About Breeders
It is important to know the differences between the different types of breeders, puppymills & brokers,
backyard breeders, hobby breeders, and responsible-reputable breeders. For a healthy sound puppy of the highest quality, you should only buy from a responsible-reputable breeder. Click on a link above for more info, or just scroll down the page.Most Puppy mills are USDA licensed. There is no reason to be USDA licensed unless your a Puppy mill.
A puppy mill will create a litter of puppies for the sole purpose of making money. While these are typically thought of as large operations, the term puppy mill can apply to an individual as well. Puppy mills sell their puppies in pet stores, dog magazines, local newspapers, to brokers, and have recently found their way on to the Internet. Some puppy mill owners even have fancy web sites! Puppy mills raise their puppies in very poor conditions, that's why most of them are in states that have very few regulations, if any at all.
When you buy a puppy from a pet store or dog broker, you are keeping these puppy mills in business! It's like buying a steak at the grocery store, you didn't have to kill the cow, if you did the chances are pretty high you might become a vegetarian! You buy the little puppy from the pet store, because it's so cute and you feel sorry for it, and you don't have to see where it came from! You don't stop to think about how the puppy got there (like the steak), a kennel that houses hundreds of dogs in small cramped quarters, with no love and attention given to them, put there to mass produce puppies for profit. Those puppies are raised without proper socialization, care or love, and most likely in unsanitary conditions, from unhealthy breeding stock. The puppy mill owner sells his puppies for cheap, because the brokers and pet stores need to make a profit, so there isn't much money for the puppy mill owner to invest back into his breeding program, the more puppies he can pump out the more money he can make. Unfortunately now with the internet, some of these puppy mills have found they can make more money selling directly to the public.
Make sure to visit our "Buyer Beware" page.
Also to give the impression of quality, puppy mills sometimes use the term, "champion blood lines" which may simply mean that one of the sixty four great, great, grandparents in the pedigree was a champion. Or they advertise their puppies as having "papers", AKC, CKC, or whatever kind of papers. Papers are absolutely no guarantee of quality. AKC will register puppies bred out of a brother and sister, mother and son, and the AKC is the most respected registry out of all of them.
Puppy mills produce puppies of the poorest quality in terms of temperament, ability, genetic soundness and physical conformation. To learn more about puppy mills visit: www.PrisonersofGreed.org/
Brokers are people that buy puppies from puppy mills and re-sell them. Good breeders would never in a million years sell their puppies to be re-sold! Good breeders want to know every single person that buys their puppies. Many breeders even have applications and most have re-home policies if the buyer can not keep their dog. If you go to the pets4you.com web site you will see that there is a seller advertising on there, located in LA, advertising puppies, and when you phone her she will tell you that she does not own the parents to the puppies she is selling, that she gets them from other breeders. She has a store front where she shows the puppies and sells them. She like every other broker will give you a song and dance about her breeders not being puppy mills WRONG think again and use your common sense! If you browse the different breed pages, you'll notice she is advertising for many different breeds, the ads all look different, but they all have the same phone number. She's not the only one out there, there are many brokers advertising on the internet! Don't be fooled by a fancy web site!
The term Hobby Breeder or Hobby Kennel is used to make the perspective buyer believe they care more about the puppies they are selling. A hobby is collecting dolls, or trains, not selling dogs! In reality these "hobby breeders" are simply a kennel without meeting the requirements of the law such as required inspections to ensure a clean, safe environment for the adult dogs and their puppies, ultimately your puppy. AND, a Hobby Breeder is quite simply skirting the law by not claiming the income of their sales.
Breeders will make excuses, like they are only private parties, or hobby breeders, or very small kennels, having only one or maybe two litters in a year, but did you know that California law (and many other states) require that even if you have only 1 litter a year, you still must have a breeding permit from animal control! And all the states that charge sales tax, also require a "Seller's Permit". The only animals that are exempt from sales tax are animals sold for food consumption "farm animals", not pets. To sell a pet and not to charge the buyer sales tax is a misdemeanor to a felony! Hobby Breeders will so often claim that they are not making a profit from breeding. Yet they have multiple females and males for breeding and have built kennels to house them. We came across one web site that said that they were "Hobby Breeders" in Somis Ca., but yet they also stated they had a 5000 sqft. kennel, wow that sure is a big kennel for a "Hobby Breeder"! Another web site we came across said they were a "Small Hobby Kennel" in Southern CA, yet they had 3 litters of puppies on the ground and another one on the way, wow that's sure a lot of puppies for a "Small Hobby Kennel"!
Yes it does cost a good deal of money to actually breed and raise puppies. But there is an income from that! The difference from the "Hobby Breeder" and a reputable kennel is breaking the law or NOT!
RESPONSIBLE-REPUTABLE BREEDERS
A responsible-reputable breeder creates a litter of puppies with a goal in mind TO IMPROVE THE BREED. More often than not, the responsible breeders will keep the "pick of the litter" to add to his breeding program, if he succeeds in what he intended to produce. A responsible breeder is familiar with the standard set by the American Kennel Club for their breed (or breeds if they are mixing) and adheres to breeding only dogs that fit the standard. A responsible breeder does not breed dogs with "severe faults".
For example the
DISQUALIFICATIONS from showing a Golden Retriever in
confirmation are: Deviation in height of more than
one inch from standard either way. Undershot or
overshot bite.
A link to the AKC has been provided on our "Links"
page, there you can view the standard for any AKC
breed and what are considered to be "faults" for
that breed.
In planning a litter a responsible breeder selects a mate that best complements his dog's strengths and weaknesses and particular attention is paid to avoiding genetic diseases.
When breeding mixed breeds like Goldendoodles, the breeder should select partners that compliment each other and that meet the breed standard for each of their individual breeds.
As far as we are concerned, responsible breeders are mainly concerned about their long term contribution to the breed. Many responsible breeders frequently require spay and neuter agreements for their puppies, to protect their breed from falling into the hands of bad breeders. The result of responsible breeder mating is a litter of high quality, genetically sound puppies that meet breed standards in temperament, ability and physical conformation. Unfortunately, as hard as the responsible breeders try to "improve the breed", there are no 100% guarantees that every puppy produced from a responsible breeder will be genetically sound. Two healthy parents can still produce a genetically unsound puppy in cases where a parent is carrying an undetectable recessive gene for the disease. However you can greatly improve your chances of getting a sound puppy by buying a puppy from a responsible breeder!
The "reputable" part comes in, if the breeder is in full compliance with the laws of their state, county, and city. A breeder can be responsible and have the best interest of their puppies and breed in mind, but yet may still not be "reputable". A "reputable breeder" wants to do everything the right way. Each state, county, and city, have laws for breeding animals. In CA you are required to have a breeding permit from animal control for even just 1 litter of puppies. To sell them you are required to have a Seller's Permit from the State Board of Equalization. To own more than 3 dogs, or to have more than 1 litter per year, animal control requires a kennel license. Do not confuse a kennel license with a USDA license, they are two very different licenses! A USDA license is required to sell puppies to brokers and pet stores, this is the type of license that large scale puppy mills have. For more info on this subject please read about "Hobby Breeders" above. And please be sure to visit our "Buyer Beware" page!