This might not be a popular opinion, but I tend to feel like our parent clubs should almost promote breeding more. I think that could be an aspect that could really help our breed. Do you agree with that or disagree? What is going on, everybody? Welcome to the Tac Box Podcast. We are up to episode 56 today, and we are going to talk about uh low entry uh breeds. We're gonna talk about low litter registration breeds. AKC just released um their statistics from 2025 on litter registrations, so we want to talk about that. But before we dive into this uh awesome episode that we have planned for you guys, I'm gonna jump over and see how Dale's doing. How are you doing today, Dale?
SPEAKER_02Man, I got my voice back. I can actually even talk. Two days ago, this would not have been a pretty uh it wouldn't have been good. We've been having like holding up signs or whatever. But uh no, we're doing good. Doing good. It's it's uh springtime in Texoma. Things are starting to come to life and it's all green and we're mowing, and it's nice, nice.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was talking to you the other day, and it was like, first of all, are you dying? Because it sounded like you were dying. Yeah, the nasty head cold. You know, I was like, I don't I don't know if he's gonna make it through, you know, and then and then I we're we continued talking, and I was just like, are you raking right now? Are you raking? And you were out uh trimming some flowers and and raking stuff up. Spring has sprung, you know, and here in the Dakotas, we're so I'm actually surprised up here in South Dakota that anything is even turning green because we had literally like no snow or moisture this winter. And so really surprised that anything can even have any moisture turn green, but it's gonna it's gonna go green and then brown very quickly if we don't get any any moisture, but and then it'll catch on fire. Yeah, and then it'll be a lot of that going on. Uh a lot of that's going on too. You know, a lot of fires up here, and and it's like I already moved my lawnmower to my new house, you know, so it's like I'm like, oh crap, I'm gonna have to hire somebody to come in and mow, you know, for a little bit before. And it's like, I don't want to do that, but it is what it is. You know, maybe it'll freeze again and kill the grass, but I'll have to do it. I don't know. So you're not uh you're you're on break from from judging for a little bit. Um well I have one weekend off.
SPEAKER_02I have a weekend off. Yeah, I have a whole weekend off. So, you know, and then I go into my little things. I'm judging at one set of shows in Tulsa. I'm doing a Toy Dog Club show and overdrew a pretty good, a pretty nice entry, and then specialty and some other stuff. And then I leave that night, drive home, and then the next morning fly to Mexico City to do uh to do the uh French Bulldog national uh show and then the Bulldog National show. So it's gonna be bam, bam, you know, but all good. Gotta you gotta if you gotta keep busy to keep it interesting, you know.
SPEAKER_00That sounds then the Mexico City, you know, doing the French Bulldog and the Bulldog National sounds really like it's gonna be a fun time. I'm I'm interested to see what the what the show looks like and and to hear stories about that one. I think it'll be cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well uh I'm I'm excited about it. You know, I'm excited about the the regular show too. I mean that that'll be fun too, but I I have a fair idea what that's gonna look like. I've been to a show or two in Oklahoma before.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, yeah, that's just kind of normal, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But uh this will it'll be fun.
SPEAKER_00It'll be good. Is that is that Tulsa show? Is that a is that a decently sized show generally?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. It it's good size. They have a they have a great big facility, they get good entries. It's it's it's nice. They'll they'll drop it.
SPEAKER_00I feel like just kind of like where it's located, you know, it's like you got the whole Kansas City area that could come to Tulsa pretty quick. Yes. You know, Oklahoma City area. You got a lot of people that could get to that central area pretty pretty easily. So that'll be that'll be good. We have a packed episode today uh to talk about. We want to talk uh through It is packed. I mean it's such yeah, yeah. And I think it it's it's probably gonna resonate with a lot of people, uh, but I think you know, specifically for us in Japanese Chin, you know, on these more low DNA banked breeds that there's not a huge gene pool out there. Registration numbers are light, maybe declining year after year. So you tend to think more about it. It's not like we're in we're in uh golden retrievers and we got you know tons and tons of options out there. We got Japanese chin and and our numbers are dwindling every single year. And so AKC just uh released their numbers uh from 2025 and they go back, what is it, like 10, 12 years, they go back with numbers, so you can see trend lines and everything like that. You can kind of just want to overview that report a little bit on what they talk about on there and and what we saw this year.
SPEAKER_02Uh that I mean and it it's really it's very helpful because it's total registrations, and then that gives you, you know, and you can kind of like see see where your breed is going. And then you can turn around and from that registrations, because we tend to only think about what we register, the people who are going to dog shows and all that, it's actually those registrations encompass all the dogs. Like so if someone has a litter of pets and they register it, that's in there. If so, if it's a um, if it's say maybe a uh just a commercial pet breeder, theirs are included, all of it. So everything in there in a nutshell. And so then you kind of go ahead and and take back uh from that number how many people were say members of a parent club or show show people, yeah. What percentile of those total registrations is that, you know, that are not just like uh, you know, Muffy and and Buffy having babies in the you know in the backyard, the whole, you know, so that kind of gives you an idea as like where is your gene pool at? Where are your numbers at? Because those numbers have have a bigger significance than just uh entries at the dog show. Because of course, as you know, uh the numbers every year, like what qualify, what's what the uh point schedule is going to be for the year for that region.
SPEAKER_00Hey everybody, sorry for the interruption, but I just need to take a moment and remind you to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast network, wherever you're listening to this right now, make sure you subscribe, hit a thumbs up button, make sure you show us that you like this content, that we're doing good, help us grow, we really appreciate it. Thank you. Now back to the show.
