Spend enough time in almost any purebred dog community and you’ll notice something.
There are some absolutely incredible people.
There are breeders who generously share decades of knowledge, celebrate dogs they didn’t breed, help others through difficult situations, and genuinely care about where their breed will be 10, 20, or 50 years from now.
Those people are one of my favorite parts of the dog world.
And then, occasionally, there are the politics.
Different circles form. Philosophies differ. Personalities clash. People take sides. Before long, certain kennels primarily work within certain groups, and sometimes a potentially valuable breeding isn’t even considered because of the person standing on the other end of the leash.
My experiences within the Beauceron community are what initially got me thinking about this, but this conversation extends far beyond one breed.
It raises a question I think every breeder should occasionally ask:
Are we breeding for our circle, or are we breeding for our breed?
Every breeder should have standards and protect their program. Nobody is entitled to another person’s dog, semen, pedigree, or breeding program. Health, temperament, structure, working ability, breed type, and genetic compatibility should always come first.
Sometimes the responsible answer to a breeding opportunity should absolutely be no.
But selectivity and exclusivity are not the same thing.
A good dog doesn’t become a bad dog because you don’t particularly like its breeder. A valuable pedigree doesn’t lose its value because the kennel behind it belongs to a different circle.
That’s especially worth considering in breeds with smaller breeding populations. We’re already working within closed gene pools, and sometimes we create even smaller circles within them ourselves.
The dogs don’t know about our politics.
They don’t know who blocked whom, who argued with whom, or which kennel belongs to which group.
They simply inherit the genetics we choose to put together.
Imagine what could happen if we became a little more willing to recognize quality outside our immediate circles. Another breeder’s program may have exactly what yours needs, and yours may have something valuable to contribute to theirs.
Working together doesn’t require agreeing about everything - or even liking each other. It simply requires being able to separate personal relationships from responsible breeding decisions.
None of us owns a breed. We’re temporary stewards of a small piece of it, and the decisions we make today will remain in pedigrees long after today’s disagreements are forgotten.
My Door Is Open
So to the breeders within my network: whether we’ve agreed, disagreed, worked together before, or never spoken at all, my door is open.
If the right dogs, pedigrees, and opportunity present themselves, I would be happy to work together. We don’t have to agree on everything to recognize when two dogs could contribute something valuable to the future of a breed.
At the end of the day, I’d rather make breeding decisions based on the dogs and what they can contribute than on the politics surrounding them.
Different programs, different perspectives, one shared goal: better dogs and stronger breeds.