Breeding for Companion Personalities: Carolyn Kelly, RN and Erica Pytlovany, KPA CTP

JESSICA PERRY HEKMAN: Welcome to the Functional Breeding Podcast. I’m Jessica Heckman, and I’m here interviewing folks about how to breed dogs for function and for health, behavioral and physical. This podcast is brought to buy the Functional Dog Collaborative, an organization founded to support the ethical breeding of healthy behaviorally sound dogs. The FDCs goals include providing educational, social and technical resources to breeders of both purebred and mixed breed dogs. You can find out more at functionalbreeding.org or at the Functional Breeding Facebook group, which we work hard to keep friendly and inclusive. I hope you have fun and learn something.

Hi friends, today I’m talking to Carolyn Kelly and Erica Pytlovany. Carolyn is a registered nurse with over 30 years of experience in human health, including in labor and delivery and mental health. She also holds a master’s degree in nursing leadership. Carolyn runs a mixed breed companion dog program called Old Mission Retrievers. Erica is an experienced behavioral consultant at Wolf’s Dog Training Center in Virginia. She runs the Boson Dog Project, a mixed breed companion dog program with her wife, Laura Sharkey. I got together with Carolyn and Erica to talk about what companion personalities look like in dogs, and why the two of them focus their breeding programs on achieving those personalities. Welcome to the podcast, Erica and welcome back, Carolyn. I’m so glad to have both of you here.

Erica Pytlovany: Thank you for having us.

Carolyn Kelly: I’m thrilled to be here as always.

1:38

JPH: Yeah. So let’s start out with Erica because she hasn’t been here before and Erica, maybe you could tell us a little bit about the dogs that you live with and a little bit about your breeding program. 

Erica Pytlovany: Absolutely. We’ve got our kind of from oldest to youngest, we’ve got our border collie girl who was actually from our phenomenal local shelter when she was little. We’ve got the other pups in our house, our girls from our breeding program, they are all mixes. We are the Boson Dog Project, we refer to them as the bosons. And they are at this moment all related to each other. So we’ve got Zephyr, Kasha and Talia who are grandma, aunt and daughter, who we have. Not all of them will necessarily be bred but they’re all part of the program. And then we have the breeding program itself is the Bosun Dog Project. And it is a companion dog breeding project where we are not concerned about a particular breed or breed type. We’re breeding for health. And we’re breeding for temperament very much in terms of companion temperament, easy to live with dogs, social and things that are targeted toward kind of regular pet people being able to have just lovely dogs that they can have at their home. That is what our breeding program is about.

JPH: Excellent.  Carolyn, same questions.

3:13

Carolyn Kelly: Yes, well, I live with five dogs currently. One is my retired original foundation girl Lucy, who is almost eight now and spayed. And then I have Jasper who is a very fun male who is not part of my breeding program. He’s three and he is a goldendoodle. And then I have two girls that are actively in line to be bred. One is Ruby. She’s a goldendoodle and then her daughter, Lucy’s granddaughter, Rose. And then I have an up and coming male from another breeder, a wonderful breeder in Texas, Seventh Heaven Labradoodles. And he is very cool. He is almost 70% lab but he’s got a nice non shedding coat. So he’s kind of fun for my Bearded Retriever goals. And I’ve got a lot of hopes for him. And yeah, that’s everybody and I’m Old Mission Retrievers, and my breeding program is open minded to breed but my primary focus is on retriever type dogs with straight shaggy non shedding coats. So classic retriever temperament, less hair.

JPH: And for those who listen to that, what is a Bearded Retriever? There is an entire podcast episode about it. It was an early one so you’ll have to hunt back through the archives. But there’s a whole podcast episode about that for anyone who’s curious. Alright, so you guys are both involved in breeding companion dogs. So that’s sort of a new thing. I feel like that people are doing now,  that traditionally we bred dogs for purposes of, you know, of work or sports or show, but not specifically to be companions, which is maybe surprising because a lot of them are companions. So you guys want to tell me why, why would you? Why would you breed a dog just for companionship?

[Bearded Retriever Podcast: https://functionalbreeding.org/doodles-part-2-alicia-hobson-the-bearded-retriever-project/ ]

5:13

EP: Absolutely. So my primary job is not breeding. We do breeding as a hobby with my wife, Laura Sharkey who started the program. But primarily we’re behavior people, we are trainers and behavior consultants. And we’ve been working with dog behavior for, you know, a couple decades. And one of the things that we see is that a lot of the dogs that come through our training programs are fabulous, fabulous, companion dogs and make great pets for people. And then a lot of the dogs that come through are not being particularly bred for companionship, they’re being bred for lots of purposes, but maybe not always appropriate for the kind of homes that people are living in, to bring these dogs into. And so when we think about breeding dogs, for companionship, we’re really looking at breeding dogs that are specialized for the work or the job, the function of being a great kind of house, house pet, versus maybe being out and doing other traditional working jobs. And it’s getting dogs for that purpose is something that I don’t know that we’ve put a lot of focus on. It’s kind of a second thought. Caralyn, What would you, how would you add to that?

CK: Well, just as an aside, just as you were saying, Jessica, people haven’t traditionally bred dogs for companionship.  I think it’s important to remember that there are some breeds that are specifically designed for companionship, a lot of the toy breeds are essentially intended to be lap dogs and have been bred for companionship.  A lot of those breeds really do have nice temperaments. And some of them are great choices for a mixed breed purpose-bred companionship program because they do have a long history of being selected for temperament like Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, and Bichons and a lot of the little lap dogs. So I wouldn’t say that nobody has ever bred for companionship. But I think that there are some limitations with breeding. And, you know, a closed gene pool, a specific breed that make it harder to make companion temperament the absolute pinnacle focus of a breeding program, because people who are breeding to a specific breed standard have to put, rightly so, a lot of focus and priority on conformation standards, as far as aesthetics of a breed standard, the structure, specific structure and size and color requirements involved with breeding to a breed standard.  And that, you know, any breeding, you’re making choices about what your priorities are. Right, you have a goal of taking two dogs in front of you and trying to create something different or a little bit better, are more suited to your purpose. And when you have to include a breed standard that has a lot of physical characteristics, it limits your ability to put temperament at the absolute top of the list of things to select for. And so, for me, that’s a big reason why I say that’s important, too, you know, for some people to shift, and I want to do to do that, to shift that to the top of the list above everything else, including anything physical, and I don’t mean health, but I mean, specific breed type issues. Does that make sense?

9:18

JPH: That definitely makes sense. So, also, how would you say that we used to tell people how to search for a dog or sort of telling them to pick a breed and how’s that different from how people tend to look for the right dog for them now?

CK: Well, I still hear a lot of advice to choose a breed that suits your lifestyle. I think that’s pretty common, don’t you Erica, think that’s pretty common advice given to people starting out what to look for a dog?