SPEAKER_02Depends as to the number of entries that were there last year. So if you have a group of people that got together and they all made majors all along, you know, all year long, and then next year it's gonna go up to make the majors. And so you can like it could be like an artificial high. And then because they're saying, well, this many are typically being shown. Well, in actuality, it c it might not actually be that there's that many being shown. It might be a couple of people uh pooling their resources and kind of making it making it happen. And there might not actually be that many people exhibiting and breeding in that area. But when those fall, the you know, then it takes it can it's a minimum of four dogs for a major, and that's considered a low entry breed if it takes four for a major. And that means you you're not getting there are lots of shows where there aren't any, you know, and it and it's uh it's a major entry at four. And that's that can be that's kind of that's disturbing for a breed to be at that. You know, that's disturbing. It used to be there was just like a tiny little list of of breeds that were on that, on that, and almost everything was like double digits for majors. And at one time I've seen I've seen chin up to double digits of majors, you know. And but that's been a while and it's been steadily decreasing.
SPEAKER_00How does that I guess so when we're talking about point schedules and things like that, one of the things that I think about that we've talked about related to it is kind of since COVID, the amount of shows has increased. So instead of having to travel nearly as far to go, like I feel like maybe you know, is there a possibility that numbers, you know, and entries could be the same nationwide total number of entries per year? We just have so many more shows available that the per entry, you know, per show entry is lower. I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not, but you know, it's 50 percent.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00I mean, you start people went to Dallas, you know, for a show, but now there's because there was nothing else around and now there's a show closer than going to Dallas, I'm gonna go to that show closer to Dallas, and Dallas is not gonna get my entry, you know, like Exactly. So if we're talking pure entries, you know, in a region or show, like you can run into issues with that and and not actually find out what the what the issue really is, other than there's just more shows.
SPEAKER_02Well, there's more shows. And remember when we were talking about, I think it was maybe the last week or the week before, we're talking about clusters.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So now it's not even just like a weekend of shows, it's a it's a seven or eight show extravaganza. And uh, and so now like, okay, well, I only have this many dogs, and I only have this much time off, and I only want to spend this much money. So I'm gonna go to the extravaganza, and we're just gonna, I can get all my I can do a whole slug of shows in that in those you know, four days there, show eight times, and uh maybe finish my dog right there, and I don't have to go the rest of the summer. I don't need to go the rest of these shows, you know, or that that absolutely the more shows, the more clusters is gonna dilute out the entry because you know people are gonna geographically look and go, well, that's three hours closer, which is a you know, a six hours round trip, and it's gonna save me that such and such. You know, they're gonna they're gonna pick their convenient spots, you know, and that's gonna affect the entries. You'll see like a lot of people that have uh that are involved in smaller tental clubs, and they'll say, our entries have dropped because you know, just over 200 miles this direction, we've got a a a mega cluster, and this is a and you know, if they have better facilities or better camping or better this or better that or maybe more, you know, then people will pick one over the other. And and then the others won't one one's gonna get the short end of the stick.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, for sure. And so so this AKC report came out a week ago or 10 days ago, something like that, and I started talking about litter registrations, and it really had me thinking over the last 10 days because when I was looking at just Japanese chin specifically, year over year over year over year, it's like our litter registrations are down. So then it starts getting to like, you know, we're already a rare breed. At what point do we need to start getting concerned that we're getting too rare and we're gonna be, you know, be in danger of becoming an extinct breed? You know, how if that trend line continues, we're gonna become extinct very quick. So I started looking and doing a bunch of research and trying to figure out, you know, just dig into it. Yeah. You know, it's like one of the big things that we come across is like, you know, everybody wants to point fingers at the bad breeders. You know, bad breeders are running breeds, and you see a lot of that stuff. And it's like, but what if some of the problem is actually just even some of the good breeders? You know, like once you start falling into the trap of we have a low-entry breed, the gene pools get affected, numbers are declining. So let's talk through through that a little bit and and talk about how as a breed gets smaller and smaller, how that affects the gene pool, how that affects, you know, and and maybe what role actually good breeders as well as not so good breeders have in that.
SPEAKER_02Uh everybody is somebody's bad breeder.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Because it's just breeders. They're readers. Somebody's gonna think they're good, somebody's gonna think they're bad, but the bottom line, when they're raising your breed, they're relevant to your breed. And they might, you know, however that whatever that looks like, they're that is a relevance to the breed. And so what happens is you get like, and I I've watched just say in 2000, in our breed, Japanese chant in 2016, you know, 10 years ago, we had we had an entire club up in the uh up in the northeast that was a very active club, and they could have a show. I pulled up one of the one of their specialties, and it was like 80-some entries with like 20 specials, and they had a whole regional club up there. A couple of breeders had gotten together and just like brought in this group of people together, and they're all gone. The uh some of the the organizers have passed away, a bunch of people are and so but not only are they gone, the club is gone, those dogs are gone. That's just gone. And you see this happening a couple, two, three times over over a period of time, and this affects your gene pool for your whole breed as a whole in your country. And we've had like we've had several times where we've had health issues that were tied into a set of dogs that were for whatever reason, you know, like we had a neurological order or one thing we do our DNA profiling for GME. There was a very, very