extreme in what's required of the dog. I admire the trainers and handlers truly. I could never do it. But it almost creates this idea that you have to breed for what in the field world is called 'go.' That would be extreme drive."I have heard field breeders who say, 'I can do anything else as long as I have a lot of go. And so they're breeding for more 'go.' Trainability, yes, but more go."The conformation side, as we see when we're in the ring, when Goldens became a really impressive group dog, therefore it has become primarily a handler breed. There are still tremendous owner handlers, and I applaud every owner handler out there. It's a tough breed to show and compete with."And that has led us to extremes of movement, where you have dogs in a flying trot, not a moderate ground covering gait, the extremes of coat, the extremes of bone and weight, because that's what people think is necessary to compete in that venue.
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Corporate Takeover of Veterinary ClinicsDr. Marty Greer joins host Laura Reeves for a very current conversation about corporate takeover of veterinary clinics.“The trend to purchase veterinary clinics has been going on for probably about 12 to 15 years,” Greer said. “It started with just a couple of consolidators. It's now up to about 80 and some of the consolidators have consolidated. So we now see some of these groups recapitalizing and then moving on and being sold to another consolidator.“So it's been kind of interesting to watch and frankly pretty scary. Just before COVID, the prices of veterinary clinics were at an all -time high, and then it dropped during COVID.“They tell you that they will give your staff better benefits, and they probably do. They tell you we will unload all that stuff off of you that you don't want to deal with. The HR, the purchasing, all the back-office stuff that you as a veterinarian didn't go to vet school for, didn't learn in vet school, don't want to learn, don't want to know, don't want to deal with.“They'll say we're gonna lift all this off your shoulders, you can just practice medicine, it's gonna be awesome. And if you're a large producer in the practice, the owner or one of the bigger producers, they want you to stay for two years.“It has different impacts in different practices. The practices that we've really watched the most closely personally are the practices that have done a lot of reproductive services in our community, either in our immediate area or across the country because these are colleagues of ours.“And that to me has been really hard to watch because a lot of the practices have not continued to thrive after the sale of the practice.”Marty and Laura continue with a conversation about how breeders can work with the larger community to help change the conversation about dog breeding that trickles down to the people who become veterinarians.
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Back to Basics: What to Wear at the Dog ShowVeronica Wolfe from Best in Show Clothes joins host Laura Reeves to talk just basic what to wear at the dog show, how to be comfortable, how to live your own truth and still be respectful of the environment that we're in. They cover outfits for the fall weather's coming up and a little bit about good colors with your dogs and stand out versus blend in.“So, when my junior was becoming a teen and bucking the suits, I reminded her that this is a sport like any sport and every sport has a uniform,” Wolfe said. “I mean, if you're going to be in the soccer team, you get assigned a uniform and there's no, ‘oh, well, it's not my color,’ too bad, you know, that's what you have to wear. But fortunately, in the dog show world, we have a little more flexibility.[caption id="attachment_13179" align="alignright" width="526"] Tall, flat heeled boots, a skirt, vest and turtleneck make a classy fall outfit.[/caption]“Looking professional is the key. Well, what does that mean in the dog show world? Classically, men will be in two -piece suits, or slacks, and maybe a tweed blazer for fall, right? And the women will either be in professional dresses or a two -piece suit, whether it's a pantsuit suit or skirt suit. That's the general uniform that you see out there.“Alternatives to blazers because we were kind of talking about dressing to your truth right so not everybody wants to be in a blazer.“I personally hate blazers. I've got broad shoulders, busty, and I'm tall. They're not my favorites.“So a lot of things I like to find and more than ever you can find stretchy fabric like this one actually has some stretch to it just look for spandex in the list of fabrics. Cardigans look great. A navy blue cardigan with a floral skirt … you can find some really nice cardigans and you can find them in every color of the rainbow“The other thing you need to consider is your movement when you choose what you're going to wear and you also need to consider what looks good with your color and your dog's color.”