EP: Yeah. And you know, I was actually just reflecting too on some of what you’re saying, and I think even within closed gene pool breeding, I think this topic is still really relevant as far as working with breeders who are really putting a heavy focus on companion temperaments and personalities. But I think that’s a huge point, because one of the things that I hear that I think is a kind of a myth, sometimes when we talk about companion dog breeding programs, is I’ve seen people say, you can’t breed for temperament. And it was interesting when I heard you say, we tell people to look for breeders and breeding programs that kind of look like they’re going to match up with what your goals are. I think that’s an exact argument or a counterpoint to the idea that you can’t breed for temperament? Because I think we know, we know that you can, of course, you can, we’ve [muffled], that’s the purpose of breeding programs, quite honestly, is to breed to get kind the type of dog you want. If I want Border Collies, who can listen for my whistle from two miles away, that is related to their, it’s not their personality so much, but it’s related to kind of who they are, and how they function in the world. Just as a temperament or personality would be related to a dog that’s kind of laid back with strangers.  Let’s say, if we’re telling people that finding a dog that’s going to work for them, is about finding the right breed or the right breeder, then I think that’s pretty clear that we can breed, we can.  We can choose dogs for what we’re looking for. I just hesitated on the breed and breeder part because one thing, if we’re going to talk about whether we can breed for temperament, I had made some notes that I wrote down, we can and I wrote down, we can’t, because we can breed for temperament I think in individual dogs and individual lines, and I don’t think we can breed for temperament in the sense that we can say, Labs are all X, or German Shepherds are all Y. Iif we look across a breed, we’re going to have a huge range of individual temperament types or personality types within that breed. But if we look down to the individuals, family types and lines of particular dogs, I think you can get a lot of predictability in what kind of dogs you’re going to get. If you’re breeding two really chilled out dogs to each other, you’re likely to get a chilled out litter of puppies, versus two really intense dogs. And we can see this very clearly as well across breed lines when we look at show lines versus working lines and have different breeds of dogs. And so yeah, anyway, I feel like I might have gone a little bit down a rabbit hole with that. But I think that ties back into the big question of why breed for companionship and can we breed for companionship? Yeah, of course we can, we can see that we can see those differences pretty clearly.

13:11

JPH: Yeah, I think that’s a good question that I see a lot of whether you can breed for particular personalities, and whether you can be for companionship and whether when you’re breeding mixed breeds, you can have any kind of predictability about the puppy. So you touched on all of that a little bit, but maybe it makes sense to dig into it a little bit more. Because you did say, “Well, of course we can breed for personality or temperament.”  But I think it’s worthwhile sort of unpacking that a bit. Is that is a thing that I know, I’ve seen it out there enough that I think some people really believe that you can’t. And I think …

CK: Mixes, you mean? As in mixes.

JPH: So I think there’s two separate things. I think there’s the statement that you can’t really breed for personality or temperament no matter what, that that’s all in how you raise them. Right. So there’s that statement. And then separately, there’s the statement that mixes are inherently incredibly unpredictable, and you never have any idea what you’re going to get. So taking the first one about breeding for personality I’m just weighing in as a behavioral geneticist. I think it’s important to recognize that it’s not the same thing as breeding for a coat color. Right? And no one is saying it’s, so fur coat color, it’s definitely pretty much all genetics. And you can often do a genetic test ahead of time and know what you’re likely to get from the puppies. And it’s very predictable because there’s only a couple few genes that are affecting what’s going on.  With behavior, there’s dozens, hundreds, thousands of genes affecting it. There’s a big effect of environment. So it is definitely not the same thing as saying I can guarantee you I’m going to be producing a yellow puppy. But what maybe you two could talk a bit about what kinds of predictability you feel like you can see in your lines, which maybe also helps go into the idea that it’s hard to do this, especially hard to do this with mixes.

So, yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

15:20

EP: I think I would like to speak broader than our breeding project we’ve bred, you know, we’ve bred three litters of puppies and I can tell you anecdotally what I’ve seen there. The bigger than that, I don’t think I’ve mentioned that my primary job is trainer behavior. We specialize in puppies. We have done puppy socials before. Puppy socials were cool. We do puppies in daycare, we do puppies in training classes, we do puppies, puppies, puppies. And, most importantly, we also get to see those puppies grow up. So we have daycare, where puppies come as puppies. And sometimes we’ve got, you know, I’ve got 12 year old dogs who’ve been coming to us, since they were tiny. So longitudinally, I’m not necessarily seeing all of the puppies, parents, and always seeing exactly their lines, which I think is important to part of that question. But seeing where puppies are coming from, and how they develop, we can see really strong trends in what type of breeding, in the type of breeders puppies are coming from, and then how they move through the world. So I can’t say, you know, I kind of am going back to the lines in certain breeds more than even just looking again, at my own small numbers, very small numbers in my own breeding program, to see if you know if puppies are coming from, you know, working breeders of puppies are coming from what we would want to quote unquote, called backyard breeders that are, you know, just sort of whatever breeders, they’re coming from some Amish breeders, are coming from pet stores, or coming from show breeders.  I do get to see a really strong trend in what different breeds of dogs might look like when they’re coming from different places. And I can say we can see pretty big personality differences, like sometimes they don’t even seem like the same breed of dog when they’re coming from these different locations. And I don’t know if this, do you feel like that answers that question. Or did I just repeat myself?

JPH, CK, EP: No, I think no, you didn’t. Okay,

JPH: it answers it. Carolyn, did you want to weigh in on that?

18:03

CK: Well, I think I don’t disagree with anything Erica is saying, I think we’re kind of reiterating. A lot of the things that, you know, when we were all talking about the big study that came out that was so controversial that was about whether or not you can predict behavior by breed. And that continues to be, you know, a difficult topic to talk about. I think that, inherently intuitively, we all know that there are generalizations you can make about breeds. I think some of the things I’ve read about, I’m not gonna be able to quote where but about certain drives, that those are more predictable by breed and then the personality kind of things that we look for, in the companion program like sociability or reactivity, that kind of thing is not as predictable as I mean herding ability, herding instinct, or what is another one that’s really true? [unknown speaker]  retrieving? Yeah, yeah, that are probably more heritable than some of the companion personality things. Now, doesn’t mean to say that we can’t bring for companion personality, but it’s that those are more trackable by breed. I guess that’s how I would put it because if you go way back to the kind of ancestral roots of the selective breeding or the regional existence of different types, different groups, like the herding group, the gundog group, those may be as groups, when you look at their drives, those are more predictable. But here’s what you say. Would you agree with that, Erica?

EP: Are they more heritable, or are they more trackable?

CK: Maybe more trackable?

EP and CK: That’s because yeah, well yeah. 

CK: Yeah, and I think I think that’s part of the problem that we don’t really know how to define some of these behavioral qualities. Right? Yeah.