popular winning set of dogs that did a lot that did real well, but they were carriers and afflicted. And I think that those dogs are basically all gone and the people that had them. And I'm sure that, you know, I mean, for whatever reason, they didn't continue beyond that. And you take a couple of those hits, and then then all of a sudden you're like, wow, we're now you get into more of a fragile state where if we had a another big hit on another another health thing, and which is becomes more prevalent, more possible when your dog's being bred, the number of dogs being bred gets smaller. And then it it becomes a it becomes a more impactful thing to the breed as a whole. If you go ahead and lose a big, you know, you lose 150 dogs out, you know, out of uh the gene pool, well that that could be significant. And I had was talking to our fellow breeders in England this uh last week when I was at the Manchester show, and they had they expressed concerns of shrinking numbers of dogs being able to be bred, fewer people having dogs, fewer people. And then of course there's always the people end. The you know me, because it's one thing where it's economic things, and it's like whether it's in you know, that's but people we'll we'll just call it the X factor of uh just people being people, being the jerks they are. They don't want to work they don't play well together. And it's like I would sooner die than let them use my dog, or I, you know, sooner you know, run into traffic than breed to one of their dogs, and if everything becomes super personal, and smaller things get, the smaller the group of people are, then that becomes real possible. They're not taking one of my dogs and breeding it to one of their dogs because I hate them. And what the damage that can do is like so it's it's like it's incredible how you know it's like because you have this divide, the small number anyway, and then now we're gonna have like the Hatfields and the McCoys here, and you know, and I can't cross that that Mason Dixon line or it's gonna be a big old fight. And then you you just you kind of see the impact on your breed. The quality's gonna go down eventually. It's gonna be harder to stay sustain and maintain quality, it's gonna be harder to keep hybrid vigor. I mean, all of that stuff. It's all carries a c at a cost.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because when you start doing things like that, of like, I guess uh you know, confining yourself, I don't, you know, I don't want to work with so-and-so because I don't like them for whatever reason. Now you're just continually breeding your program, they're breeding their program. Eventually your program's gonna get weak because you're just building the same, you're just doing the same breedings over and over, or you're doing more line breeding, so you're more you're a higher risk of issues coming in. And I mean, that doesn't benefit that doesn't benefit the program long term, right? So like what are some of the decisions breeder You're right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think sometimes we're thinking more like you can't grow. You can't we're you know, if you don't bring in, you can't grow. You know, so you're just you are good further and further and further.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think the bigger problem people don't want to share. They don't they don't they wanna anything good that they might have, they might want to share. How does how does like smaller population affect genetic? How does it create like a genetic bottleneck? You know, it's I saw I saw that a lot of like smaller population, it makes it, you know, make equals like genetic bottlenecking. Is that just because the fact of like there's not so many out there's not a ton of males or a ton of bitches out there to cross, you know, is it just you're using a lot of the same type of stud because the gene pool is so low, they're all somehow related or something, trying to hard to get an outcross? How does that work?
SPEAKER_02It so it's just it's absolutely as you as you your coefficient goes up and up and up, you're gonna get you're gonna double on qualities, you're gonna double on consistency, but you're also gonna just uh you're gonna double on the defects and the issues that these animals have. And you can't take anything so far without having to, you know, bring in you know, bring in new stuff to keep it going. Like taking, for example, uh the those Norwegian Lundenhuns. Very cool little breed. I just applied for them. I'm pretty excited to judge them. And and I got kind of got caught up in the rabbit hole of doing research on them as I'm learning about them, and I'm listening to their story, and I'm talking to the uh husband of the wife of the parent, those president of the parent club, and uh and she he was explaining to me that that they had done the DNA uh mitochondria on on over 200 of them worldwide, and they all came back to the same bitch. Every one of those 200 dogs had the same bitch. I'm like, whoa, wow. Talk about your family tree being a telephone pole. And then you go, well, how is this relative? Well, they have like an 80 some a high 80 percent percentile of them have a digestive disorder. Uh and it's like, where do you go to get away from it? How do you not gonna further double on this digestive disorder, which makes them such as a challenging thing to their health? You know, and so where do you go with that? And so that's that's when these things happen, is when you get so far down into a line breeding uh and then when the problems are there, can you get out of that ditch that you've dug yourself into? Or are you just so uh entrenched in this that we can't you that you have to like scrap what you have and totally start over again because there's no backing out of it. It's because that this is all your dogs have. And that's that's the danger of these. That's the danger of when there's frequently used uh sires, that everybody like one person has a stud dog, everybody breeds to it, might be a wonderful dog. But whatever problem that dog has, now everybody has because we've all used him, because he's a perfect dog, you know, and now we've all got it. And so where do we go now to get away from it? Where do we go now to to bring in something else? And and I in I see this happening in breeds that I've been involved in all the time, and historically I've seen it happen to breeds that have, and it's affected them long term, you know, of going down that rabbit hole. And I think that exclusionary thing where we all kind of you know get together at the shows and someone's good and someone's bad, and then all of a sudden, you know, and then we kind of all, you know, head one way or another, all that doesn't do you the breed favors. Though all of that, sometimes I wonder if showing in the competitive mentality of it maybe doesn't do the breeding and of dogs a whole lot of favors. I mean, we might be recognizing quality, but I don't know if we are, you know, really necessarily. Bringing people in, I think, as much as we want to just like tromp over competition and be top dog, you know.