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Breeding Dogs Around Diseases that Don’t Have a “Test”Host Laura Reeves is joined for part two of her impactful conversation with Aimée Llewellyn-Zaidi, Project Director, IPFD Harmonization of Genetic Testing for Dogs at International Partnership for Dogs.Today’s conversation covers some of the biggest hot button diseases impacting all dogs – seizure disorders, cancer, bloat and other life-threatening issues.Llewellyn-Zaidi offers insight, information and details about new tests coming online and the ways we can minimize risk while working with small gene pools.“(S)ome cancers are just kind of part of dogs, just being a dog. Or sometimes they're part of being a type of a dog, like some types of dogs are more likely to be at risk than others, whether it's size -related or maybe they're a herding breed, and it's just at some point in ancient times, (when we) started dividing out into generalized proto-breeds, when we started having our wolfie looking ones and spitzy -looking ones, and we started having our molosser looking ones, and we started having our retrieving looking ones. Before they were such distinctive breeds, there would have already been selection causing inbreeding and increasing some genetic duplication to get those desirable traits.“And you may bring some things along with that. So some of these cancers are not specific, necessarily, to your breed and they're just specific to that type of dog. “With cancers there are two cancer tests that are available to all dog breeds or all dog types. There is something called a C -kit somatic mutation for mast cell tumors. All of this is on www.dogwellnet.com so you can check it out. And there's also the BRAF mutation, so invasive transitional cell carcinoma. That's for all dogs as well. And for my dear beloved Bernese people, there's histiocytic malignancy that's available as a genetic test as well. “So for some of these specific cancers and specific epilepsies, there are genetic tests available that you can use to help you maybe make some decisions or at least to eliminate what might else be going on, right? So you know if you're not quite sure what kind of a cancer it is, the genetic test might help give you some information on that. “All of this really comes down to how risky do you feel? We can rebuild any breed from scratch if we needed to. It would just take a lot of time and a lot of effort and a lot of consideration. So in some ways, being very radical, and I'm setting health and welfare aside for just a second, being very radical, it's kind of up to a breed to make a choice. Do you want to keep breeding to your breed standard until you reach a point of too much poor health and inbreeding depression and then you start again?“Or do you want to try to conserve and maintain kind of where you are now? Or do you want to try to improve or expand your genetic diversity from where you are now?“And all three of those kind of philosophies are acceptable, assuming you're keeping at least welfare in mind. And all three of those philosophies probably will fit all the different kinds of breeds in their unique situations.“Followed very closely by conserving that breed type or those breed qualities that are important to you, right? That's the point. That's the point and the pleasure and the art side, right?“So if you're keeping in the back of your mind those chess moves, whether it's ‘I'm gonna use this type for a couple of times because I really like that or I want to introduce that and then I'm gonna have a couple of litters where I go out and just kind of rebuild that diversity and then maybe go back to that type I happened to like,’ that's how you kind of weave through the genetic variation that you have within your breed population. “You probably can't do that forever...
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Bridging the Gap Between Art and Science of Dog BreedingHost Laura Reeves is joined by Aimee Llewellyn Zaidi, project manager for the International Partnership for Dogs. Llewellyn Zaidi’s work is bridging the gap between art and science in dog breeding. They talk about inbreeding and genetic diversity, how those things go together and what you can do when there isn't a test for a health problem.[caption id="attachment_13097" align="alignleft" width="300"] Aimée Llewellyn-Zaidi and her Corgi.[/caption]“International Partnership for Dogs offers free resources for dog breeders and for vets to kind of give you some unbiased transparent guidance,” Llewellyn Zaidi said.“I am a third generation Pembroke Welsh Corgi owner. My grandparents had beef cattle in Oregon in the 1960s. They started their farm up in Silverton, Oregon. And my grandmother was a little bit of an Anglophile. And so she got two corgis back in the 70s in Oregon, which there weren't too many corgis out here then.“And she had these great aspirations of having them being working corgis and they worked really hard at cuddling. And they maybe, you know, barked at things, but yeah, they started as working dogs but were 100 % professional lap dogs, you know, as corgis really know how to do it. And I just never lost my love for the Pems.“I started working as a health manager for the Kennel Club in the UK (in 2012). And by the end of my time in the UK, I had developed a team and I was the head of health and research there, really focused on bringing evidence-based education resources to breeders and to the veterinary community and to breed advisors with lots and lots of tools and resources available.“I really wanted to take the science and kind of translate it into something practical. There wasn't a lot of in between at the time between researchers and the people who actually have to make the breeding decisions and that disconnect really bugged me. I think it really bugged me that there wasn't such an easy way for communication between really the art and the science of dog breeding, trying to bring those things a little bit closer together.“I want to take some of the mystery out of some of science or some of the resources that are available. I try to be really honest and transparent about what we know, what we don't know, what's still kind of out there, what things might be not the most ideal resources.“I feel like that honesty is the best way for people to be informed and to make ultimately the breeding decisions. You guys have the hard job. You have the job of deciding, right? So, I just want to give you information that can help you hopefully make those really informed decisions.”