JPH: That’s a big problem in behavioral genetics. So as one of the authors on that paper, let me just put in a couple statements. One is that we did find more predictability by breed group than by breed. Right, right. Yeah. And for sure, there were things that we measured and things that we didn’t measure. Right. So there were some things like our border collies do they tend to be more noise sensitive? Well, we didn’t really measure that. But one thing that we did measure was human sociability. So how much the dog likes being around humans. And that was highly heritable. So just shockingly, highly heritable. Which is really good news for people who are breeding for companion dogs, and I want to…

[Paper mentioned: Morrill K, Hekman J, Li X, McClure J, Logan B, Goodman L, Gao M, Dong Y, Alonso M, Carmichael E, Snyder-Mackler N, Alonso J, Noh HJ, Johnson J, Koltookian M, Lieu C, Megquier K, Swofford R, Turner-Maier J, White ME, Weng Z, Colubri A, Genereux DP, Lord KA, Karlsson EK. Ancestry-inclusive dog genomics challenges popular breed stereotypes. Science. 2022 Apr 29;376(6592):eabk0639. doi: 10.1126/science.abk0639. Epub 2022 Apr 29. PMID: 35482869; PMCID: PMC9675396.]

CK: Necessarily trackable by breed, right, even not…

JPH: Necessarily talked about by breed. So Golden Retrievers were ranked very high on that scale, right, particularly, but not all of them. Right. So when you compare Golden Retrievers to mutts, which we sort of would use much as the like, well, this is sort of the population of you know, it’s, it’s not likely to be all one thing, or all the other. Golden Retrievers were much more likely to be human social than mutts. But it was still, it was nowhere near 100% of them, like they still scored all along the scale. And so I think that’s, that’s what we mean, when we say that you can and you can’t breed for a particular personality trait is you can increase the likelihood highlight, and that. And this is true in purebreds, and in mixes, you can increase the likelihood massively, but you cannot guarantee it ever. So absolutely. Right. I do want to weigh in about what the term heritability means. Because a lot of people think they know what it means don’t. 

CK: I’m using it loosely. Sorry. 

JPH: Yeah, well, it’s fine. It’s my mission in life is to try to explain it to people. But to be fair, I had to come to, I learned what it meant very well, three separate times before it really sank in. So I don’t really expect people to understand. But a good way, in a conversation like this, a good way of thinking about it is whether it’s something that you can selectively breed on. So coat color is highly heritable, because it’s really easy to, to say, based on who your parents are, I can predict what your coat color is going to be. That’s something that’s highly heritable. And then personality traits are sort of, they’re definitely heritable, but not as much as coat colors. So based on your parents’ personalities, we can make a prediction about what your personality is going to be like. Yes, true, but not as strong a prediction as we can with coat color. And so that’s, I think, maybe the easiest way to think about it. And in that context, then, human sociability was surprisingly highly heritable. I think we got it at like 68%. And personality traits rarely go above 20%, or more around 10, or 15. So hitting 68%, for that I was like this. But it’s also due to the population that we looked at, right? Like we were looking at companion dogs, so that.

23:16

EP: What was the smallest breakdown?So you had, you said you had breed types and breeds individual breeds, [EP and JH talking at same time].

JPH: We had individual breeds, and that will group those into breed groups. But we did not have lines within breeds. So we did not have the ability to say this is a working lab. You know, this is a sport bred lab, or a field bred lab or a bench bred lab, we couldn’t do that. And I personally believe that’s a large part of why the finding came back that a breed wasn’t predictive. And a lot of people took that to mean that genetics doesn’t do anything? It’s like no, no, not at all. What that means  is that breeds are actually fairly diverse. Which we all know, right? When you look at labs and you’re like well they’re bred for this or this or this and you don’t really expect them to be exactly the same thing. And those of us who are in dogs, obviously for many breeds, we can eyeball them and be like well obviously that’s this type of this breed right? But so what it told me though is that very much when you are looking for the right dog for you,  looking for a breed that matches up or a mix that matches up to your lifestyle is a good start, but looking at the actual breeder and what the actual breeder is producing. There is no way around that that is critically important because different breeders are producing different things within the same breeder mix. Well.

24:29

EP: And that goes back to what Carolyn said because that is advice I’ve given for years. If you’re looking for a particular dog, you should go to the breeder. You should meet not just the mother but you should try to meet you know an aunt and meet a cousin and meet you know, meet several of that breeders dogs because that is the most informative about what kind of dog you are actually going to get. Which I think is exactly get them to Carolyn’s point, that is the most predictive thing that I can tell anybody as they’re trying to get a particular kind of dog. Yeah. And…

25:14

CK: Going back, I guess I don’t know if I’m jumping around. But going back to the question, that I think we started with a few minutes ago, why breed for companionship. Because when you tell people, or you know, I spent most of my life not as a dog person, but as a pet owner, and I remember several searches for dogs starting out with, you know, choose a breed that suits your lifestyle. And then you start looking at breeds, and it’s well, this dog was bred to pull sleds, and this one is for hunting. And this one is for guardianship. And, you know, which doesn’t mean that that’s all those dogs can do. Obviously, many of them exist as companions. But I think I, it just jumps out at me as just quite an obvious mismatch that, you know, some more than 75%, I would guess, of all dogs are just purchased by people who want to live with them in their homes. And these historical purposes, although they have value and are of historic interest, and often track to different qualities and dogs that we love in terms of trainability, or doing sports with them, or the kinds of things they like to do with us, which is wonderful. That is, it is not the top of most people’s list to have a dog that can retrieve a duck or herd sheep. For some people, yes, and it’s a beautiful thing to see dogs doing that kind of work, but most dogs aren’t going to do that kind of work. And so it just begs the question, why not breed for the specific thing that we’re going to ask the dog to actually do, instead of trying to find the ones who are least capable of, of doing you know, that’s, that’s kind of, you hear this a lot that, that pets or companions are the the sort of they don’t say leftover, but that’s kind of you know, they’re the byproduct of breeding for a different purpose. Which is true, I think, you know, you’re breeding for, for confirmation. And so many of the dogs don’t make the cut and so they’re they can be a pet. But that begs the question to me. Well, why are we not? Why don’t we have some dogs were the main thing that we are looking for out of the breeding the primary goal. Besides I mean, we asked health, but aside from looking a certain way, or being able to do a certain type of field trials, the main thing that we’re seeking is that easygoing pet temperament and it’s not a byproduct, it’s a goal. And that’s, that’s why I do it.

27:54

JPH: So that might be a great time to ask about. What exactly do you mean, when you talk about this companion? Temperament or personalty?

 EP: What are the goals?

JPH: What are your goals? Yeah,

CK: Yeah, do you want Erica? Sure.