SPEAKER_00Well, and you bring up a good point with that too. And I think we might tend to think that, and probably a lot of our listeners of the podcast tend to think along these lines because we do like to go to dog shows and we like to show our dogs. But when we start bringing that into our breeding program as well, I think that can be dangerous because then we start thinking like, oh, well, this is a group-winning dog. We got to breed the shit out of her or him, you know, and you know, this dog over here, you know, maybe doesn't fit the breed standard nearly as much. So it's like, eh, I don't really want to breed that dog. And I think that mindset right there can cause big genetic problems in in breeding because there's still a place for those types of dogs to be bred, right? I mean, why they just because they're not, we tend to think show quality. We want to be in the the show ring, and that's what we're always trying to find. But what about the dogs that aren't show quality, which we seem to like almost as show people like cut them from our program completely? And it's like there's there's dogs out there that need to be bred in our breed that might not be the best in the show ring, but they're gonna improve our program in our kennel.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So there are dogs that are they're going to do well in showing because they exceed in type, they exceed in temperament, they exceed in the qualities that make it a desirable show dog. They, those dogs may or may not be good candidates for breeding. Maybe. I but I I can tell you personally, I have finished many, many, many, many champions that I never bred. They were fun dogs to show. They had great attributes that lended themselves to being winners in the ring, but they didn't have a lot to offer the program. And so that's they got to participate in the venue that they were good at. Then there are a whole nother set of dogs. Maybe they're not show dogs. Maybe, maybe whatever, for whatever reasons. Maybe, maybe it's markings, or maybe a size, or maybe they don't, maybe they're, you know, for whatever reason, they're not a show dog. Maybe they have a fault that would be hard to win with in the show. Like maybe it's got a uh a broken, like a chihuahua with a broken ear, can't show it, can breed it, you know, a poodle that goes over 10 inches. Well, it could be a beautiful dog, but it's disqualified from the show ring, still got a lot of value for breeding. So you have a whole nother set, there's value in dogs that aren't going to be able to compete as show dogs as successfully that might be more valuable in breeding that than uh than you know, than some of us. I don't know, like for myself, whenever I go to to buy a bitch, I've talked to someone, I'll say, I want to buy a bitch. And they'll like, oh, do you want the little tiny show one? Like, no, like our bigger sister. You know, I like the bigger one. You know, she don't have to be, you know, whether she shows or not, it's not important to me. I want something sound and I want something with good legs and have have the free now, not gonna need a C-section. Bingo, free whelp. Yeah, that's I'll take her. So you keep the pretty show one, I'll take this one because that's what I want to breed. Unless I'm locked and loaded wanting something to show, but but that's as for the for the gene pool and for the breeding, a dog's gonna do way more for you than the pretty little sister that may or may not conceive and may or may not raise her puppies. So all of those things are, you know, are real.
SPEAKER_00I think there's sometimes some of the damage that good breeders can do would be along the lines of say we have a certain amount of dogs we can keep in our home. So it's like we do one or two breedings a year, then we keep those puppies, and then maybe we have trouble placing those puppies. So we we still have these six-month-old puppies from our last litter that we haven't placed, but we got a bitch coming in a season and we choose maybe, well, we don't breed her because we still have these puppies we haven't placed from the last one. You know, like I don't know that that is super beneficial to the the breeding program either. And I think sometimes sometimes we hurt ourselves. Like, are we are we too strict sometimes and hurt the breed when we're like, oh, well, this person lives in an apartment and they don't have this grassy fenced area for this dog to go run. So it's like, I'm not gonna give them a puppy. You know, it's like I think sometimes as breeders, we kind of just like we don't we want to almost like hoard our puppies or keep them too long instead of actually letting pet people have puppies. And and I is like, I know you've mentioned this before, and I kind of have this mind says like pet dogs are show dogs, they're just not in the AKC show ring. They're they're getting shown all over to these pet people's friends, and they're getting exposure, the breeds getting exposure by being in a pet home too. All right, so that's a lot to unpack there. Um that tends to be how I talk, I guess. I don't know. I say a lot.
SPEAKER_02I yeah, I mean it's like it's like you walk up with a shopping cart of questions here. Uh yes, I do I think that people micromanage and get into it's like, yes, you want to if if you if you somebody lives in an apartment and they want a toy dog, they probably can make that work. That'll probably be fine for them. They can make that situation work. If they live in that studio apartment on the 28th floor and they're wanting to buy a Siberian husky, that might not work. You know, that might not be a that might not work out for them at all. You know, so I mean I think a little bit of it is breed specific. What does your breed need to thrive? And so sometimes I think as breeders, we do have to kind of protect people from stuff like I know you want to get a St. Bernard puppy, but you live you, you know, you live in a in too small of an area or too hot of an area, whatever. You know, you need to be able to help people make good decisions for your dogs so your dogs do well and they do well. That's that's good. But I think that part of it also is to just you know, let I think people are more capable. You people can make almost anything. I've heard people say, Well, I'm not gonna sell them a dog because they have kids. Wow, really? I mean, that's okay. You can't, you're you know, that you might need to take an extra time to visit with them and say, hey, I know you have kids, you know, what what are you gonna do to keep the get this puppy to the point where they can be had, you know, maybe meet with the family, maybe meet with kids, maybe have kind of get kind of a feel for it, investigate a little further, but to say blanket statement, no, you know, that's not gonna happen. Lots of people don't have a yard if they they walk their dogs. That you know, that's lots of urban living people to, you know, that are fabulous homes. Don't have a yard, you know, you can make almost any situation work if you have the right brain and the right information going in. And I think part of having a breeding program is the idea of a little bit of networking. Well, maybe you can't raise all the litters yourself, but maybe you have a friend. Then the idea of getting in there, it's not just making the babies and having the puppies, it's picking out what needs to stay, picking out what needs to go, what needs to go needs to get placed. We need to figure out how we're gonna market them, how we're gonna promote them, how we're gonna let people know that they're available. You can have the best dogs in the whole world, and if nobody knows that where you are or you know, or what you have, or they can't find you, you're not gonna get them placed. So that's when you start to, you know, with your website and with your, you know, whether it's good dog or marketplace or whatever you're gonna do, Facebook, however you're gonna do it, you know, the you've got to part of being a breeder is keeping the uh keeping the dogs, you know, rotating. It's like I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I want, I want to maintain this many breedable dogs. So that means if I'm not gonna breed her this next time, then I'm gonna spay her and place her, and I'm gonna keep this daughter, or you know, or I'm gonna let my my friend wants to do a litter. Okay, we're gonna do, we're have a get a little contract, write it off, them co-own it or lease it, let them do the litter. There's lots of ways that you can by expanding your circle, you can make it your program more impactful.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think in 2026, we're so used to Amazon, right? We want to go online, we want to order something, and we want it here tomorrow, and we're used to that instant gratification. The instant gratification of being able to, I want something and I want it now, and that that's just what we're used to. Streaming services. We don't have to wait for a movie to come out to Blockbuster anymore and go rent it in two months. So we don't have to order things out of a catalog and wait for it to show up, you know, the check to get cash. Like we want instant gratification. And I think in breeding, especially dogs, but well, maybe not especially dogs, but in breeding in general, there's not really an instant gratification segment in breeding. It's more thinking long-term. And a lot of times we want that that that instant feel of that, you know, here's this litter that I want. But how do we focus? I think the instant feeling of we want this and we want this now, we're thinking so short term with breeding that we can really put ourselves into, you know, back ourselves into a corner if we're not thinking long term five years from now. Because if we introduce something into our program, like how do we bring a different dog in? We're talking a couple of years to even get puppies out of a bitch, right? So how do we focus on the long term and how do we how does that look when we're just kind of looking at what we have today and where we want to be in five years? How do we kind of lay out a timeline for that?
