Planning Your "Family" of Dogs: Style and Health

Our topic is breeding. With an emphasis on planning your family of dogs. The question: is consistency of style more important than consistency of health and/or quality? How do you get to your desired goals?

Today's guests are Amanda Kelly, Wendy Paquette and Chris Heartz.

Wendy: "Coming from a background of Shih tzu, that were only recognized in United States in 1969, I didn't have much choice when I first started my breeding program. Living in northern Ontario, the only way I could buy a female was to import two from England 'cause they were just not available. Luckily I came across Luc Boileau in Montreal who was showing English imported dogs at the time. So I was able to take my English import and breed it to one of Luc's dogs. But that left me sort of in a quandary because I had nowhere else to go after that. So I basically started out breeding type to type.

"Consistency of type was a goal, but health and welfare, to me, is a major factor. If you don't have health and welfare you don't have quality and type either."