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Breeding a "Star" requires depth of knowledgeJoin host Laura Reeves for part two of her conversation with Cody Sickle, Cherokee Legend Bulldogs, breeder of Star, GCH Cherokee Legend Encore, BIS at the 2022 AKC National Championship.[caption id="attachment_13057" align="alignleft" width="442"] GCH Cherokee Legend Encore, “STAR”. Breeders-Cody T Sickle, Connie Chambers and Sherry Hazelett
Owners- Alaina Moulton, BJ Whitlow, and Kevin & Natalie MasonLe[/caption]"I think there's a lot of things to think about in breeding," Sickle said. "I think one of the things to really focus on in breeding is watch what everybody else is doing. Just like in picking puppies, knowledge makes a difference. Knowledge makes a difference in this too. Look who's breeding successfully."I think most breeders would actually be better if they never owned a stud. Because I don't think most breeders have the fortitude, the self-control, not to think they're going to make their own stud famous. I think the best breeders think in terms of 'I don't care who owns this dog, if I think there's a stud out there that will improve my breeding program, even if I don't care for the people that own the dog at all, doesn't matter. I'm not marrying them, I'm breeding to their dog'."And when you do a breeding, be honest about it. When I do a breeding, I don't have the idea that, well, I'm going to keep the best this or that out of the breeding. I don't think of that. I'll keep the best out of it if it's good enough. But just because it's out of two dogs that I have a high regard for if the puppies aren't good enough, move on."We will frequently do grandfather to granddaughter breedings. I've only once done a brother and sister breeding. And it turned out to be wonderful, but they were the only brother and sister I've ever seen in our breed that I would have considered breeding together."We've been fortunate to have good studs. And a good measure of that is the last 40 years for the national specialty at least one Cherokee stud is behind every single breed winner. And that impresses me. And a lot of the record stuff doesn't impress me."I think the future of Bulldogs in general is good. Bulldogs are a wonderful family dog. Not every family, you know, if you're a family of athletes who's going to go out running the marathon every weekend, Bulldog's not the right dog. If you want a dog that is going to be a terrific family pet, love everybody, get along with everybody. A bulldog is an excellent dog. They're just nice dogs."I think we are so fortunate to have the sport of dog shows. For a lot of us, it's a major part of our lives and has been for the major part of our lives. But I like the dogs, I like the competition, I like the people, I like the camaraderie. There's no place that I feel more comfortable than a dog show, and that's because of the people for sure, and as much complaining as we see on social media, I think it's a wonderful sport." -
Veterinary Advice on Free Whelping Following C-SectionDr. Marty Greer joins host Laura Reeves for a deep dive on the question of when your female has had a C-section and you breed her again. Is it safe to have the bitch whelp her puppies naturally? This question comes from a listener request.“The most important thing to ask is why did you have a C-section in the first place,” Greer said. “If you had a C-section in the first place, because she's a Bernese Mountain Dog or because she's a Bulldog or a Frenchie or maybe a Clumber or a Corgi, some of the breeds that are more commonly having their puppies by c-section, you still have a Clumber or a Bulldog. They didn't change breeds while they were pregnant, so that's the most important reason.“Secondly. What were the other reasons? Did she just have too many puppies? If she had 14 and she's going to have eight this time, yeah, that's a whole different conversation. If she had a puppy that was oversized or misdirected, that's a different conversation. But it's going to depend on what happened previously. So you really need to have a good history on what went on when this last C-section was done.“Statistically, according to the numbers, 75% of the time the bitch has the C-section because of a bitch cause and 25% are a puppy cause. So that kind of gives you some numbers to work with is 3/4 of the time you're probably going to need another C-section, but 1/4 of the time it was an anasarca puppy, it was a misdirected puppy, it was oversized, it had some other kind of a birth defect, two were coming at the same time, so you had a log jam. I mean you just have to try and sort that out.“That's the general thought. It's “V-back” on the human side, it's vaginal birth after C-section, V-back. So most of the time you absolutely can go ahead. From a safety perspective, there’s reason to believe that it's going to be unsafe. You assume that the veterinarian did a nice job closing the uterus.“What I always kind of laugh about is when veterinarians say, ‘ohh, the uterus was paper thin when I did her C-section. You can never have another litter.’ OK, you take a uterus and you put 14 puppies in it and you stretch it out like a pair of old pantyhose and you wonder why it's paper thin. It's supposed to be thin. That's the way your stomach looks after Thanksgiving dinner. That's the way your bladder looks when you need to go to the restroom. That's the way the organ works. It stretches out and it becomes thinner, but that doesn't mean that it's so thin that she can't have a normal pregnancy and a normal vaginal birth.”