SPEAKER_02Well, okay, so that's that's a really valid point. And with as far as like, if you're gonna say, I want to continue to add into my program, I want to continue to expand my Jeeple, it's like, okay, maybe you're gonna go ahead and let a female go. And you know, maybe you don't have time for a litter or whatever. I'm gonna go ahead and let, I'm gonna let you take this female, you're gonna bring her to your dog, bring her back, bring her back to me. And I'd like to have one puppy, uh, you know, which is some different blood, a different pedigree, and what I have here. Because the best part of an outcross is what you can go ahead and when it's like not all an outcross, but a partial outcross, you know, that that's that's that's really the goal is to go ahead and so if you can work with other breeders, if you can try not to be a raging psychopath and be have a have some little people skills and you know, be a little understanding and you know, somewhat human, you can then say take uh you know, place a dog and get a puppy back with a some different pedigree. And that would move your program further ahead. I mean, it's like okay, that's this is a this is like a huge win. It it puts uh it delays, does you know, it gives you more time where these dogs aren't all aging out together, you know, and you're gonna get a a puppy with a different pedigree that can work with your with what you have, and sometimes maybe doing a stud service for a puppy back or that type of a thing. You know, I mean, this is an opportunity to bring in some new blood from a you know, a night and from another nice female from something, and you can go on that go. All of these things when we stop working with other people, when we stop offering dogs its stud, when we stop letting uh someone take a breeding female and you know, maybe getting a puppy back or maybe trading a puppy like you got a female, and I'm gonna trade you my this one for this one. When we stop doing that, we get become super, super isolated. And we become, you know, your your program becomes very vulnerable to any health problems that might show up. You know, yeah, I mean, there's there's uh that you when we go ahead and and and cut uh there's the big monster.
SPEAKER_00If you're not watching on YouTube, we got the big, the big uh uh kitty cat that's like the size of a main coon coming, yeah, joining us.
SPEAKER_02Growing by the minute, yeah. I mean, you're like sleeping there and jumps on your head and knocks you, you know, it's like I got a concussion now. But when you stop doing that and working with other people, you become irrelevant and close off really fast because nobody has where they can have keep all the dogs. Can't, you know, I mean, well, let's put it this way super hard to have uh a kennel of 50 or 60 dogs that you're working with where you can have all the genetic diversity you'd want and all of this and all of that. So that that's that's a hard, that's a hard ask in today's times. And there used to be kennels like that that they would have like a you know be very much a closed-off bunch of animals just involving them. But in dogs, unless that's an opportunity for you, you can still have access to that, but you're gonna need to work with other people, you're gonna need to breach other dogs, you're gonna have people let breed to your dogs, you're gonna have to trade, you know, trade a puppy for a puppy. You're gonna have to do things where you can encourage other breeders to try to be a good person to work with, where they like going, yeah, you know, you don't even have to be friends. You don't have to be friends, you don't have to particularly like each other. But as long as you go, they take good care of the dogs, they go show them, they win, they lose, they're all right. You know, fine. You don't have to have them come over for Christmas dinner or anything like that. You know, they just people that will promote and move the breed forward that you can then in turn move your program forward. But that intolerance to working with anybody and the exclusionary attitude has really made a lot of our breeds get really small in the show world, especially. Super, super, super small. It's like, you know, it's just so competitive. Like, I'm not gonna show to their dogs, I'm not gonna make any of their puppies winners, I'm not gonna this, or I'm not gonna that. And it and it and it takes a toll on your breed while you're being exclusive, you're really just it's it's about you, not about your dogs.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, and I think that's a big problem with a lot of it is we tend to make it about us instead of our dogs. So, you know, we put our feelings and our friendships in front of, you know, what could be best for our kennel. And I think, you know, some of that then comes into just breeders in general. And I think something that every breed goes through at some point is breeders retire. And it seems like it goes in waves. It's like maybe not one breeder retires a year, but then you have this year, and it's like, oh, five decent sized breeders, good breeders are going out this year, and it's like, but who's coming in? It seems like we have so many more breeders retiring and going out than people coming in. So it's like, how can we as responsible breeders help bring new people in, be mentors to people, and and help the new breeders out?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think what happens is what you're saying is someone quits, all right, but if that person is a uh an actual breeder, a foundation like the mothership breeder, then that person probably enables a dozen people to breed. Some people that uh keep a couple of females here and there don't want to use a stud, they'll come and use one of your studs or do this and that. You get, you know, the people that are, you know, fringe that want to breed but don't have a candle, can't do that, but they get in with a breeder who makes it all happen for them. Well, if that person quits, these people are just gonna go away with them. They're just petals on the flower, all gonna die at the same time, you know, so which knocks out a whole bunch of people. And like I've watched it in Chin. There was a few breeders in Kansas that were that were very prolific breeders and age, bad health, death, they quit. All the people kind of around them kind of quit, and all of a sudden, what used to be a high entry area drops, like that Pennsylvania situation. That's that's dropped. Or even in our in our little chin breed, we have a really great little specialty club up by Chicago. You know, a bunch of the people have quit. I don't know if they'll just keep having their specialties another year or so, because there just isn't enough people up there. So then when that specialty club quits, and though, you know, and the couple of core people that were there stop, then that area's gonna go. And that's that's what happens. So it's a it's a ripple effect, you know. And and when then then, like if something happens at the breed, well, then you kind of go, are we gonna end up like the Lundan Huns and have all have the same issue that we can't breed away from because there is no away from? We're all together. And that's one thing that for a long time there was importing super hard, crazy expensive. You couldn't do it. Then importing got really easy, and everybody imported. Imports went like off the chain. There was on there, and now we've got a we've got some stuff. We've got some legislation and some stupidity that's going on there because of uh rescues, importing dogs with rabies, now that you can't import any dog until it's six months old or whatever, and had da-da-da-da. Well, that that's really tough on people