The Truth In Regards To Responsibility

First off… if you’re not a breeder then just read this for amusement, but if you have ever thought about breeding dogs then understand that this may be one of the most important pieces of advice you’ll ever read. I say that wholeheartedly with no sarcasm … simply truth.

If you are breeding dogs... you should have a goal you want to achieve, a reason for doing that breeding. A plan, an objective and as a breeder before you ever allow those dogs to tie up, before you perform the AI, before you even pull out the plastic gloves and sandwich baggy…. You should have a goal you want to achieve.

Now let’s cut through the BS of… “all I want to do is produce healthy, loving house pets” … stop it, stop talking, and please for the love of all things holy…... stop breeding. I know… all breeders have produced just that, but for serious breeders, whether you are breeding for the show ring, or breeding to produce dogs to be bred later, you should consider yourself serious and have a goal.

Be honest about your goal... a lot of breeders like to lie to customers to make a sale. Saying the puppy you sold is nice and you wish you could keep it, or it’s your first pick, but your loss is their gain… no you’re selling it because you don’t want it… period. If it’s for the cash… you like the pup, but you like the cash more. Even if the pup is really nice… you are keeping one nicer, there is nothing wrong with the truth. I’ll come back to this… but it needed to be said.

Classic breeding by 30 Bound Kennels that produce Champion Brimm

When matching dogs, especially the American Bully the very basic goal should be what variety you want to create in your individual breeding. You should know if your goal is to produce pockets, standards, classics, or XL’s. This should not be a hard, or impossible goal. How long are we going to use the excuse of throwbacks and the sort… if you breed a standard to a classic and you get a classic... it’s not a throwback it’s what you bred. If you breed two standard dog and your goal is to create a standard male to show... and you create a pocket, XL, or classic, then you did not get what you bred for.

This is a failure, you my breeder friend failed at creating your goal. Now I know our world is hypersensitive and the word failure hurts your heart and is breeder-shaming (just made that up), but it’s true... don’t cry, simply spay and neuter that pup and sell it to a loving pet home. This isn’t cruel or ridiculing your program… it’s part of breeding responsibly. If you miss on a variety, then own it, don’t pursue validation of your failure via the show ring.

“Bully I didn’t fail because such and such XL, pocket, or classic became a grand champion off of that breeding.” I give two solitary f’s... that wasn’t your goal, sliding the scale to constitute a win is a personal issue that many breeders do and then those same breeders have the nerve to talk about a lack of consistency in the breed. When in actuality there is a lot of inconsistency in breeding programs.

Now… to clarify... not achieving perfection in every breeding is not failing, that is building better. If you know what your end goal is, there is a process involved in getting there, getting better dogs every breeding is commendable. This is different than not achieving a variety from breeding within, and for that variety, and keeping said dog because it was nice… it’s not nice... it’s a disqualification if it’s outside it’s variety.

Think about it…. People want to talk about high tails, under bites and high rears and not breeding it into their line… which are all faults, but not disqualifications, yet think that producing a nice XL is somehow better when breeding two standard American Bullies… which is a DQ in the standard class...

Where do they do that at? Oh, that’s right …. here! Look if you bring this dog you produced off your two standards into the standard class guess what… it will be disqualified because it exceeds the height requirement per the standard. No matter how nice it’s movement, it’s topline, bite, or bone… it’s not a standard. Judges of course will place you in the appropriate class… but you as the breeder know… that’s not what it was supposed to be, it was supposed to be a standard and you’re lying to yourself and taking it as a win... because some are simply that thirsty for a ribbon. When in all actuality you should walk out of the ring, out the building, get in your car, back out the parking lot, drive home and ask yourself how you got there…

Side note… I wonder how many are cussing Bully the Kid out right now? Hmmmm... might as well piss them off further.

ABKC Grch. Beastro one of the winningest American Bullies in the American Bully Kennel Club

Now I know… the breed is new… yes, it is compared to breeds that have been around 100 years but do some research of other breeds in their infancy. Do you realize that most achieved the consistency they display by holding breeding stock to the highest of standards, hard culls, and removing undesirable dogs from the breeding programs of the top lines. They didn’t make excuses, or keep dogs that didn’t fit, and breed them. They had to be harsh, to establish a breed, or a variety within a breed. All dog breeds are mixes, but if they resembled one of the ancestral breeds more than the goal breed... they were removed.

Example:

A labradoodle that comes off of two labradoodle parents and looks like the perfect Labrador… is not a Labrador, it’s a piss poor labradoodle and should not be bred… not the goal... and in turn a failure.

Here is why it’s detrimental let’s say that that pup that came out looking like the perfect male Labrador and is bred to a Labrador bitch and they have a litter… one of the pups comes out looking like a labradoodle, do you think the owner of the Lab bitch is going to just accept it’s a throwback and it’s okay... no they're going to be pissed that they just bred there bitch to a labradoodle if they thought the male was a Labrador and bred to get Labradors. (I know a labradoodle is a joke of a breed, don’t lose sight of the message in the example... focus).

The XL American Bully breeder may use that XL off of the two standards, but as he gets standard height dogs in the future he is creating inconsistency in his program and the breed overall. This is what has happened forever in the breed, and the reason that breeders will forever fall on the excuse… it’s a young breed… it’s a young breed because we are not requiring it to grow up.

Here is why how we get somewhere is important, in dogs, or in life.

2+2 = 4

2x2 = 4

If you think that multiplication and addition are the same you will be right in getting either answer, but the moment you go a step further and say...

3+3 equals 9 or 3x3 equals 6…. You are wrong and will feel and look like an idiot... sometimes getting the right answer isn’t as important as how you got that answer. This is responsible breeding, how you get there, over simply the result.

Breeding for a variety through selective breeding of that variety... is only a success if you get what you are breeding for… regardless how nice the outcome (or right answer). Honesty is hard… as is breeding dogs.

Bowser owned by Von Klotz at Universal Bullies

Lastly… thinking that we need one variety to fix another is thinking wrong, a breeder should be breeding to the best representations of a given variety to other great representations and bettering that individual variety which in turn will increase consistency. If the answer is there are not enough of a given variety that are nice enough to do this…

Then that is an even bigger issue in the breed in question... and the entire breed is in trouble.

Give me your feedback in the comment section, let’s get better through discussion and education.