The Unethical Breeders are the majority. There is no known hard data to account for them all - mostly because people who insist it's "just one litter" deny that they are breeders - but going off of anecdotal evidence it would be safe to say the numbers are around 4-1 at a minimum (and some fear much higher.)

The Unethical Breeders have two main varieties - what is commonly called a Puppy Mill and what are commonly called Backyard Breeders:

Puppy Mills are characterized by a large-scale operation of dozens and even hundreds of dogs, purebred and mixed, kept in close quarters, often with cages stacked. There is no grooming, little veterinary care or access to normal things such as grass, fresh food and clean water. These facilities often boast of being USDA-approved. Dogs are bred until their bodies are literally worn out and they are then killed. In a puppy mill, a dog's only purpose is breeding to create cute puppies that pull on the heartstrings of potential families.

Backyard Breeders are characterized as an individual or family breeding a dog or dogs (not in the same quantity as Puppy Mills) with no regard to quality or true temperament. The dogs are purebred and mixed and are bred based on the anticipated monetary value of any resulting puppies in addition to being bred for anthropomorphic qualities; "Oh, Muffy is so sweet and timid, she wouldn't hurt a fly!" or "Bruiser is an excellent guard dogs, barks at everyone because he wants to keep us safe and loves us so much!" Backyard breeders tend to think that Responsible Breeders - those who show and/or work their dogs - are silly and pretentious and over-the-top when it comes to dogs. Backyard breeders believe that the phrase "shots and wormed" equals the true health testing that is necessary for breeding healthy dogs; they tend to insist that their dogs are healthy, have never been sick and produce beautiful healthy puppies, all the while ignoring what the actual deciding factors for true health are. Any illness the dog develops that a Responsible Breeder would recognize as congenital (inherited) is explained away as "old age" or some other common, normal cause.

How do puppies from these situations find their way into unsuspecting buyers' hands?

Dogs from puppy mills are generally sold to middlemen - brokers who buy and sell to pet stores. To be clear - when you see adoption groups in pet stores, those are dogs that have been rescued and rehabilitated and are being offered for adoption/sale to a new family. They are not from a puppy mill; at least, not directly. What we are discussing are the traditional pet stores with big, inviting windows and discount price stickers, enticing people to gaze at the cute little puppies. Employees are told lies and further encouraged to lie regarding the origin of these dogs. Papers are often falsified and because many of the dogs from puppy mills cannot be registered with the AKC, they are registered with a fake, made-up registry such as the Continental Kennel Club (CKC) or the American Pet Registry Inc. (APRI) or some other baloney registry that will happily register your plaid couch as a border collie if you send them money.

Some brokers will sell to people who operate out of their house. These people will advertise litters often through Craigslist and often the newspaper, can never show you the parents or any sort of reputable paperwork, and often use throw-away cell phones so that their activities cannot be traced by humane organizations. In the case of the now-famous Amish puppy mills, they are sold through brokers and often directly to the public. Come to the farm, they'll bring up the pups and you pick one, never seeing the actual conditions these animals are raised in.

Backyard breeders operate primarily through Craigslist, the newspaper, and any other free avenue they can find. A free hosted website is popular for displaying the puppies and using SEO (search engine optimization) to their advantage. Since it is thought 'traditional' to find a new dog through the newspaper, potential families still don't think anything of opening Sunday's edition and searching for a new best friend that way.

So what exactly is so terrible about buying from a Backyard Breeder or a Puppy Mill?

If you are still not understanding why puppy mills are horrendous, we advise you to not take our word for it but to continue searching the internet for examples and photos from puppy mills. We also advise you to not view these before eating. There are organizations devoted to shutting down puppy mills, often child groups of the ASPCA and the HSUS (Humane Society of the United States.)

The issue of backyard breeders is multi-faceted. The worst thing about backyard breeders is, frankly, the ignorance. Ignorance of how their actions help to keep rescues and pounds in business. Ignorance of how their actions contribute to spreading disease and ill health in the dog population. Ignorance of how their actions contribute to ever-increasing instances of poor and unstable temperaments in dogs, dooming them to death when they never had a chance to begin with.