who maybe not in a toy breed. You can get a toy dog six months, but you get anything other than a toy, and I mean that's a pretty big dog to try to go fly over and then now it after six months of age. So I mean, it certainly makes it more complicated. All of the stuff, I mean, it really does like right with our breed right now, the only thing that's keeping us going is the import. You know, and like I've got I've got uh I had I did uh three litters of frozen semen from from England. I've done um I've got a couple of stud dogs sired by it in the I mean that's the only thing that's keeping the genetic diversity at bay, you know, where I can can keep going for you know another set of but the people that I had been working with, but they're aging out quitting. So I mean, all of this, uh who's gonna take that spot? Where is that gonna come from? And that's where we have to have these plans in advance, like five, six years down the road. All right, we're gonna do this now, and then we're gonna hopefully we'll get a puppy back from this, and that'll get us another two, three years down the road, and then you can do this, because you have to keep thinking what's next, you know, because you're gonna be there that fast.
SPEAKER_00You really have to be planning like three to five years down the road, right? I mean, even like we do we talk about it, I think, a lot more in show dogs than we do, you know, in any other aspect of the business we talk about with show dogs is like, where's your next show dog? You know, you're you're you got you might have a dog out there that's two years old right now that's you know out there campaigning, doing some stuff, but what you know, you also got something coming up growing out that's a year old right now that's gonna ready to hit the shows in a year, you know, and it's like you always have that that cycle going. And I think a lot of the show people, we tend to stop at that mindset of our show dog, our show dog. But what about our breeding program? And what about, you know, a stud dog or a bitch, a different line, where are we gonna be at in five years? But even thinking, you know, just I I feel like I'm young enough at this point and I'm new enough in it to where it's like I'm super focused on the next 10 years and and things like that. But people that are 60, 70, you know, are who do you have or who are you mentoring to maybe take over your program or something like that? That when you're ready to step away from it, your gene pool and everything that you've accomplished or done and built doesn't just go away. You have somebody that can continue it on, you know, and I I feel like not many people are thinking about that. And it's easy just to be like, yeah, well, I don't want to breed dogs anymore, and I'm just gonna, you know, like uh I'm just gonna place, you know, all my my dogs in different places and and then and buy. And I think that's where you start seeing things like, you know, three people that are in a cluster that are running in a special club, and now two of them decide to retire and nobody fills in to take it over, and now you got one person, you know.
SPEAKER_02It happens really fast, and you know, so you have to make the decision. You have to make the decision. Are you going to be like the pharaohs and have your dogs buried with you? Or do you want the possibility of them to go on beyond your interest? Because it happens fast enough when you think about, you know, like especially in your stud dogs, when you start going, well, you know, 10, 15 years. On top of that, 10, 15 years on top of that. I mean, it just goes quickly, and then all of a sudden you go, you know, you're you're in your 70s, and then all of a sudden you go, you know, you start keeping dogs back and you go, are those dogs going to outlive me? And what's that, what's that look like? You know, and those are all things that you have to that's that's part of the working with your circle of people. You know, you work with your circle of people that as long as you know that say, okay, well, this is this person's at the end of the game, but still playing. We're gonna keep them involved on on how they can. And here's someone else that's new that's coming in, we're gonna bring them in. It's got it's kind of like a a little bit of a life cycle where you've got to have you have to have both. And otherwise it just abruptly stops, and that's done, and you know, that just boom, there's nothing else, and those are all gone. And that happens two, three, four times in a row, and then your whole breed goes on to we were in Paris one time at the World Dog Show, and they had a we were doing a canine health symposium, and they were talking about English toys and uh Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, and they were giving the world, the world statistics on litters for English toys worldwide. And they at that moment in time they said, well, they were on a an extinction path. And so you kind of go, wow, you know, if things and and I will say in the last 10 years, there's been some very prolific, active breeders, some very talented breeders that have have probably upped the game with them, and you see more English toys now than you had in the past. And they're probably it would be interesting to see where they are now on that path, on that trajectory. Are they are there are they making more? Are they coming back up? What what's the level? What do they need to have? And uh, and you know, because some breeds don't face this. There's just like they have diversity, they have numbers, they have people that want them, they just are they have, you know, they have parent clubs of uh three to six hundred, you know, and they have all the all they need, all the people, all the dogs they need. But smaller breeds, low entry breeds, you know, are are and what are the clubs to do about that? Because uh sometimes you throw things out there and it's like, well, now it's like global warming. What am I gonna do? Throw it, all right. I won't throw this bottle in the trash. I will d find something way to recycle it, you know, and my part of global warming. But what can we really do to help these numbers? And for me, I think that like the parent clubs need to work on like programs for encouraging their breeders to freeze their dogs so that those dogs might be available at a later date, say 10 years down the road, maybe they can with these dogs could their genetics come back, be used again for another for another decade. That could be really good. I think national clubs, parent clubs really need to think about that to encourage people. You have these dogs here, you have these ending result dogs of successful programs, they should be frozen, health tested, set aside to where they could be used again at a later date after these people are gone or no longer active. That's one thing that they could actually do by keeping genetic diversity. The females, that's trickier because their production cycle is show so short. We've talked about that before. You know, I hold a certain number of girls back every year because I have a certain number of girls that are going to be retiring every year to kind of keep my number where I want it to be. And so, you know, my replacement. My replay in the because I don't want them all in the same year. I don't want them all to age out together. Like the whole kennel is all retiring next year. You know, want the ste stair step it so that you have majority of young dogs, you have some that are you're growing out, some that are breeding now, some that are in the end part of their breeding. Those, you know, that's kind of like just like we're talking about the the five-year plan. That's that's that's that's a good example of it.