EP: Um, we are looking for you know, for a dog that we’re going to breed the goals that I have, though, that Laura and I have in our breeding program, or I want a dog that can do activities, but can go lie down. I want a dog that is pretty happy to see strangers ideally, I would want puppies that go running up to seeing, to want to go see new people. With you know, if there’s any alert barking, it’s just sort of excitement alert barking as opposed to get off my property alert barking. I would like dogs that are really comfortable with other dogs as well. They don’t it’s not hard requirement. But you know, people want to be able to bring dogs to their family’s homes for Thanksgiving, or go camping with their buddies and have everybody bring their dogs. And I want ducks that are handleable. So that, you know, although I don’t need to the dogs to be held around by children, I want to feel like it’s safe. If somebody does grab them the wrong way that there’s not going to be a problem with that. And that they are, you know, ideally can have their nails clipped and their ears examined if they’re going to be easy going at the vet. Those are some of the probably the main things that I’m looking for adaptability in new environments we want to go, you know, people, it may or may not always be realistic to say that people should be able to take their dogs everywhere with them. But what if they want to, would the dog be, would this be a dog who says yeah, let’s go do fun stuff versus the dog could be horrified by the idea of going and hanging out at the kids baseball game. So for me, those are,  that’s kind of encapsulates the traits that I’m looking for.

JPH: And I want to just make sure because you didn’t say this. I know you meant it, but I also know some people will be concerned that I would append within reason to a lot of the things that you said. So dogs should be good around kids. Obviously, within reason, we’re not expecting that you’re going to breed dogs, that the child can be riding the dog and pulling on its ears and kicking the dog and the dog would never do anything, right, that’s unreal. 

EP: That’s right. And quite frankly, we don’t breed so many dogs, that anybody, anybody who’s got those kind of kids may or may not make our particular cut [lest?? unclear] you get one of those dogs, either.

30:29

CK: In defense of children, I will say that I had a couple of those and they might have been those kinds of kids, whatever that means exactly. Kids are unpredictable, and don’t always exhibit the best judgment. You know, I waver in my thought process about whether it is a great idea to have a young dog in a house with very small children. I don’t, I’m not judging anyone who does it. And I think it’s wonderful. I know a lot of people have really great experiences with raising dogs and kids together, I didn’t do that. Personally, I waited until my kids were a little bit older, I just think it’s a lot to track. And both human children and dogs have a lot of needs when they’re young. And it can be a lot to juggle, but I don’t judge what other people decide to do. So yeah, I think that I think that a dog that adores children, and is, you know, here, this goes to something that you know, just out of the blue conversational in terms of heritability of traits, and what we might be looking for in companions. One thing that’s interested me a lot is body sensitivity. And how heritable that is, it feels like it runs in, I can see the differences in dogs right out of the gate. Some are just clumsy and crashing into things. And don’t mind if you sit down, um, hug on and pull on their ears, they seem to be… And the field line lab, [put – dog name] , in particular, my original foundation girl, just very low body sensitivity. You know, it goes along with a lot of leash pulling too,  seems to track together because they don’t mind the pressure. And so they don’t care, they’ll just drag you around when they’re not trained. But there’s a lot of benefits to that in terms of living with kids, because they are just kind of oblivious to being touched and sat on, squashed, they kind of enjoy it almost, they are dogs that like to be hugged. So that’s something that I want to get more data about. But I feel like body sensitivity might be really heritable. And it might be an advantage for people who do want to live with dogs and kids to have a dog that’s not too touch sensitive. 

EP: Yeah, I agree completely 

CK: Nobody’s arguing that a dog should be able to be abused by children or unsupervised or unmanaged. 

JPH: Or are hauled to the farmers market without any proper preparation for how to behave or anything like that. So I just want to make sure that people know that Erica is not saying that she’s going to breed zombie dogs.

EP: And to be very clear, we have placed,  we will absolutely place puppies within homes with kids. We’ve got two puppies that have gone in very successfully with kids. And we expect kids to do dumb things. And we expect parents to try to still manage as best they can to protect the dog. Both of those things are important.

CK: There, I think it was Sarah Stremming had somebody on her podcast the other day talking about her behavior program for dogs and kids together. And she said, dogs and kids should be siblings, and they should be managed just like siblings, I thought that was originally a really good explanation like as opposed to teaching the kids to train the dogs or dominate the dogs that parents seem to think of the kids and the dogs as needing supervision and management when they’re together. And everybody’s needs have to be advocated for. 

JPH: Yeah, I like that. 

EP: I love that.

34:05

JPH: My feeling is generally if I’m wondering if it’s gonna be a successful situation, I look at the parents, not the kids, right? Is the parent the sort of person who’s gonna keep an eye on the situation and not, you know, not leave the two year old unsupervised, the two year old human unsupervised with a six month old dog right? Or is

CK: That sounds awfully hard to me having had two humans who were very fast and not predictable about where they were in the house. It’s difficult for me to imagine a puppy and a two year old but if you can do it, more power to you. Right.

JPH: Exactly. And so understanding that there will be, that things will happen for sure. Right. But also understanding right, but also understanding that there are things to attempt to avoid, right, which there are certainly people I think who go into the situation being you know, with the expectation that the dog should just tolerate everything and that they don’t need to provide any supervision and that’s not reasonable.

35:00

CK: Since Oh, but I don’t mean to interrupt you make sure you hold your thought. And we get this one out my labs that have the low but though that lab tendency for low body sensitivity is great for kids. But what is not great for kids is that they put everything, not the kids but the dogs put every single thing in their mouth for two years and chew it to shreds. And so I don’t know how if you have toddlers, they have toys everywhere all the time. I feel like that would be very difficult. Yeah. But

EP: Speaking of which, one of the dogs Carolyn bred is at my house today. He’s over. Walter’s here overnight, and 

CK: Did he destroy anything? 

 EP: No, here’s the story. He doesn’t generally destroy anything. But I did remember I did forget that. What if I leave my phone anywhere? He will pick it up and walk around with it. So yes, I’m going to back up what you’re saying there.

CK: They’re very healthy. Yeah. So I mean, they’re all. They’re all like that. I mean, I you know, I have used several, you know, different sires, different females. I’m only four letters in, but I have different dogs from different parents. And they all are

EP: You do have retriever in the name.

CK: Yeah. They are retrievers.  And then selecting for [soup?], like the strongest natural Retriever puppies is one of the things that I’ve been looking for. But that’s why they carry the phone around. 

JPH: And so I have a question that slides in perfectly here from a Patreon subscriber. But before I ask that I want to make sure Carolyn, did you have anything to add to Erica’s list of what looks like a good companion type, personality?

36:46

CK: Well, just on the those are the really great positives, there’s a few like deal breaker negatives, I guess I don’t know if that’s worth bringing up. But I feel like I feel like resource guarding has a lot of environmental and learning components. But I also have seen it completely out of the blue with a dog who was managed the same way as my other dogs, not a dog that I  produced but a dog that I brought in as a potential breeding prospect. And she developed some serious resource guarding with the other dogs. And I hadn’t managed her any differently. And that was she didn’t hurt anybody. So it wasn’t like you couldn’t live with her. She is a dog I would have it would have been fine. But as a breeding prospect that was a big no, I feel like a lot of aggression situations revolve around the dog’s response to resources. Resource guarding is a natural behavior. But there seems to be a lot of variety in the natural inclinations of dogs as far as how strongly or violently they feel compelled to guard things. And that’s a big deal for me. Not not having any of that I’m very low threshold for that. Yeah, that’s, you know, sociability is the biggest thing. I think that their comfort level, I think I’m just reiterating what you said they’re their natural tendency out of the gate without training to be inclined to want to spend time in new environments and around new people and new dogs. Just that enthusiasm for the world and the people and for strangers. Yeah. 