Consider the following situation:

You have young children and you want to add a dog to the family. You decide that a puppy could grow up with your children and you begin looking for one. You've settled on, let's say, a golden retriever. You always thought that people got dogs from the newspaper so, without doing additional research, you check the paper. You see this advertisement:

"For sale! AKC Golden retriever puppies. 6 weeks. Shots and wormed. Boys and girls, cute and snuggly and ready to go! $1000 males, $1200 females. Call 777-777-7777."

You think, "Excellent, there's our new puppy!" You visit the breeder, who has the mother as well. The puppies are indoors and cute and fluffy. You're handed the AKC paperwork and as you drive home with the puppy, you mentally pat yourself on the back for picking out a cute, happy little AKC registered purebred puppy that you just know your family is going to love.

The puppy is boisterous and happy and your children love him. You think he's growing normally and when he's around 11 months old - after he's a solid member of the family and you love him to pieces - you notice that while he still loves running, he's being a bit cautious about putting weight on his hind right leg. You decide to take him to the vet, thinking that he's likely sprained something from bouncing around.

You notice that the veterinarian is quiet and thoughtful during the examination. After deliberation he insists on performing an x-ray and some bloodwork to check further. You're a bit worried but you think, 'I bought from a breeder who breeds AKC purebred dogs, I'm sure he's fine.'

Except he's not fine. What your vet discovers is that not only does your precious puppy have moderate hip dysplasia, he also has osteosarcoma. Hip issues and bone cancer is most decidedly what you did not want to hear. You are distraught and wonder what this means. Is it treatable? Will he live? He's not even 1 year old - will this affect him the rest of his life? And then you start thinking about money. How much is this going to cost you? After all, your dog is a member of your family and you all love him to pieces and you would do anything to make him feel better. The vet comes back with an estimate of $2,500 to correct his hip dysplasia and he recommends a specialist that you can talk to regarding the cancer. Your heart sinks when you realize that you either need to sell some stuff or get a 2nd job to pay for this . . . . or let this fuzzy member of your family live in medicated pain until his quality of life diminishes, and then have him put to sleep.

Think this is a far-fetched situation? We wish we could say that it is. We wish we could say this sort of thing doesn't happen, and that it doesn't happen with increasing frequency. But we're interested in talking about the truth, about tough issues and irresponsible behavior. Only by exposing these things can we ever hope to educate and move forward.

But in the situation you just described, the breeder sounded like an average breeder!

Then let's discuss what is representative of a Responsible Breeder. To put it plainly, a Responsible Breeder breeds to preserve and improve the breed. At a minimum, you can expect the following:

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Breeds purebred dogs that are registered with a reputable registry.

In the United States the all-breed registries are the AKC (American Kennel Club) or the UKC (United Kennel Club.) For rare dogs not yet recognized by either registry that would be the FCI (Federation Cynologique Internationale). In the UK that would be the KC (Kennel Club) and in Canada it's the Canadian Kennel Club (CKC). Keep in mind that these are the original all-breed registries, not breed-specific. For many working breeds, there are breeders who prefer to register with their breed club and not an all-breed registry due to the disconnect that can be found between primarily show breeders and primarily working breeders.

There are a lot of fraudulent registries that serve no real purpose other than to accept dogs and breeders who have been banned from the reputable agencies, generally due to unethical breeding practices, outright lying, and other fraudulent behavior. A few examples of those registries are the NKC (National Kennel Club), UKCI (United Kennel Club International), APA (American Purebred Association), in addition to the CKC and APRI mentioned above.

Be involved with the breed at some level, whether it's national or local.

This means that they are a member in good standing of their breed club (each breed has a parent breed club with regional and often local chapters.) Responsible Breeders work, show, or are otherwise involved with their dogs. This further means that they communicate with other breeders and are aware of what's going on with their breed as a whole and within the nation concerning showing, working, health and temperament.