SPEAKER_00You can pinhole yourself in as a new, as a new breeder, you can pinhole yourself into that situation if you don't plan it out right. And that because that was like for me that that happens like four bitches the same age, you know, within a couple months of each other, because it's like you get start getting some puppies and some dogs to show and things like that, and then you realize like, wow, I have four bitches that are within a year old of each other. Cool, that's awesome, except they're all going to retire at the same time. You know, and thankfully you think about that at an early enough point where it's like you can hold puppies back out of their first breedings and you know, start planning to make that, but you can really pinhole yourself into that. One of the things you talked about in here is like parent clubs and and and you know, maybe doing something for long term with uh frozen semen and and things like that. One of the, you know, I talked we both talk to a lot of people, and one of the things that I keep hearing about is like is puppy sales and and maybe overbreeding and saturating the market. This might not be a popular opinion, but I tend to feel like our parent clubs should almost promote breeding more. I think that could be an aspect that could really help our breed. Do you agree with that or disagree? Like we need more we need more people breeding, not not worrying about puppy sales. Like I don't think puppy sales are the problem. I think we're not breeding enough.
SPEAKER_02As much as I'd like to let you hang on that one, you're right. The whole idea of being a parent is procreation, growth, you know, bringing on the next generation. That is parental. You know, it's not exclusionary, it's not, it's like it's growing the family, which and you know, because some of it's gonna work, some of it's not gonna work, there's gonna be setbacks. But absolutely, there should be encouraging breeding. They should be encouraging, you should not only, you know, if you can't have a litter yourself, then you know, maybe help somebody else have a litter with, you know, offer a stud service, do this, do that. Anything you can to get out there. If you can't sell your puppies or can't find homes, well, that's because you're lazy and you suck. That's really not have anything to do with the dogs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, I I hope everybody's listening to this point in the podcast because we're just hitting this shit now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're driving off in the weeds. But yeah, there there are people that want your dogs. You know, they they'll even deal with you. But it's they have to find you. What do they what do you expect? Them to be lurking around your backyard, you got puppies around you. Yeah, you've gotta, you've gotta put a little effort into that. And parent clubs should could probably help people a little bit with that, help them how to get their stuff out there so that people can find pet homes. Because that's the whole point to grow. You can't do this without making puppies. You have to have puppies. So if you get people with this mindset of, oh no, don't breed, you know, we gotta keep it really small. You know, don't whenever I hear someone's gonna like saying overbreeding, I go, I put them in a box. I'm like, yeah, I know you. I got your number. You know, you're you're that person. They overbreed, they're gonna saturate the market. There is no such, you know, there are tons of homes. There are people that are wanting dogs, there are people looking at it.
SPEAKER_00That phrase right there just lets me know that you don't actually care about the breed. You care about selling your puppies when you breed them. That that's all you care about, is you care about your your personal benefit.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's about it's about you, not about your breed. Right. That's it, because it's just about you. And I think we see a lot of people at the dog shows where it's about them, and they're more worried about what they're wearing and how cute they look, and they're gonna be sitting there with their little dog taking their selfie, like, oh, I'm so cute. Look at this, I got a ribbon. All right, and great. I mean, feed that monster ego. Okay, no judgment, but that doesn't help your breed. If you want to help your breed, then you go ahead and let those people that are there at the show walking around, let them hold your dog, talk to them for a minute, tell them how how great it is, you know. Be somewhat of a, you know, stop your uh magalomaniac moment for just a moment to other people on earth, maybe these will be the next great breeders. And there is the upside of it if you take the time to breed and put your dogs out with people, you know, you can afford to do that and you won't end up in Hoarderville and you'll do a better job with the dogs you have. All the upsides that you have to to do that. But there really is, you know, as long as you can care for them and you have facilities for them, the overbreeding is not a problem. I mean, if you can't care for them and you can't don't have facilities and you, you know, you don't have the whatever to to raise the puppies, well then of course you can't. But if you can, then you should. And and if you don't want to, that's okay. But don't you don't have to be that that uh that Nancy uh you know that you know, like, oh, don't do that. You know, that looks such and such. Oh, they're flooding the market. You know, you know, why can't we lose you in a flood? You know, that doesn't help, you know. It just doesn't help. It's non-productive. Can you overbreed in an endangered breed? I don't know how.