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Famed Bulldog breeder-owner-handler Cody Sickle joins host Laura Reeves for the first of a two-part series on owner-handlers, dog shows, Bulldogs, breeding and camaraderie.[caption id="attachment_13037" align="alignleft" width="399"] CHEROKEE LEGEND NOR’EASTER DEREK
Long Island Bulldog Club Specialty. Winners Dog & Best of Winners. Judge: Phoebe Booth[/caption]Sickle's renowned Cherokee Bulldogs have quite a record. According to his records, he has bred or owned 256 Champions, more than any other Bulldog breeder ever in the USA. His dogs have won 99 All Breed Bests In Show and 591 Bests In Specialty Show, five National Specialty Bests Of Breed and 15 Westminster Kennel Club Bests of Breed. All of which rank as #1 all-time results in the breed.Sickle says he knew he wanted a Bulldog from the time he was 5 years old. His parents said he had to pay for it himself. So he skipped going to the movies, did extra jobs, saved his allowance and finally was able to purchase his first dog for $60."I find the Bulldog people are terrific," Sickle said. "They are just as you say. We go in the ring, we're competing with each other and we're obviously all trying to win. When it's over, it's over. We are all friends when it's over. We are a good representative of what sportsmanship should be almost all the time. There are exceptions, but not very many."I've listened to people say, well, you know, the Bulldog people are good, but this breed is not. I'm not intimately familiar with the interactions of people in other breeds. But I am very into the dog people in general and the dog people in general are helpful.[caption id="attachment_13036" align="alignright" width="403"] Cody Sickle with CH. CHEROKEE MORGAN. Best In Show…Penn Ridge Kennel Club. Judge: James Warwick. August 1969[/caption]"I've never once in my life went up to any dog person and said tell me about this or tell me about that and had them say no, not ever. And when I was 13 years old, I used to hang around the handlers. Richard Bauer when Jimmy Mitchell was his assistant. Wendell Sammett when Paul Edwards was his assistant. Peter Green, the Forsyths, they were all terrific. They were all perfectly willing to share their knowledge. They're perfectly willing to answer all my questions, and my questions were incessant."The Bulldog people were the same way. One of the benefits about the Bulldog people being good people is that, in order to learn I think it's necessary to speak to lots of people. Because people have different views. Some people just can't communicate what you're trying to learn and sometimes whatever they're saying, even though it's just right on, it doesn't register properly. So if you ask everybody and work at weeding out what sounds like nonsense and keeping what sounds like it's valuable, you're going to learn a lot more." -
Building Blocks to Success in the Ring and the Whelping BoxHost Laura Reeves is joined by breeder-handler Christian Rutten in part two of a wide-ranging conversation touching on some of the critical building blocks to success in both the show ring and the whelping box.On Owner Handler vs Professional Handler[caption id="attachment_13028" align="alignleft" width="358"] We all started somewhere. Christian reminds us we are all at a dog show for the same reason. To win and to have fun with our dogs.[/caption]“One of the things people say is ‘I just went to a dog show for 10 straight shows and I didn't get any ribbons. And that it's all political. And the handlers have the upper edge.’ I did the math because I was at a big string of shows and I walked in the ring 28 times and won two majors. This (other person) didn't go into the ring 28 times in the year and she didn't win any majors. So (handlers) have the opportunity to present a lot more dogs. So, although it looks like we're receiving a lot more ribbons, but we're also going to a lot more shows.On Selecting Judges“There are judges who I've taken a barrage of type and styles to over a multitude of times, and I can never get past them. And that's fine. I just don't necessarily want to ever exhibit under them again. And there's other judges who are consistent as all get out. And you'll say, well, they're judging in North Carolina today and you look at their results and they put up litter mate to what you showed to them the week before that went winner’s bitch. And so I think finding that kind of balance of knowing what those judges are going to put up, if you can bring that to them every time, they're going to love it.“For me, there's probably 20 people that I really seek out to show what I think are the best of what I have. The rest of them are just there and just kind of doing their thing, right? I don't want people to get burned out on the fact that maybe they're not winning, maybe they shouldn't, right? That's fine. But maybe they're mentor says this is a great one. And what's holding you back is your ability and the judges you're exhibiting to. And once you figure that out and you find the right judges who appreciate that style, you've got the golden ticket. It's a fine line between understanding that not everybody who's putting the finger are experts. You need to become an expert yourself first and do this for yourself. And then from there, that's when the success comes.