38:26

JPH: Yeah, I’d agree. This is where I’m calling out other trainers. Sue Sternberg I think was the one who said that if the dog is sociable, that for her is the biggest green flag. That any other problems can probably be surmountable, versus if the dog is just not interested in people, it’s just gonna be very hard to work with.

EP: And Sue is very influential in our thinking for everything that you know, we’ve done with our program, and yeah, …

CK: She’s great. 

EP: … at building the program. 

CK: Yeah, she is really the forerunner, an early adopter of a lot of these ideas and deserves a lot of credit for, for my thinking, too. I’ve really…

EP: So much credit.

CK: …taken a lot from her work. 

JPH: Agreed. I’ve been really appreciative of how supportive she is of just the idea of breeding for good pets.  She’s …

EP: Quite honestly, it was her idea. I mean, she’s this little seed in our head, you know, 10 or 15 years ago, whatever it was, she’s it all came from Sue originally our whole idea to even do this

JPH: Nice. 

CK: And she has Yeah, she’s been so influential and so supportive. Agreed.

39:39

JPH: So usually I asked Patreon questions at the end sort of in a rapid fire manner, but I had a bunch of really lovely questions from our patreon supporter Anna. Beautifully nerdy questions. She was really interested in how you guys run your programs. And so since we were listing traits, one of the questions she wanted to know was, do you find some of those traits to be more heritable than others? So let me frame that in the sense of, is it easier to select for some of those traits than for others? Or are there some that you feel like no matter how you, you know, put two parents with those traits together, they just never show up in the puppies? What has your experience been?

I am not sure, I think that I will just make a general observation that I have about the types of dogs that we tend to select, thinking that they are amazing pets who are acting as amazing pets. And I see this not just in my program, but a lot of the breeders that I’m most familiar with are doodle breeders, quote unquote, people who have been breeding poodle mixes and and in in deference to poodle mix breeders, there are quite a few of them who have been doing this and breeding for pet quality for quite a while. The thing that I see, that is a struggle, is that the softer dogs tend to want to revert to a … it’s easy to get too much fear. That’s the biggest struggle that I see in pet breeder programs so far. And I’m not sure, I’m not sure why. Because it doesn’t mean that they’re breeding fearful dogs, sometimes the fear is, seems to the way it is inherited is not. It’s like you said, I mean, obviously we know these things are super complicated, and there are multiple genes involved. But you sometimes you can get more fearful puppies from less fearful parents, for some reason, even when they’re super well socialized. And I’m not sure what that’s about. It might be partly about COVID. And the timing of when I’ve been a breeder over the last several years. But yeah, that’s just an observation. I’m not sure it answers the question. Yeah, the question is what’s most heritable? Right,

JPH: Right. And so I think what you’re saying so I would, I would term that trait resilience. I knew that yeah, the guidance assistance dog breeders prioritize that almost above anything else that for them.

JPH CK: Yeah. And I honestly I think, a companion dog personality, it’s pretty key as well.

I know that they it’s almost not the same as sociability. Right? It’s not right. Not No. Yeah. 

CK: Right. So you’re, you want a dog that is social and loves people, but you also need a dog that’s brave. And bombproof.

JPH: Right. So my dog Jenny.  Lovely. I adore Jenny. She really likes people. Actually, she thinks people are pretty cool. She likes being around them. She’s also terrified of new people. So you don’t really realize at first how much she likes people. But she does. So those are it’s there’s an interesting conflict in those two traits in her right, but they’re clearly two very separate traits. She is extremely not resilient. Although her resiliency has improved much over the 13 years that I’ve had her now. But she’s always really liked people. She just, I couldn’t even see that at first. Until she said she started becoming braver.

43:22

CK: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So bravery is a challenge. It’s one of the key. I guess I’m gonna say that as I’m learning, I’m adding resilience slash bravery to the top of the list along with social, it’s in it, it is complex, how it is inherited, clearly, because it’s not direct line from seems to be complex. That’s all I’m gonna say. Yeah.

JPH: Well, I wonder too how much what you’re seeing is about the breeds that you’re using as well. Which is another question that Anna had. And we don’t have to be done with the first question. I imagine that Erica has some stuff to say. But it’s interesting that you talk a lot, Carolyn, about the Labrador characteristics of the dog. That’s what I’m trying to get. Yeah, yeah. And so they tend to be highly social, highly resilient, and highly [mouthy?]. Right. And it may be hard for you to separate those things, because you have so much lab in your breeding population. So I guess maybe read a separate separate because well, because the labs tend to come as a package with those three things. Oh, yeah.

CK:I’m not trying to get rid of them. 

JPH: And you’re not trying to get rid of them? No, of course not. But you’re seeing them you’re seeing them handed to you as a package. Whereas Erica is breeding a variety of she has a larger variety of breeds in her [muffled], right? You do. Right. And so I’m wondering if she’s not seeing the package quite as much but sort of individual traits that she has to pull in? I don’t know. Erica, does that make sense? 

EP: Yeah, I think so. And well, it does. It’s interesting, because my answer to that question is related to what you just said, which is, we have so many different breeds going on, there are some things that we don’t have a trend on. We did have one litter, I will say that was what Carolyn was describing, where we had two parents that were more reserved. And we ended up getting more fear than what we expected to get from that litter. That was unfortunate. So that was something that was a lesson learned. You know, just like what Carolyn was saying. The things that I can tell you are the same with all of you know, we termed the bosons, even though they’re not all the same breed. Exactly. They have very similar play styles. They all do. This paw, they are very paws-y. Yeah, there’s like, 

CK: Is that maybe, you have one or two breeds that track through everybody, though, right

from everybody. 

EP: Everybody’s got some Border Collie and some lab in them. But I don’t know that I think of positiveness as either of those breeds. So I think it just goes back to everybody’s, Right now everyone’s related to our, you know, our original mama dog. All three litters are related to her, like…

CK:  She’s causing it?

