How To Recognize Ethical Breeders – Reputable Breeders, Part 1

If you’ve ever been looking for a breeder and wondered “Is this an ethical breeder?”, then this post is for you. But that can be a loaded question. In my opinion, ethical breeders do all testing required by their national breed club, regardless of their membership status. If you are not doing the proper health testing for your breed, you are an unethical breeder. To read more on health testing, check out my guide to OFA health testing.

In this post, I discuss different types of breeders and how to know if they are ethical or not. I’m dividing dog breeders into four main types, but it’s really more of a Venn diagram wherein there is some overlap between types of breeders. The four main types are:

Scummy backyard breeders know they are preying on your ignorance.

Puppy Mills

Most people generally know what puppy mills are, but they don’t seem to realize that they still exist and are in fact alive and well. I’ll define puppy mill anyway: A puppy mill is a dog breeding operation producing puppies at a near constant rate for a large profit. Usually, puppy mills have multiple breeds and the dogs live in deplorable conditions. Some mill dogs never leave a kennel – unless they get rescued. Puppy mills breed their bitches on every heat cycle, starting with their first one. Zero health testing is done to ensure these animals are fit for breeding. They do not provide support to puppy owners after purchase, they just take your money and run.

Puppy mills used to provide puppies to pet stores to make money. However, as pet stores have declined, the mills have adapted. Puppy mills now often use brokers or websites like hoobly, kijiji/ebay, Good Dog, and Craigslist. If you have bought a puppy through one of these outlets, that dog probably came from a puppy mill, and you just funded the abuse of other animals. Harsh, but true.

Some puppy mills try to masquerade as reputable breeders by using a snazzy website. They might even have AKC registered dogs. But that website will be totally void of the important information: AKC registered names and numbers and/or links to their dogs’ OFA pages.

The thing that baffles me is that sometimes puppy mills charge higher prices than the reputable breeders – AND PEOPLE PAY THEM! Like… what the actual Frenchie?

Nice Does NOT Equal Ethical

In the Midwest, a lot of puppy mills are owned and run by Amish families. Y’all, these folks may seem nice, but they do not have the dogs’ nor your best interest in mind. Puppies are a cash crop for them. The quality of their other products, like furniture and leather for instance, does not extend to the puppies. Don’t fall for it.

Commercial Breeders

Commercial breeders are large operations that are inspected by the USDA, state, and local authorities, and sometimes the AKC. The inspections ensure that local, state, and federal regulations are being followed. These regulations typically decree that the animals are treated humanely with appropriate housing, breed appropriate exercise, proper nutrition, and veterinary care. Also called commercial kennels, these operations often have full time staff for the care and training of their breeding animals. This care is the primary difference between commercial kennels and puppy mills. However, selling puppies is a business for them and the bottom line matters.

Commercial Ethical Breeders

Generally, commercial kennels don’t do health testing. Health testing costs extra and impacts their profit margins. However, some do full or partial health testing per breed club recommendations. It is unlikely that any of the animals are shown in any type of competition, but not impossible. There are a few commercial kennels out there that have well-bred dogs and they will at least put a conformation championship on their stud dogs. As far as places for getting a purebred puppy, you could do worse (see above).

Unfortunately, it is very unlikely that you will receive any sort of support from a commercial breeder after you take the puppy home. They probably also don’t care whether you get the right puppy or even the right breed for your lifestyle. It’s still a for profit business, and you are just a customer.

Backyard Breeders

Honest BYBs

I’m calling this first BYB subtype “honest” because they have no idea that they are not breeding ethically. Honest BYBs are not intentionally doing things the wrong way, they just don’t know any better. Honest BYBs are just Pet People that really love their dogs and want to make more of them. Sometimes they even breed specifically to keep one for themselves. And honestly, that part isn’t so different from responsible breeders. Hopefully they get to keep a few extra bucks while they’re at it.

Other times, they buy dogs specifically with the intention of breeding them because they think the term “hobby breeder” means that breeding is the hobby. Spoiler Alert: It doesn’t. However, they either don’t do any sort of health testing for their breed(s) at all, or they don’t do the correct health testing for their breed(s). They probably don’t even know that national breed clubs exist. Honest BYBs are honest because they just don’t know what they don’t know. They aren’t necessarily bad people, but they are absolutely unethical breeders.

Nice Does NOT Equal Ethical Part 2

On the flip side, if honest BYBs truly cared about their animals and the puppies they produce, they would do enough research before breeding to know that they should be doing health testing. Most of them are genuinely nice people and they do love their dogs, but that is not enough. You can’t love your dogs into being healthy when it comes to genetics.