“I think that people, they want The Polar Express ticket to dreamland instead of just take the train and enjoy the view and the destination is worth it once you get there.On Dog Show Basics[caption id="attachment_13029" align="alignright" width="528"] Christian brings basic husbandry and manners to the forefront of the conversation.[/caption]“First one is you never leave a dog on a table unattended. Seems like a very simple thing to a lot of us, but some people are never taught that. The second thing is don't leave dogs in ex pens unattended. You're asking for a disaster to happen. I see this from owner handlers to breeders to professional handlers.“The other thing is, and this is a big one for me, and I kind of thought it was standard and I'm seeing it less and less. Congratulate the winners. I have probably walked into, I couldn't tell you, thousands of rings from juniors as an owner handler, as a breeder owner handler, as a professional handler. I could maybe count on one hand the amount of times I didn't say congratulations. If you're in a full group, whether it's the owner handler group, or the regular group, you don't have to shake everybody's hand, all you got to do is walk up to the winner and say Congratulations."
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The Conversation at the Top is Different: Finding a Mentor[caption id="attachment_13021" align="alignleft" width="482"] Christian Rutten with one of his top winning Golden Retrievers.[/caption]Breeder-handler Christian Rutten joins host Laura Reeves to encourage new exhibitors and breeders in finding a mentor.“I think the biggest mistake people make is they cut corners,” Rutten said. “They find the people who are sitting and just have a lot of downtime because they're easy to talk to. But what you need to do is go to the top. The conversation at the top is different.“Everybody's collaborating ‘who can do this for what and what reason.’ The conversation at the bottom is usually, ‘it's crooked... Oh, my dog is perfect and that one isn't.’“I would say that the most successful breeders of any breed are way more critical on their own dogs than there are of anybody else's. When they say, you know, my dog is the greatest that's ever been and the other one only wins because of who shows it, that's problematic.“You need to be self -reflective about what is this dog's strength and weaknesses. And you know what? If you go ask a judge, right, you lost and you aren't sure why. And you go ask the judge and the judge says, well, he didn't ask for it on the day or the other dog showed better or whatever it is. I just discard that."When they say, you know, I wish your dog had a little better shoulder, a little bit shorter back, you could use a little bit stronger muzzle, and gets into the finite details, those are the people whose words you hang on, and from there you move forward. So look for the people who are extra critical first, not angry because they lost, but extra critical. And I think if you approach any judge from a standpoint of questioning, ‘what was it that you liked about the other dog better than my dog today,’ they'll be honest with you.[caption id="attachment_13022" align="alignright" width="394"] Christian started at ground zero in Junior Showmanship and worked his way up through the ranks.[/caption]“Where do you start from ground zero? First thing, anybody, whether you've done dogs for 20 years or you're just starting, go to YouTube and look at Dog Steps. It's not breed specific, right? It's just about basic anatomy and how it works in motion.“The other thing is attend the largest specialties and the nationals that you can and see a broad array (of dogs). If your breed has an illustrated standard, keep that. Go and you seek out those breeders that are just kind of next level. A, I want you to seek out the best breeder there is. B, trust their judgment. But C, be happy if you don't have the Best in Show winner because when you get handed that Best in Show winner on a golden platter, you cannot figure out what it takes to make it.“I wrote a thing one time that says sacrifices are made in the whelping box to preserve and protect individual pieces, not to breed just for winners, right? And that's the thing. Talk to your breeder, what are the health issues that you face and how are you kind of navigating that in your breeding program?“There's a fine line between discarding everybody's opinion and asking everyone and absorbing as much knowledge as you can. There's 20 ways to get to the bus stop, but getting on the bus and going to your destination is on you.”
