No.
I know a couple of really good breeders that will place a litter there if they have already sold the competition puppies and/or if they didn’t have a waiting list large enough. Sometimes they might have a litter bigger than expected.
That said, I also know some breeders who would never post there, because while they would be willing to sell a puppy to a “pet home”, they often get people who have done very little other than wake up one morning and decide to get a cute puppy because they saw on in a commercial or something.
So - as said above - yes, there might be some quality breeders there, and if so they will identify themselves as such (AKC Breeder of Merit, member of parent club, etc.) Or, look for either the parent club website or their Facebook page, and/or FB groups and ask for a recommendation.
Our breed club is so archaic that you won’t find much on our website (sadly, don’t get me started), but if you find one or two of the breed Facebook groups and ASK for a recommendation for a GOOD breeder you will get hooked up with one. For example - “I’m looking to talk to a breeder who is active in their local or national club, and does health checks etc.,” and/or “puts titles on their dogs and does health checks”.
You would be surprised that in some breeds - everyone knows everyone. I could hook you up with a top breeder in about 5 minutes - anywhere in the US, as well as some connections in Canada and Australia. And a lot of my breed friends know people in other breeds, so I’ve been able to find people breeders of other breeds pretty quickly as well.
Super good point. Top, top breeders (in terms of quality and competition success) very often have a litter sold before it hits the ground, so they don’t need to do much advertising.
I also forgot to mention that the AKC Marketplace listings are not free. I think it costs $35 for one 90-day listing. AKC also offers a subscription plan ($37 signup fee and $12/month or $199 year, unlimited 90-day listings). Some breeders only list when they have a litter available, while others are on the subscription plan. Also, breeders who are retired or semi-retired from breeding don’t list there at all anymore. The breeder that helped me find my Welshie is mostly retired from breeding - she only co-breeds and those litters are carefully planned and pretty much spoken for before they are born. When I was looking for my dog a few years ago, she (thankfully) had an AKC Marketplace subscription listing that hadn’t yet expired, which is how I found out about her.
As others have mentioned, a great way to find a quality, well-bred dog of a specific breed is to find the website of the national breed club and start contacting people listed there. It’s certainly worth the time and effort to find a puppy/adult dog from a quality breeding program.
Ah, right. Same comment though - why? I guess so they can make up a cutesie name (as S1969 said earlier).
I do wonder what breed clubs are actually putting in the work to have a usable social media or web presence. My local club has a useful website but I’m 90% certain it’s the work of two people and they live and breathe promoting good competition dogs, if they moved away or to another breed, I don’t know what would happen (But I will say, there is a designated breeder and rescue referral person for the club to connect people looking for dogs or future litters - which I think is great)
I hope it was a barnyard oopsie.
Why either of them was intact is my question
You’d think the conscientious breeders would step up and make themselves known and approachable
A lot of breed club members are old. Purebred dog fancy is no longer as popular as it once was, so there are fewer younger members. Which often means clubs are set in their ways, and “doing things the way they always did” because “it’s always worked before.”
It’s very frustrating and definitely contributes to stagnation of the club.
I think I said upthread that my breed club was in the process of transferring “loaner copies” of breed VHS tapes to “loaner copies” of DVDs. LOL. You know, instead of making one available digitally.
We also couldn’t move forward on a membership database some years ago because the finance committee chair thought if it was possible for members to join by providing a credit card, it might be possible for them to take out money, too. So, we continue to use an Access database that was built about 20 years ago, and is as functional as a shoebox with index cards in it. (Literally).
It’s slow progress, but we might be making some headway with our last election.
Most good preservation breeders are well-known in their breeds, so they don’t need to have a web presence to sell puppies. And/or have no interest in a web presence to “sell” puppies because they want to (and can) place them “in the circle” of people who are known or referred to them.
In my old training club I was - at the time - one of two or three members under 30, the website was hideous and no one liked it except the 97-year old whose son? designed it. I’m regularly still one of the youngest at obedience trials and I’m in my 30s now.