The Risk to You

Anyway, the puppies produced by honest BYBs are extremely risky. It’s extremely likely that their dogs came from another BYB, a commercial kennel, or even from a puppy mill. The risk of bringing home a puppy with double hip dysplasia for example, is much higher than if you had gotten a puppy from a true hobby breeder or even a commercial breeder doing health testing. In my breed, there is also a significant risk that you could bring home a puppy with double elbow dysplasia. Both conditions can be extremely painful for the dog and very costly to you.

The thing about honest BYBs is that they tend to encourage other people to irresponsibly breed. It’s a vicious cycle of unethical breeding: someone gets a dog on full AKC registration, breeds said dog, sells puppies on full registration, and those owners breed their dogs, and so on and so forth.

Scummy Backyard Breeders

On the other hand, this type of BYBs know exactly what they’re doing. I call them “scummy” because they willfully choose not to do the right thing. These BYBs know they should be health testing. They know they are lying on their carefully marketed and manicured websites, and they know they are preying on your ignorance.

Some examples that come to mind are:

• “English Cream” Golden Retriever breeders (see The Truth About “English Cream” Goldens)
• Silver Lab breeders (again, not a thing – actually a mixed breed according to The Labrador Retriever Club),
• Blue Merle Pembroke Welsh Corgi breeders (definitely a mixed breed)
• any breeder that breeds specifically for color
• intentionally breeds mutts (doodles, “designer dogs”, etc.).

The Deception is Real

Some of these breeders will even do DNA testing because it’s cheap, and they can pass it off as doing proper health testing to the unsuspecting buyer. They intentionally exclude testing for hip and elbow dysplasia and other issues that can’t be detected with a DNA test. And do you know why they don’t do health testing? It impacts their profit margin, just like a commercial breeder or a puppy mill.

It’s not just the cost of the testing that is the issue here, it’s the likelihood that their breeding animals could fail. The loss of one bitch to a failed clearance could be upwards of $100,000 in lost revenue – and that’s if they charge what ethical breeders charge. Most scummy BYBs charge much, much more.

Going forward, if you find a breeder that openly brags about their DNA testing but doesn’t do any other type of health testing required by the breed’s national parent club, then run for the hills. They are scamming you and probably charging you double or triple what an actual responsible breeder would charge. And don’t get me wrong, I am all for DNA testing, but it must be in conjunction with other health testing.

Once they take your money, scummy BYBs don’t give two Shih Tzus about you or the puppy they just sold you. What differentiates BYBs from puppy mills is that their breeding animals are well loved and receive proper care. They know and do just enough of the right things to make uninformed puppy buyers think they are ethical.

The Coattails of Ethical Breeders

These scummy BYBs are also the reason that it is extremely difficult to start a breeding program with well bred dogs from true hobby breeders. Have you ever seen a website advertising “Champion Lines” or something similar? Yea, a scummy BYB probably scammed their way into getting a well-bred dog with actual AKC champion parents just so they can advertise their litters as being from “Champion lines”. If you deep dive into the pedigrees, sometimes the AKC champions are several generations back.

When a true hobby breeder gets scammed like this, they tend to adopt a “fool me twice” mentality. I don’t blame them, but it does suck to be an actual honest person trying to cross The Chasm into the Dog World. You can thank the scummy BYBs that went to a reputable breeder asking for a show dog and a mentor. Then once they got their puppy on full AKC registration, they ran for the hills and started pumping out puppies.

Red Flags

The above definitions are all well and good, but here are some red flags marking unethical breeders:

• Breeding dogs without health testing (all of the above)
• Unregistered dogs (puppy mill, BYB)
• Hiding AKC registration names and/or numbers (all of the above)
• Selling dogs on full registration to just anyone (puppy mill, BYB)
• Selling dogs on full registration for a higher price than limited registration (puppy mill, BYB)
• Not allowing people to see where the puppies are raised (puppy mill)
• Not allowing people to meet the mother of the puppies (puppy mill)
• Hiding the lack of health testing with DNA testing (all of the above)
• Snazzy websites that hide information or outright lie (all of the above)
• Breeding for color (all of the above)
• Breeding mixed breeds on purpose (all of the above)
• Doing it only for the money (all of the above)
• Not competing in any type of dog competition (puppy mill, BYB, sometimes commercial)
• Having breeding animals in guardian homes (BYB, not the same as a co-ownership for a hobby breeder)

This is not an all-inclusive list of things that unethical breeders do incorrectly, but most unethical breeders do at least some things listed above.