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Puppies and Kids: Expert Insight on Best PracticesDr. Marty Greer, DVM and host Laura Reeves talk about bringing home your new puppy, introducing it to your children, how puppies and children interact appropriately, and how to make that be a really positive experience.“The first place I would start,” Greer said, “is if you don't already have a breed that you have selected and you have children, pick a breed that's good with kids.“You know, why start off with something that's likely to set you up for a failure when you could get, oh, let's say a Labrador or a Golden Retriever, which are notoriously outgoing, happy dogs, and, you know, they're just easy to live with. They're great dogs to have her own children. So, you know, don't start off, and I don't want to badmouth anybody's breed, so I'm not going to specifically call up breeds that aren't good, but don't start off with a dog that you have concerns about.“Start out with something that’s happy, friendly, outgoing and was raised in an environment that’s likely to be successful.“There are situations where if the kids are inappropriate with the dog or really afraid of the dog or the parents aren't working well with the children, that I just simply have to say to them, ‘you know, this is probably not a good match. Let me help you find another breeder.’“For starters, I don't leave the children and the dog unattended ever until maybe the dog's five. That's what what XPens are for. That's what playpens are for. That's what crates are for. And you can put X-Pens up across doorways.“And it's also a great way to introduce a dog to children or a puppy to children. And vice versa, they can see each other without the puppy jumping on the child, without the child shrieking, without the child having a meltdown, or without the child doing something else that's inappropriate with the dog. So it's a really safe way to start off is for them to see each other and interact with one another, but through the xpen or through the crate.”Marty and Laura talk through dog body language, bite inhibition training in baby puppies and the sheer joy of kids and dogs raised together.[caption id="attachment_13012" align="alignnone" width="674"] The Dog Body Language Chart Marty Greer recommends.[/caption]
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Sheila Goffe On the CDC's Importation RegulationsSheila Goffe, AKC Vice President of Government Relations, joins host Laura Reeves to discuss the CDC's soon to be implemented rule about importing dogs into the US.Goffe provides background on retail rescue as the impetus for CDC's regulations, the work AKC, NAIA and other stake holders have provided to the CDC and the most recent update to the rule."CDC put out an announcement saying that they heard the concerns about the rabies certificate," Goffe said. "Remember they had (originally) required that you had not only a rabies certificate, but a rabies from a USDA or Canadian accredited vet. So it's not just like your regular vet. It's like, OK, I have to go find basically the same vet I would go to if I'm importing a dog to another country."So that veterinarian-specific requirement, they have dropped that requirement. As of now, they're saying that all you need to enter the United States with a dog from Canada or another low risk rabies free country is an import form. It's now available online. You can fill it out online. It takes less than 10 minutes. You're going to have a picture of your dog on it. You know, a little bit of information about you and an attestation that this dog has not been outside of a rabies free, low risk country for the last six months.Dogs still need to be at least six months of age to enter the US from any country, Goffe added."Blame the irresponsible importers," Goffe said, "because frankly, they claimed to be us. They claim to be personally owned dogs. And now CDC is saying we can't tell the difference. So where we need to go with CDC is create a solution where we can say 'we can tell you the difference, we can show you what we do that those folks would never be able to do. We can show you that this dog has been registered from a registered litter. You know, we can demonstrate this dog was at the vet at two days old getting dewclaws removed. I can prove to you this dog was here in this country and it has not gone to Azerbaijan and come back."Goffe encourages exhibitors and breeders to reach out to their representatives to share their concerns. Find resources HERE.
