When I think of breeding dogs historically, my brain immediately goes to the du Pont Squirrel Run Kennel. That set up, with large indoor/outdoor runs, paddocks, and plenty of help, is the vision I have for breeders. I think the loss of large kennels like this is so detrimental to the sport of purebred dogs, and the only way to emulate them moving forward, in my opinion, is to develop a whelping center that you fund and staff, or form a co-op of breeders that evolves into a whelping center. This concept comes from 40 years of work and labor in the sport and trying to balance a personal life, a dog life, and a career path, and that upward trajectory in life where you’re always trying to do more and be better.
Because Jamie and I are breeders of five breeds and we both judge, every time a bitch would come in season it would be a struggle to figure out how to even make the breeding happen. We’d look at 63 days and realize we would be flying somewhere to judge, and so we’d end up skipping the breeding. We started to skip and skip and skip until we realized it’s never a good time. As breeders, we have lofty goals and suddenly realized we needed some support to make it all happen. We decided to set up a whelping center of our own that fit our needs, one that is tailored to our needs as breeders.
The whelping center concept is really an alternative care solution to keep breeders actively breeding as long as possible. It is just one more layer to ensure quality care and the best outcome by having an additional layer of supervision. What we have found is that we now have a team which can help to make things happen. They help with transport to and from the clinic for progesterone testing; to and from the vet for the actual TCI breeding and the ultrasounds so that we still have the ability to maintain our other life of working full-time or traveling to judge a dog show.
As a kennel grows, you hire someone to scoop the runs and someone to do the feeding. Some people eventually hire a bather. It all depends on how big you make your imprint on your kennel, but these additional hands allow you to move forward. The development of a whelping center is a solution for breeders who can no longer do things the way they were doing them, which is taking two weeks off from work with each litter. Well, you can’t do that when you have five or 10 or 20 litters a year. You have to have boots on the ground. So, the whelping center came into play by maintaining control over the decisions of our breeding and having responsible parties involved to oversee, care for, and work with scheduling advanced neonatal and post-natal care of the dogs.
We know there are individuals in the sport of purebred dogs who are whelping litters for other people. That elementary process is already happening. What I’m saying is let’s formalize the approach. Why aren’t people coming together and utilizing this as a solution to your needs as a breeder, to identify a person and a place that will work with you to help you with the next generation? In our instance, we purchased a home and have a breeding manager, someone who is extremely well-versed at whelping litters, who enjoys the process (the adrenaline, the highs, the lows, and the challenges of whelping a litter). Similarly, a co-op of people doing all of these things can allow a breeder to maintain their own kennel, keeping that facility healthy and clean and moving forward while the whelping happens on a different site.
I think people are doing this now on a very small scale. I’ve seen people online say, “I’m a freelance whelper and will whelp your litter for you.” I’ve seen this over the course of the last 20 years. I think if those people would step up, they could form a business doing this. The concept is not unheard of in veterinary care today. Most successful breeders are already using a reproductive clinic. These clinics oftentimes have a kennel person who is willing to assist in the whelping. Maybe they’ve got 2-3 staff who will take a bitch home and whelp her for you, or they’ll monitor the litter during the day while you go to work. This is a step beyond the satellite kennel, which is a co-ownership. I think whelping centers can replace the co-owner.
I was told, “The number one rule in dogs is never co-own a dog.” Well, we break that rule every day. We co-own dogs with a lot of people. Co-ownerships are extremely valuable in the sport of purebred dogs. It helps to defray the costs. It helps to expand the kennel in terms of space and responsibility. Co-ownerships are valuable, but they also run their course and end—and often they don’t end perfectly. They can end with angst and disappointment and sorrow, and with some angry and hurt feelings along the way. By having a whelping center, you eliminate a portion of the disappointment of the other people and you allow yourself the freedom to control the breeding through the employment of someone who does the work while you’re doing something else. Your physical responsibility diminishes. Your emotional responsibility does not.
Breeding and producing a litter can be challenging and it can be heart-wrenching. We’re not all cut out for it. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a viable alternative if you have a great dog but can no longer whelp a litter. If breeders in a region come together and ask, “If we still like to breed, how can we work together so that you can have a litter, I can have a litter, and Sally can have a litter so that the three of us are still able to breed for another five years?” Maybe they could enlist the young lady down the road who has one litter a year but is a stay-at-home mom and wants to supplement her income by whelping their litters? There’s your co-op. Let’s face it, the breeders are graying, and that demographic is the one with the experience, and generally, the quality. We want to see them continue.
Breeders can reach a pinnacle point where they are faced with the decision of continuing to maintain a kennel or retire from breeding. Personal demands can force us into making a decision of either quitting, abandoning a life’s passion, or finding alternative solutions. By forming a whelping group or a network of people who can work together, the hope is that the “graying” breeders will have the ability to stay active for longer—because we need you and we want you to stay. We want you to stay viable and we want you to be responsible. So, why not get involved with others in a way that allows you to stay active and maybe even increase your volume and your involvement?
When it comes to the idea of cooperative whelping centers, I am incredibly influenced by the successful, state-of-the-art, high-volume kennels with multiple breeds. I’ve had the privilege to walk through these facilities in Indiana on a tour with the American Kennel Club to see the animal husbandry at work in these facilities. I realize the good that comes from the well-maintained and well-run multi-breed kennel. Those facilities are amazing for how they do it—and do it well. They have staff and they have big families where everyone is involved.
I have also encouraged some handlers to consider starting a whelping center. Handlers are a guiding force in many kennels, as they’ve always been. They are a kennel’s representative and they help to make breeding decisions. So now I’m looking at this handler force saying, “You’re already breeding dogs, you’re helping your client breed, and you occasionally whelp litters for your client. Instead of running around with 20-30 dogs in your truck every weekend, maybe you have 10 really good dogs in your truck every weekend, and four additional litters of puppies each year of whatever breed you choose.”
According to American Kennel Club statistics I was given years ago, preservation breeders represent five percent of the dogs purchased by the public. We pride ourselves on being the upper echelon of quality, but in order to maintain that we’ve got to keep breeding. Whelping centers can keep long-term breeders actively breeding so that we don’t lose that breeder force. If we can keep a long-term breeder active for five or ten more years, they could technically produce 10-plus additional litters. And you have to breed 10-plus litters a year to make it work because you can only survive on volume. Volume is the differentiator to quality. Volume moves you quicker. Volume gives you more options. If I breed 10 litters, I’ll find a good one. If I breed one litter, my chances are slim. It’s just the way it is.
There has always been a negative onus on the profitability of purebred dog breeding, but nobody talks with pride about how much money we lose. It’s not shameful to profit from a litter. We should be wanting to breed and produce quality, and produce enough so that it is not so expensive that it prohibits us from doing it again. And so, we have to find ways to share and buffer expenses, perhaps through a whelping center, that allow us to remain gainfully employed and still breed. It’s about the viability of your kennel.
Breeding can be a viable income stream for someone who has been dedicated to the sport of purebred dogs for so long. Why not have a litter or start a breeding program? There’s nothing wrong with that.
I’m a problem-solver and do it for a living with people. It’s what I do. I’m trying to give a voice to concern and provide a solution. In order for us to grow as a sport and improve quality within the sport, we need to identify the shrinking breeder force and identify how to keep those people in play longer. I believe that supportive staffing is a way for many breeders to stay active longer. It’s a continuum of finding a new and different path for all of us to stay active, to keep things moving and happening rather than dying off—which speaks to the origins of breed preservation.