Ethical Breeders

As I said in the beginning, the line between ethical and unethical lies with health testing. Either you do proper health testing, or you don’t. I’m going to break the ethical breeder club into two pieces: the bare minimum and the true hobby breeder.

Ethical Breeders, but Only Just

At a minimum and I mean bare minimum, breeders that fall into this category will do breed club recommended health testing. Ethical breeders doing health testing but nothing else in the Dog World are just BYBs that do health testing. I don’t really mean this as harshly as it sounds because they are still ethical, and they did the research. They care enough about their own dogs and the puppies they produce to stack the deck in the puppies’ favor. These breeders live in the overlap between the ethical breeding circle and the BYB circle.

The True Hobby Breeder

The true hobby breeder, however, has different motivations entirely. They go above and beyond health testing and do stuff with their dogs. Hobby breeders breed for a purpose, and that purpose is not to make money – although it’s nice if they do because gets invested straight back into the dogs. The true hobby breeder competes in conformation, obedience, rally, agility, field, herding, tracking, lure coursing, dock diving, barn hunt, etc. The hobby is the competition and the preservation of the breed. The hobby is not breeding.

True hobby breeders are real-deal Dog People, and their dogs mean much more to them than the almighty dollar. In addition to health testing, DNA testing, and competing, hobby breeders do their utmost to prepare their puppies for their future homes. They do early neurological stimulation (ENS) and their puppies are very well socialized. Puppies are also temperament tested so that each puppy can go home to the best family for that puppy. Speaking of the family, hobby breeders research their buyers probably more than the buyers research them.

Hobby breeders are there for you for the life of that puppy or longer. They are happy to answer any questions you may have; however silly they may seem. Basically, responsible breeders do “all the things” to make the best puppies they can, to ensure those puppies have the best possible lives, and they continue to love each pup as if it had never left their home. Every dog is welcomed back into the breeder’s home if the family can no longer keep it. Responsible breeders keep dogs out of shelters, and many even contribute to rescue efforts.

Hobby breeders are stewards of their breed, preserving and protecting it for the future.

Green Flags

Green flags are things that ethical breeders do that set them apart from the others. Again, this is not an all-inclusive list. There are so many little things that ethical breeders do that it would be impossible to list them all.

• Breed appropriate health testing
• NOT hiding AKC registration names and/or numbers
• Breeding for a purpose other than money
• Competing with the dogs
• Temperament testing
• Early neurological stimulation
• Socialization and early training
• Matching each puppy to the right family
• Dogs are structurally sound and meet their breed standard
• NOT breeding for color
• NOT breeding mixed breeds
• Selling pet puppies on limited registration
• Breeder provides support for the life of the dog and beyond

Ethical Breeders for the Win

I’m sure you noticed that there are a lot more red flags than there are green flags. Y’all, it really isn’t that hard to just do the right thing. If unethical breeders put as much effort into good breeding practices as they do into their snazzy websites, this post wouldn’t need to exist. It’s like a college kid spending more effort cheating than it would take to study.

Now that you know what to look for and have read my post on health testing, you can make an educated decision on where to buy your next purebred puppy.

Choosing between the different categories of breeders really comes down to the following things:

1. The level of health risk with which you are comfortable.
2. Your personal animal welfare ethics.
3. How your puppy is raised.
4. Whether you want support from the breeder.
5. Money.

The Love of Money is the Root of all Evil

I didn’t really talk much about money in the paragraphs above, but I want to say this on the subject: Cost does not equal quality in dogs. Let me say louder for the people in the back:

Cost does not equal quality in dogs.

Yep, you read that right. Puppy mills, scummy BYBs and even some commercial breeders often charge more than ethical hobby breeders. Sometimes the price is double or even triple what ethical breeders charge. The honest BYBs tend to be all over the place. You might be able to find a purebred, AKC registered Golden for $500 or $2,500 (or more) from some BYBs.

The hobby breeder, however, commonly charges between $3,000 and $4,500 depending on the region. At least for Golden Retrievers. The East and West coasts are more expensive than the Midwest and Southeast. This directly reflects cost of living and cost of veterinary care in their region. Trust that you are not getting ripped off by a hobby breeder because they very rarely make a profit on their puppies and profit is never their reason for breeding.

Note: there are affiliate links included in this post. If you make purchase through the link, I may make commission.