SPEAKER_00I don't know how I've been trying to I've been racking my brain on that and trying to figure out like when when you have statistics of a decline of registrations every single year for the last decade, like how can you overbreed it? We could we could overbreed in 2026 statistically comparative to an average and still be under what we did 10 years ago as a breed. Like, you know, there's there's a bigger picture. I I don't I don't know that it's possible to overbreed in a in an endangered breed. I mean, we need as much gene pool as we can get, right?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. I mean, you know, personally, I mean, now I I understand the mindset of well, if you keep it really small, it's easy to control. So if we keep our breed to a point where it only takes four for a major, then there can just be a major when I want there to be, because I'll enter four dogs and then we'll make a major. And I can control that. And if no one else has puppies, then when I get around to breeding, then everybody will take mine. I can control that. And if I if we keep people out of the clubs and and don't let them join, then it's easier to control that. I mean, I I get that, but I no part of that is better for the breed. That's just that's just when it's about people and they are you know, and they want to go ahead and take where they are at their point and s make that make somehow make that into a noble cause and it's not noble.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I don't think so. All right. Anything else you want to add to uh this conversation? I I feel like yeah. We ended on a really strong note, so yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think I think that we're I think that they kind of feel like breeders are being more emboldened. And I think that we feel like we can kind of talk about it more and a little bit if you know if someone doesn't like it, well, it's okay if they don't like it. They don't have to like it. It doesn't matter, you know. You can a little bit do what you want, and I think that maybe we can kind of like maybe we can cancel peer pressure and let people do what they want and and kind of you know do right for their animals, do right for their situation, and maybe maybe we can kind of do that. I saw, I don't know if you saw or not, I shared on Facebook. Um after judging, the Kennel Club put a little form in there where I was supposed to be um an official tittle tattle and say, Oh, I felt like the breeders needed to do, you know, some problem I saw with their dogs or whatever. And I I was so offended by that. I just thought to myself, like, these are the people who love and sacrifice for their breed. They are here to show their breed. They're they're spending their money, their time, their efforts, they're trying so hard. And you want me to go ahead and and and be negative on these people. These are the people you want to go ahead and have the have the little complaint sheet on. It's like that to me is so messed up. It's like you should be supporting these people because I gotta tell you, you knock the breeders off, and it's all over. You're done. You got nothing. Wait, what are the what are the people that are opposing? What are the PETA people gonna do without the breeders? Good lord. Are they gonna have to work on pollution and feeding the homeless or something awful like that? So much more fun to oppose the breeders.
SPEAKER_00They're gonna have to go to you know, like AI company. People now are like starting to like freak out because every time you use AI, it does something with water. Like, what?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's just like you know I mean, yeah, that but the breeders are the ones that make the shows happen. They pay for the judges, they pay for the venue, they pay for all of it. Every bit of it. So without them, there is no party. And so that that needs to be those people need to be celebrated, they'd be pushed, promoted, upheld, and supported. And and if, you know, because the way I look at it, they're all good breeders. Some are doing better than others, and the ones that aren't doing as well, maybe they need some encouragement. Maybe they need some support. Maybe if they have the interest, maybe we need to help them to do better. How about that for a thought?
SPEAKER_00I think that's a that's an amazing thought because I think sometimes we look at breeders and we're just we we might classify them because they don't they don't breed and take a dog to an AKC confirmation show. They just breed and sell puppies, and so we look at them and like it's just a backyard breeder. And it's like, but how can you make their pro how could how could you help their program be better? You know, they might be breeding more dogs than you're breeding and actually having a bigger benefit on the breed than you are because you're breeding a dog every once in a while and taking a dog to a dog show, you think you're better. You know, it's like that's not always the case.
SPEAKER_02Maybe we need to include them. Maybe we need to get them more involved. Maybe we should invite them in the tent. What was that old saying? It's better to be uh inside the tent peeing out than outside the tent peeing in. You know, maybe we need to get more people in our tent peeing out to be better for everything.
SPEAKER_00Maybe, you know. Maybe so. You know, probably don't need to run around like chickens with their head cut off, you know, like, oh my god, our breed's dying, numbers are down, blah, blah, blah, you know, all the things like that. But I think it's definitely something to be conscious of because trends don't lie. And, you know, if you can continue a trend, yeah. And if you if you keep continue to follow that trend and those numbers, eventually, you know, when you're losing 10% every year, eventually you don't have 10% to lose, you know. So it might be 10 years from now, but but you know, kind of like we talked about this whole episode, like you gotta be planning 10 years ahead. So how do you stop the bleeding? How do you stop and that trend line going down and get it to at least level out and maybe even start you know going back up the other way? So good episode, you know, good conversation here. Hopefully everybody enjoyed it and took something away from it. Uh, if you t if you take anything away, it's it's really that you just need to breed more, you know. That's the that's the thing. We need breeders breeding more. There you go. You know, so all right. We got uh, you know, good things coming. If you're still listening to this episode, make sure that you give us a thumbs up and and and like it, follow us on Facebook. We have uh Scott Tony joining us again next week. He wants to give more tips and tricks about how he prepares for the day of on the day of a dog show, grooming tips, tricks, things like that. He's got a whole list of his share.
SPEAKER_02Once we get all of his tips and tricks, we'll be we'll be beating his butt every time we show. We'll get all the secrets.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Exactly. I'm looking forward to that. Me too. You know, and then uh working on getting uh Rowan, uh uh, I'm gonna say a world-renowned uh Japanese chin handler, you know. Handled the winningest Japanese chin, I I think currently has maybe the number one rank Japanese chin. I'd have to look at rankings, but pretty close out there right now. So we're gonna get her on here in the next couple of episodes, too, so we can hear from from her. So we got some really good things coming in the works, so make sure you're subscribed and following along with us so you know when these episodes come out. Um, but other than that, thanks for uh listening to this episode of the Tack Box Podcast. We will talk to you guys all very, very soon. Have a great day.