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Host Laura Reeves is joined by Bo Bengtson, legendary breeder, judge and author of The Whippet: An Authoritative Look at the Breed’s Past, Present and Future.Questions for Bo:[caption id="attachment_12997" align="alignleft" width="490"] Bo Bengtson judging the American Whippet Club National Specialty.[/caption]1) This is your fourth edition of the quintessential book, “The Whippet,” first published in 1985. What made you want to update it again? What will readers find that is new?I guess it's pretty unusual for a dog book that was published that long ago to be reprinted, but it was last published in a much enlarged edition in 2010 and so much has happened in Whippets in the last 15 years! Whippets have become one of the most popular breeds at many shows: Crufts in England has had about 400 for the last few years, only Labs and Goldens have more... I have judged a show with 250 Whippets in Sweden, they have a Sighthound show in Germany that has 235 Whippets as a top figure, and it has become amazingly popular in many countries where you wouldn't necessarily expect it: the big shows in e.g. Poland all have more than 100 exhibits NOW. The 2024 FCI World Dog Show was held in Croatia last month and there were 171 Whippets entered, which is fairly typical figure for the World Shows. And there are over 6,000 entries from the Czech Republic alone to the Internet's Whippet Archive, so that's probably the next big Whippet country! USA doesn't have the biggest registration figures, but the American Whippet Club holds a National Specialty in April every year that is the largest in the world, sometimes with more than 600 Whippets present and over 1,200 entries. I made a point of including all countries that have affected the world population in some way. Did you know that there is a world class Whippet breeder in South Korea that often wins in Europe and works with American bloodllines?I read parts of that 1985 book recently … It's not a bad little book for its time and a lot of the content is in later editions also, but it's fairly typical of breed books then, both in scope and size. Not many photos and all black and white, but I'll always remember how proud I was to get into Foyles Bookstore on Charing Cross Road in London and seeing my book on the shelf there!To get back to the new book, I'm so grateful that Denise Flaim convinced me to update it! The book is available both on Amazon and via Denise's RevodanaPublishing.com —they did a beautiful job: the book is much bigger than I expected — I don't know why I didn't expect that because I know that we added a lot of text and about 200 photos of winners from the last 15 years. Anyway, it weighs about 3.25 pounds, covers 530 pages, and when I took an advance copy to the National specialty in Tennessee in April, one reader actually started to cry because it was so beautiful!! 2) Share with our listeners some of the fascinating breed history you have gathered over the years, from its humble beginnings hunting hares, to its popularity as “the poor man’s greyhound,” to today.Well, of course the Whippet became popularly known as the favorite dog of the poor mining families in the North of England in the 1800s. There was organized racing with considerable sums to the winners, so of course the dogs were really well taken care of and in fact fed much better than the people. What's really amazing is how many people turned out to watch the races: there are some grainy black and white films still in existence from the late 1800s, and they prove...
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Espen Engh Offers a Master Class on Dog BreedingFamed Norwegian Greyhound breeder and judge, Espen Engh, is back with host Laura Reeves offering a Master Class on dog breeding.“When we started out, there was a combination of two very different British strains that had proven that it worked really worked,” Engh said. “Those two breeders were at the end of their career and they hadn't mixed their dogs a lot while they were still active. But some very clever breeder very quickly found out that combining those two lines worked extremely well and produced dogs that had been almost unheard of before truly high quality.“So we collected different crosses between those two lines to combine our own strain to start out with. And I do think it helped a lot that my mother had been active in the breed for 20 years before breeding the first litter. She had been judging for many years as well. We didn't have to do a lot of the beginner's mistakes. So from day one, we were able to start at a high note.“When the breeder repeated (that successful breeding of two disparate lines) by luck or persistence, we were able to buy what we considered to be the best bitch in that repeat litter. And she turned out to be just as good as or probably better than those puppies from that first combination. So we were able to start with a really phenomenal bitch.“We had a phenomenal male at the time too. He was runner up top dog all breeds in Norway. And maybe if we were amateurs, or if my mother was an amateur, we would have bred those two together, but they didn't really fit. We would double up on faults. The male turned out not to be a good stud dog at all. And we had lots and lots of litters for other breeders. We never used him. So rather than using that top winning really beautiful dog, which didn't fit the bitch, we didn't do that from the start.“So our first combination was quite successful and we got an outstanding bitch in that first combination. And then we quite quickly realized that in order to progress, you know, now we have like two generations of phenomenal bitches, we would never be able to be big breeders number wise. We didn't have a big kennel, we didn't have the style, the facilities to breed dogs on a large scale. So we had to make a system where you can actually breed successfully from a limited number of dogs.“And I thought, why not just base it on breeding from the very best bitch of each generation? And that's what we did. When we were at the most active, we would have three or preferably four litters from the very best bitch of each generation.“As Greyhounds are very fertile, you'll get an average of like 10 puppies or nine, 10, 11, 12 puppies. Each of those top bitches would then have 20 daughters to choose from. I mean, in every litter, we would keep all the bitches that were thought were good enough. Most of them never just one, two or three. And we'd run them on until they were fully grown so we would know for sure who was the best. And selected the best bitch of each generation and repeated that.“Now, if the mother is great, the grandmother is great and the great -grandmother is great, you're very likely to get the really good one out of 20 bitch puppies, aren't you? But We also need some males to breed them to.“We also chose the second-best bitch in the generation. Remember the mother had four litters, she would be bred to four different males. We selected the second-best bitch from each generation, preferably a half-sister to the main bitch, which I call the alpha bitch. So the second best bitch, the beta bitch, we would try outcrosses on her.”