 EP: Yep. So I think, you know, some of that characteristics. And you know, and so, so there are ways in which they’re different from each other. But their personalities are not that different. The way that they again, the way that they play with each other the way they interact, we have also other puppies come besides just our three that live here. We have other dogs in and out all the time of along with Griswold so we have, you know staying with us.  One of our puppies from our second litter is staying with us today, their package deal. And so she’s in we’ve got other puppies that come on board with us for, you know, a night or a week or whatever. So I get to see them all, like you have so many of them regularly. And yeah, they are all excited to see each other, they like to play with each other because they all sort of speak the same language. They’re not all the same in some of the other ways we describe, they’re not all the same social sociability, they’re not all the same confidence level. But you know, so the things that we want to be super predictable are different. They have different parents and different [therapists?], but there are still some personality traits that are so similar. And it’s really clear that their family, you know, they’re really clearly now together. So I don’t know if that answers absolutely anything for Anna or anybody else. But it’s interesting.

JPH: Right? It is. Yeah, I’m just thinking how I want to go 20 years into the future and ask you that question again.

EP: It’ll be really interesting. I think more data points. 

47:54

CK: Right. And I think it’s interesting, I think, you know, we’ve, you’ve probably been, you’ve been a dog person longer than me, Erica, but we’ve been breeding our own, you know, lines a similar length of time. And I find that I, I see certain things that, that it’s interesting, like they track together that I see a thing, and it’s not necessarily the trait I’m looking for. But it reminds me of that things travel in groups, I guess, is what I’m saying. You know, and I think that is true. And I think it kind of goes back to there’s that whole idea that form follows function, right? So you see a dog that looks like a dog you knew and you want to think that it’s gonna act the same way. And that’s not exactly true. But there are also things that go together. And that mouthy retriever brings you everything, showing you their toys, a lot of mouthy displacement behaviors, those all track together with a lot of that lab, gregarious sociability. So, yeah, it’s interesting to watch families of dogs for sure. And see what does and doesn’t track. So when I don’t think that’s terribly different from what traditional breeders in a specific breed, probably see as well, I don’t think it’s that different.

JPH: So when you’re looking for dogs to bring into your program, how much are you looking at that particular breed? And how much are you looking at that particular dog? I think I’m asking Erica this more because I think Carolyn has a pretty limited set of breeds that she works with.

EP:  Yeah, very much the personality of the dog and very little on the breed. We’re really trying to select for that. That joie de vivre, that social, that sort of social butterfly, and what we’re looking for ideally is we’re looking for social but doesn’t necessarily need to go see everybody. So we’re not necessarily trying to go for the dogs that, you know, desperately want to go greet like not the super super duper social, which is how we ended up honestly, with the with the litter that had the fear was we had two [unintelligible – over talking CK and EP] that’s what I wondered if you can thread that needle.

CK: Yeah, I don’t know about threading that needle, I’m still trying to figure that out. I mean, there’s an idea. I know the ideal dog doesn’t cross the street and pull you down the road to meet people like Lucy does, ideally. However, if we breed the dog that’s more reserved, do the we then overshoot and go into cautious and then stranger danger 

JPH: Incredibly difficult. So I was yeah, I’ve told this story many times, but it really made an impression on me when I was at a guide dog school where they were testing 13 month old Labradors that they had bred. And they had been selecting for exactly the behavioral traits that they wanted for quite a while and with, you know, they had an amazing program where they were testing them carefully and keeping track of all the traits and making really informed breeding choices. And so what I saw there was that they were able to push the dogs in particular directions, with quite some success, but then they would be full on like, so they were full on about, like, resilience and lack of fear, right. And so they pointed out to me then that they started getting these dogs that like, one of the tests, what’s the dog comes running up to you and you like, open an umbrella into the dog’s face. And you kind of want the dog to flinch back from that a little bit. Right. And they said they got some of these dogs got through, they would just blunder on in because they had bred [unintelligible] . Right, right. And so like, how do you know, you know, I think that’s just part of it. Like, I don’t think I think you know,

ahead of time 

CK: You have, you have to circle the target. And some of the dogs are going to fall in the hole in some aren’t, but you’re never going to. And obviously there are different does. 100 Yeah,

JPH: Right. And hopefully there are different homes for different dogs too, right. Like, that’s right. Some people don’t mind if the dog blunders into the umbrella. And some people don’t mind if the dog is a little bit more skittish?

CK: Well, probably most pet homes would be okay with all of them. The target range for being a seeing eye dog is very narrow. I mean, they are, that is, you know, a lot of the dogs who would fail at being a seeing eye dog would still be well within the range of pretty wonderful companion animals. 

JPH: Right.

CK: So we have a little I think we have a little bit broader. I think it’s okay to have a little bit of variability. And I am not trying to aim for 100% exactly the same dog just within a range of a great dog to live with. Who doesn’t have any deal breaker type of traits that make it a miserable experience for anybody, the dog or the people? Right? Is that what you think Erica?

EP: Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, like to me a failure is if the dog really should be on behavior meds if the person or what I you know, one of the things I say is, I want you to train your dog, but I don’t want your dog to need a trainer. Right? If you are going to a trainer, because you are like, Oh my God, this dog is making me crazy. We better get it trained. Then I may have not done my job properly. I want you to train it because that’s just good. Good process, not because yeah, good practice, not because it’s a desperate situation. I’d like to come back because I think a lot of this ties back also, and I love Carolyn, your description of circling the target. You’d mentioned body sensitivity earlier. And I was thinking, I have body sensitivity. We also have things like noise sensitivity, and other environmental sensitivities. And I think this is another thing that we want to sort of thread that needle circle the target is we want we want we Laura and I like dogs that are a little bit more sensitive, because they tend to be more focused on us. And as you know, we’re trainers. We like dogs that notice what we’re doing and pay attention and are aware of their surroundings. And also if we say things like, hey, please stop that they like oh, sorry. Okay. I will stop it right now. The more you dial down on the sensitivities, like they’re, you know, they’re more tolerant of nonsense and less sensitive. You get dogs that might be much better in a family environment because you don’t have kids running around. My most sensitive dog is the Border Collie, not part of the breeding program. Laura can’t watch sports and she can’t watch the news because if she goes uggh or Hey, get it in the goal or whatever she wants to yell at the television. The Border Collie is on my hip.  says it’s true. This is true about any of our border collies.

CK:  I had a boxer like that, I had a boxer for years, it was delightful dog. But oh my gosh, you couldn’t get in an argument in the same room as hammer. He was just oh my god. Yeah, What’s wrong with mom? And he was shaking. And it was terrible. Yeah. All right, everyone, I call him good mood all the time.  

JPH: My dog, my border collie bark is the ice pick bark that ice pick in the ear bark, he would bark. So whenever Chris and I would have an argument, he would start barking. And I would turn around and be like, we need to have this conversation. Let us have this conversation. Sometimes married couples need to work things out.