I’ve had conversations with other millennial competitors and we’re lost with what needs to change, we’re in because often we’re type As who grew up with these kinds of dogs and what to do right by them and happen to have the time and funds but our peers are under such time crunches they don’t have time to train much less compete or they just can’t afford to get involved beyond bare minimum training. I minimized my effort with my local breed club because I had time to work with my dog or to help with the breed club, not both and I have to live with my dog so she won. Adding the All-American designation helped get some folks in but I imagine the folks who buy into the designer breeds don’t understand why they can’t be recognized by their made-up name and could get upset about that (although, I see far more bully-mixes at rally/o trials than what I suspect are designer so maybe just different audience).
(A library I worked with during my museum grad school days used Access for their research collection, it killed me to have to work with it and I like working in databases)
Someone tried to talk me into that mix/mess about two years ago - I was unaware of Auggies and actually quite disgusted.
Well me and my FOUR HUNDRED dollar Polo will gladly take this walk of shame.
He rescued me.
He is my Hero
I was speaking of an Auggie - I don’t care for THAT mix. I prefer a purebred Aussie or purebred Corgi.
I know nothing about your $400.00 Hero.
Hear hear, so true. “My” breeder took a hiatus from breeding and it’s just been like pulling teeth to connect with another. Because they don’t need fresh buyers at all, they have plenty of homes available through their own established relationships.
That wasn’t aimed at you intentionally.
I’m clearly outnumbered on this thread.
And my Hero needs to go potty, according to his insistent poodle self
I’m wholeheartedly a proponent of “good breeders” for many reasons, and not subsidizing the ones that are going for “cute” and “Christmas puppies” etc. That said, my last three dogs have been “of undetermined origin” (current is supposedly a Jack/Beagle cross – and yes I am well aware of the danger in that one!!) My last little dog was definitely “not my type” – but she saved me too. And she was brilliant and adorable. Probably an “Amish min pin” (oversized, front legs looked like quotation marks) – but she taught me many many things. I’m still a GSD girl, and I’m not into cloning – but a teensy weensy part of me would like to recreate her, and I know that isn’t possible. Regardless of the origin story, love the dog you have. There is no reason not to.
I agree but think that this is one of the biggest mistakes being made by breeders. Even if they use their page solely for education platforms, we need good breeders to have professional websites where they showcase:
(a) what a good representation of the breed looks like
(b) how responsible breeders further the breed
© how beautifully produced dogs make amazing pets (photos, stories, etc.)
(d) either how to get in contact with the breeder to get on their waitlist OR how to locate other responsible breeders.
Furthermore, I know so many breeders who pride themselves in being tech illiterate and only responding to the people willing to pursue for weeks (if not months) to connect.
The bar is so high and then we have the audacity to be shocked when people fall for the well advertised puppy mill. Going to any conformation show will make it abundantly clear that this is a graying sport. Breeders who genuinely care about the breed need to be willing to invest in 21st century technology and be part of educating the next generation.
I agree with you, but it doesn’t even need to be that complicated. Probably the most high-end hunter barns in this area have given up their websites for Facebook pages. Much much cheaper.
But this just brings us back full circle to the problem of the breeder gatekeeping that goes on and how hard it is for a regular family to find a good family dog (and so they end up with designer dogs, badly bred dogs, or rescue mutts).
I agree in general but I think the parent club really needs to take the lead on this, and some of them do a great job.
This is one of my biggest arguments with my breed club (well, ok, there are a lot of them), but they essentially push puppy buyers into the arms of crap breeders because we don’t make it easy to find the good ones.
That should be one of the main roles of the breed club. And they can be the “gate keepers” to some extent, so that individual breeders don’t have to respond to emails all the time, whether they have puppies or not. I know some breeders who do, but they get burned out. And I know quite a number of breeders who don’t, because they have long since given up on trying to “educate the masses.” It’s an unfair burden to place on individual breeders.
I do agree about the websites vs. Facebook. Some of the breeders I know have nice webpages but have more updates on their FB than their website.
Amen. It’s really time for breed clubs to recognize that. They think we’re cutting edge because we have a Facebook page. But we use it for sharing club news, like running orders for national events. Because the website is so old and outdated. I hate to say it but there are conversations where we talk about waiting for people to die so we can take over the board.