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Espen Engh on Greyhounds and JudgingHost Laura Reeves is joined from Norway by famed breeder and judge Espen Engh of Jet’s Greyhounds for a two part conversation about Greyhounds, judging, breeding and why the Scandinavian dogs are so consistent in quality.[caption id="attachment_12982" align="alignleft" width="376"] Int. Ch. Jet’s Elegant Negress, Engh's first Best in Show winner from his first litter.[/caption]“I kind of inherited the interest for dogs in general and Greyhounds in particular because my mother started up with a Greyhound in 1955 so she was the source of everything,” Engh said. “She got her own mother hooked on the Greyhounds as well. So I'm a third generation Greyhound fancier and lover.“My mother was only a teenager when she started out. She was very quickly bitten by the bug and started showing her first Greyhound all over Scandinavia. She didn't breed, however, she didn't have the possibility to do that. So my mother and I started breeding Greyhounds, 20 years after she got her first one, in 1975. And although my mother is no more with us, I keep reading from the same strain, actually from the same bitch line that was started in the early ‘70s.“There are many things that make the Greyhounds unique. And one of them is their long, long, long history and the amount of generations that have gone into breeding greyhounds. I'm quite sure that the Greyhound is the only breed where you can actually trace the pedigrees back to the 1700s.“(The first description of the Greyhound as having the “head of a snake, the neck of a drake”) is from a poem that was attributed to a woman called Juliana Burners more than 500 years ago.[caption id="attachment_12981" align="alignright" width="317"] Ad for one of Engh's multiple BIS winning Greyhounds.[/caption]Actually, she didn't exist. So it's somebody else wrote it. But that you could say is kind of the first Greyhound standard, because it describes the Greyhound, the head, the neck, the feet in a poem. Greyhounds are a very sophisticated breed. They are very close to their owners. They are about a combination of substance with elegance.”Engh has been invited to judge at the highest levels worldwide.“It certainly is a privilege. It's certainly something very enjoyable to be able to travel around, somebody else picking up your bill, to enjoy looking at dogs, feasting your eye on dogs, getting that little tear in your eye every now and then, maybe a goose bumps every now and then too, which is really one of the reasons for doing it.“But it does also present some challenges and some difficulties. Some breeds do have very different breed standards and that can certainly pose some difficulties. Other breeds, actually the breed standards themselves are not that different, but the development of the breeds are. So they have developed in quite different directions.“Obviously, and I think we need to state that from the beginning, if you are willing and able and do undertake judging a breed in a foreign country, you have to respect the breed standard in that country. I mean, that should go without saying, but it doesn't always.”
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Drinking from a Firehose: Puppy Enrichment Weeks 5 to 8Dr. Marty Greer joins host Laura Reeves for a continuation of their conversation about puppies and neonates. Puppies raised properly are given the best possible start to their future. Today’s topic is enrichment, all of the things that we can do in the five to eight week period between “their eyes are open, they're eating solid food, they're probably weaned or close to it” and go-home day.Laura asks, “What's happening in those little tiny puppy brains in that five to eight week period?”Marty’s response is, “They're taking in the world so fast, it's like drinking from a fire hose.“There's a lot of people who talk about this and a lot of people who pontificate about it. I think Sophia Yin talked about a hundred experiences in a hundred days. That gives you basically three months to get all kinds of information into their little brains.“Even when you don't think you're teaching your puppy something, you're teaching your puppy something. And so I think we have to be ultra aware of even the things that we do when we have our back turned that if we're making dinner or there's a puppy jumping on the other puppy or there's puppy going potty on the floor because they didn't get our attention to take them outside. We just taught them something.“You have to be ultra aware of everything you do. Not paying attention to them doesn't mean that they're not learning something. I think we really have to pay attention to that and there's lots of really fun things we can do to teach them cool stuff, but be careful, because they're learning every second.“If they learn that they put their feet on the breadboard and pull something off (the counter), even if you weren't looking, they just learned they can put their feet on the breadboard. And if it takes them 100 tries to get one thing the next time, it's like winning the lottery.“We think about our little tiny puppies and there's all this stuff going on. They've got littermates, they've got other dogs in the house, they've got smells, they've got sounds, they've got all this stuff. You don't want them to hear the ketchup bottle make that funny, squirty noise when it's almost empty when they're in their new home for the first time and it freaks them out.“So you have to really think about all the input that we want to have for our dogs. How do we set them up for success? How do we provide them those things? So I do smell, I do touch, so I give different surfaces, we do different visual things, we do different toys, there's different tastes, so there's so much we can do.”
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