55:52

EP: Yeah, yeah. So Race, our previous Border Collie, we would call it a border collie hat. You know, we call it a dog hat. You know, like, I’m wearing a dog hat because hockey’s on. And you know, and I chose, He’s so sensitive, right? He’s so sensitive. He was great to train with. He was my kPa dog for you with Karen Pryor Academy, you know? Yeah, but, but that’s too sensitive. And then we’ve got the dogs that blunder into the umbrella. And that’s maybe not sense for me personally, not sensitive enough. But for a lot of families, that’s maybe exactly the kind of sensitive they need. They don’t that dog doesn’t care if the kid lays on them. Whereas right, my  Border Collies are like there’s a child 10 feet away from me, you know, I need to watch it. So right, so finding what that what that middle ground is, is I think the the challenge that we’re always working toward, right? Or what is the middle ground? What do you want, I like personally, a dog that’s a little more on the sensitive side, I think Carolyn might like a dog that’s a little on the less sensitive side. And you know what, our puppy people the people that we’re placing puppies with are going to be all over the place to on that,

CK: Like sensitive dogs for myself, to be honest. Rose, Lucy’s granddaughter, that I have right now she’s on the more body sensitive, never really pulled on the leash, a fascinating thing, like don’t have to teach her not, like she doesn’t pull, because she just loose leash walks, just because it’s more comfortable that way. And she really wants to be next to me. And she’s looking at me all the time, like, what would you like me to do? Should I be here? Should I be here, you know, but she’s a little and she has not ever tipped over into any real fear or reactivity. But I can tell that she’s cautious. You know, she’s right there. She’s, she’s cautious. And so it’ll be interesting to see. And this will maybe tie into another one of Anna’s questions, I think she asked about how do we determine what results are

JPH: Exactly what I was about to ask. So go for it. 

CK: So I would like to pair her with a less sensitive dog. I have, you know, I’m looking for one that’s a crash into the umbrella. And just, you know, very, very brave kind of dog. And then, and then I really, this is going to be I’m going to really track exactly try to trace exactly what and as many of those puppies that I can know and observe and also hear back on how that goes, I really want to try to get a sense of because I know her very well, and I’m going to choose a study know very well who balances that. And it’s not that she’s not good. But I just want to see if it’s because I really don’t feel like we know for sure when you try to balance when you pair dogs and you try to balance traits. How successful is that? Do you just get some puppies that are more sensitive and some that are more oblivious? Or do you get some that are in the middle? You know, I know that we assume right? That I mean you tell me Jessica we assume we get some in the middle and some on either end, right? 

JPH: I’m nodding, Yeah, yeah. 

CK: Yeah. And then if you do that for several generations, my question then is do you do when you so when you get to the next so say I breed Rose to a really brave dog and I get some that are right in the middle and some that are oblivious and some are more sensitive? Do I just pick the middle ones?

JPH: Well, it depends on your goals [CK: for the next time.] Right but so what your goal is so if you’re continuing to try to push the envelope towards resilience, then you pick the most resilient ones. Yeah,

CK: But even though that um, but threading the needle

JPH: Well that’s right, that’s what he’s about to say so but if you’re concerned about them becoming umbrella crashers I think that’s gonna be a new term we’ll just say umbrella crashes if you’re concerned about the umbrella crashes then you pick the middle ones right so it just depends on which direction you want to go and 

CK: I might just breed the umbrella crashers and you guys can Erica you guys can be reserved and we’ll just mix them together and then yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I’m making it sound like I haven’t thought it through. I’m worried now that I sound too casual. But this is the level of detail that I’m trying to hone in on. And all these dogs are have already, I’ve already decided are in the top tier of the ones I want to choose from, but then trying to figure out how to make sure we hit the mark. Right? Yeah,

JPH: Yeah, yeah, go ahead. And so that’s what that was. And that was I’m not Erica. But that was Anna’s question was how do you assess it? So you’re not living with these dogs, although one thing that Erica mentioned is that she often has dogs over to stay with her. might be why would you do it? 

CK: I’m not breeding any. I will only breed dogs that are owned by people I know who are trainers, or who I have spent a good amount of time with. That’s the point of this, because so the question of how do we evaluate it as a really big important question and a big controversial question, because I know that there’s a that there’s justifiably, reasonably so, there’s a lot of people who want to know, how are we proving that the dogs have these temperaments that we say they do? How do we know? How do we evaluate it? And then how do we actually verify that it’s true? Right? there’s no third party? Right? 

 JPH: And there’s no titles for being a good companion, right? Well, I mean, there’s CGC. But we all are like, that’s like a really low bar.

CK: We’ve talked about this quite a bit in the Facebook group. I really think therapy, dog certification is good. And I’m working on that with two of my dogs right now. But I don’t think even that necessarily proves all these intangible things because I see a wide variety of dogs passing that as well. And some of which I wouldn’t breed. It has value, the least, you know, they’re out in public. But like I said, in other podcasts, there’s a difference between me knowing for myself, and me proving it to someone else. And I’m really more concerned about what I know than what I prove to others. But I don’t deny that there’s value in the long run of us figuring out a way to demonstrate what we’re doing. What do you think, Erica?

1:02:32

EP: Yeah, I think, you know, as far as the titles go, I you know, I think the right handler, or the right trainer, or the right, you know, the right human, you can get titles on many a dog and I’ve been a CGC evaluator for a very long time. And I can assure you that dogs that pass the test do not correlate with dogs that I think are appropriate to be bred because you …

CK: Train your dog to do a lot of stuff. Yeah.

EP: And also, the dogs that fail the test often fail because they’re too social. I mean, a lot of the dogs Yeah, and I do, I do test several times a year and frequently have dogs that just don’t pass the test, because they just are so excited to see the person that they jump on them. And that is not a breeding disqualifier for me.

JPH: Especially not an 18 month old or something, right? 

EP: That’s right. And, there are plenty of dogs that I pass who you know, the handler is just brilliant. And it’s an amazing job working with that dog. And we all hold our breaths, and that dog passes. And it’s fantastic. But that does not mean it’s even maybe not appropriate to be in some of these situations. They pass the test, they did the thing they did, they check the boxes on the day, they did the thing. That’s fantastic. So for me it I think, you know, I think what Carolyn said is true, I need to know that the dog is appropriate to to pass on. And so I’m not concerned at all about titles or our kind of, you know what I would say it’s kind of arbitrary, sometimes assessments of what the,  arbitrary is not the right word. But you know, it’s very specific on the day test circumstances, kind of evaluations of the dogs ability, I want to know how that dog lives in real life, because my goals for the dog are, I want a dog who’s easy to live with, and easy to can do real, you know, functional in real life situations. And so that’s how we make our assessments. So all of our puppies, we are in contact with all of our puppy people. Now, granted, we’ve only got three litters, but we talk to all of those people. There are a couple people that maybe we only talk to once a year, you know, and those are the people we’re like, oh, gosh, I wonder how they’re doing. We’ve only talked, you know, it’s been eight months since we’ve spoken to them. I’ve probably have text threads on my phone right this minute of six to eight of our puppy households where they send us pictures of what their puppies are up to. And so what I want to know when I’m assessing whether this puppy is going to be a dog I want to breed again, I’m looking at how much trouble are those people having? Are they? Are they needing our help as trainers? Or, you know, are they checking in and telling us how great the dog is? Are they telling us how easy the dog is? Are they having trouble with crate training? Or can they leave the dog? Can they leave the dog alone? Is that 

CK: Separation anxiety is on that list that we didn’t really touch on as another negative. That’s a big deal. 

EP: Yeah, I realized that earlier, too. Yeah, huge. Yeah. And that’s

JPH: Confidence, noise sensitivity. Yeah.

EP: Yeah. Yeah. So I want to know, you know, is the dog having trouble with other dogs? You know, we’ve got people who take the dogs to the dog park, or have a, you know, neighborhood dog park or whatever? Are they having trouble with kids? If they’re family dogs? You know, I want to know, what kinds of things are there other things they’re concerned about, or complaining about? Or are they just constantly reporting that the dogs going out doing things in public and having a grand old life? And so not only if I want to breed one of my dogs, I don’t want to know just how my dog is doing in my house living with two trainers, I need to know how that dog’s littermates are doing? How does the whole litter look as a profile, because if the whole litter is looking great, I’m gonna say I feel pretty good about this dog going forward and understanding kind of what characteristics go along with that dog’s genetic, likely genetic makeup? Versus if I’ve got a litter where I’ve got a lot of concerns with fear, or things like that, then I may question breeding any dog from that litter? Because it’s, that’s the genetic makeup that could be kind of trailing along with breeding that particular dog? 

CK: Or is it a bad match? You need to put him with somebody different? 

EP: Yeah, yeah. How do we consider that maybe, maybe this is what you know what we’re seeing in this litter. So we’re going to make sure that we’re, you know, breeding this fearful dog to an umbrella crash or whatever. I wouldn’t breed a fearful dog. But no,

CK: Dog that produced more sensitive dogs,

EP: Right? Yeah,

CK: Your more sensitive, produced a fearful dog, maybe with an umbrella crasher would do different, that would be a different result. But then you have to decide if it’s worth it, or it’s better to move on.

EP: So yeah, and I think, you know, going back to something, Carolyn, that you were saying earlier, about, you know, trying to make some of these decisions. I think it’s important to note that as breeders, every single one of us who is doing purpose bred dogs, and it doesn’t matter if we’re doing a show or working or you know, or mixed breed companion or whatever. If we’re waiting for a breeding purpose bred litters, we’re all kind of experimenting, I mean, every litter we’re, we’re giving it we’re giving it our best shot to try to set things up to be as close to what we want, or close to the outcome that we’re looking for as we as we can. And then we’re going to look at the results, do some data analysis and see, was this what we wanted? Let’s do this one again, or it was not wanted? Yeah, make some adjustments for next time. And I think that’s true of every single breeder. We’re always making these these kinds of experiments as we make our breeding decisions.

CK: Listening to Pure Dog Talk, the podcast, which I really, like listening to, and I learned a lot. Have you ever listened to that Erica? [I had her dog?] Oh, well, it’s worth checking. But she was telling, I don’t know if it was, I don’t know which episode it was. But the host was telling a story about a litter that she planned for 20 years, with frozen semen. Different goals, you know, confirmation goals, I mean, not that they didn’t don’t have temperament in mind, but a very specific, I think, goal as far as, uh, you know, getting a certain result for confirmation purposes, and plan this litter for 20 years, literally, and all the things finally lined up and surgical, you know, insemination and lots of money and all that kind of thing. And nope didn’t go at all like what the thought process was. So you’re right. I mean, I’m just validating what you’re saying that I don’t think that this is. I’ve said this before, too. Like I think that maybe sometimes people who haven’t tried this, or aren’t knowledgeable about it, underestimate how much of a crapshoot and I don’t mean to say that there’s no predictability because there is and I know I’ve obviously I think it has value and that selective breeding makes a huge difference. But I also think that there is going to be variation and that every single time you’re making your best estimate at what you think will work and then adjusting. And I think that’s one of the things I have on my list of what makes an ethical breeder is that you adjust. So you know, you make the changes in terms of direction when you need to, to keep getting closer to the target, because you’re never going to get it right every time.

1:10:17

JPH: And I like to remind people as well, that predictability is not zero to 100, there’s a whole range, right? So it’s not like, right, this is 100% predictable, or it’s not predictable at all, like you guys are working in this space where predictability means it’s likely that you know, if you do everything, right, it’s likely that you’ll get what your goal is. But it’s biology, like there’s no right and you and frequently you do, but there are times when you don’t, and that is going to happen. And that is whether you’re breeding mixed breed dogs or purebred dogs, you’re not always going to get your goal. Right.

EP: And you know what I tell people, you can have a family of doctors, and your kid wants to be a rock star. And, you know, you just can’t control you can’t we know this from Jurassic Park. Life will find a way. 

JPH: That is a great reference.

EP: We do the best we can reference. 

JPH: Yeah, so there’s a lot of challenges for sure. But I still think it’s really important what you two are doing. And maybe you would maybe would you feel comfortable speaking to that a little bit? Like why is this so important that you’re taking on these massive projects?

EP: You know, I think I think what’s really important is to recognize that over the last, say, 100 years, the way that we live the environment in which we live, the communities that we live in, we’re denser we’re more populated, we’re living in different ways, dogs living in the house, it’s even kind of a new concept. And a lot in a lot of ways, our lifestyles have changed significantly. And it really makes sense to be breeding dogs that are targeted for those more modern lifestyles.

CK: Right. And, and that is good for people, because it makes the dogs easier to live with. But it’s also important for the dogs, because dogs that can’t tolerate confinement or separation, or dogs who need a lot of room to roam. And a huge amount of exercise, there are homes that are good for those dogs. But there are a lot of, of average. And I don’t mean that in a negative way. But pet homes, you know, in neighborhoods with a lot of stimulation around but not a lot of space where those dogs don’t do well. And it’s not a happy life for the dogs. And it’s a struggle for the people. So this is also about canine welfare and trying to help create dogs who can tolerate and thrive and be content in modern situations. And it says, yeah,

EP: it’s asking a lot for them to live in these city environments, in suburban environments where people are working all day. Yeah.

CK: And we want, we want them to not be frustrated and struggling. And I think we owe that to them to try to, you know, create some great dogs that can feel content.

JPH: The Veterinary concept is one health. So in which held one health sometimes called one welfare with this idea that it’s important to think about health and welfare, both of the animals that we live in work with and of ourselves and how those two things are really inextricably entwined. And so you should work, we should be working together in ways that improve the health and welfare, both of humans and of animals. And I feel like that’s what you’re both doing, as well.

CK: Thank you, Jessica. 

EP: Thanks for having us, Jessica. 

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JPH: Thanks so much for listening to The Functional Breeding Podcast is a product of the functional dog collaborative that was produced by Attila Mercer. Come join us at the Functional Breeding Facebook group to talk about this episode or about responsible breeding practices in general to learn more about the FTC check out the functionalbreeding.org website enjoy your dogs