Is able to talk your ear off about the breed.

Not only are they intimately aware of every one of their own dog's intricacies, but they can speak at length about temperament issues, health issues and training. Getting a puppy from a Responsible Breeder is every bit them interviewing you as it is you interviewing them. They should be able to satisfactorily answer any question you throw at them and will not hesitate to show you any paperwork on their dogs.

Speaking of paperwork, they will talk with you and show you in their contract how they deal with health issues.

This is vital for several reasons. All Responsible Breeders aim to breed healthy dogs first and foremost. They screen their dogs for diseases known in the breed and even some that are rare. Any Responsible Breeder will have their dogs checked, at a minimum, for hips, elbows, and eyes, and most go beyond that and check thyroid, hearing and heart. These are not tests performed by your local vet, though some of the data used in determining the health status will be. What these tests do is determine the dog's likelihood of developing things such as juvenile cataracts, cardiomyopathy, hip and elbow dysplasia, retinal dysplasia, portosystemic shunt, hyper- and hypothyroidism, and so forth.

Responsible Breeders furthermore have a clause in their contract stating precisely what they cover and for how long; this can range from a year to 5 years for congenital disease, and the length of coverage generally depends on the breed and how afflicted that breed is as a whole. As you can see, the list of possible hereditary disease is quite extensive, as we've only covered the tip of the iceberg here, and this is a major reason behind our pleas to only buy dogs from tested parents. The alternative, as demonstrated in the story above, is heartbreaking and expensive.

Breeds with a purpose.

Responsible Breeders are breeding for the whole package - good looks, a good brain, and good health. Responsible Breeders breed to produce terrific working dogs and terrific companion dogs. There does tend to be a division in many working breeds - you'll see things like 'working line' and 'show line', which really just means that the breeder is choosing to emphasize certain aspects of the breed standard. You can find breeders who breed 'dual-purpose dogs' and that is becoming more popular. Regardless, the nice side effect of breeding for the best is that in any given litter, you'll have a few star pupils who are the well-rounded type that exemplify the future of the breed, and the rest of litter are healthy, happy and good-looking pups who perfectly fit the pet niche. Please understand that we're not saying that companion dogs are somehow less worthy than a dog who has excellent form and drive. Every dog has a purpose and in any litter you'll have fine examples of all personality and drive types and therefore the dogs will be happier playing to their strengths, just like people do.

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That is what you can expect from a Responsible Breeder, and many go beyond even that. There is much discussion about mandatory spay/neuter, mandatory diet requirements, and a lot of other details that some Responsible Breeders feel the need to dictate. It is our viewpoint that those are extraneous details and that the most important points are listed above. The desired end result is to produce a well-rounded dog, fully capable of performing its duties, genetically healthy, and physically representative of the breed.

So what can we ascertain from that ad? We'll go point by point.

"For sale! AKC Golden retriever puppies. 6 weeks. Shots and wormed. Boys and girls, cute and snuggly and ready to go! $1000 males, $1200 females. Call 777-777-7777."

AKC ~ Being AKC registered is just the starting point. The AKC takes it on good faith that you are breeding responsibly and generally only investigates if it notices problems with your paperwork or notices too-close breedings. Tons of dogs are AKC registered and it is not indicative of quality at all. It is simply verifying that the dog is purebred with a verifiable purebred lineage.

6 weeks ~ In many states it is illegal to sell puppies under the age of 8 weeks. Many working breeds are sold before that mark because they are sold to people who know how to mold a puppy from that young an age; they would rather the pup associate with them instead of their litter, to help form a stronger bond. It is not a popular stance with many companion breeds and dogs in general if they are not used for working purposes and since pups do require some extra care during those 2 weeks the age regulation was enacted. Check your state to see if the 8-week regulation is in place. Regardless of the law, 8 weeks is still the accepted time that a pup goes home with their new family, in the majority of situations.

Shots and Wormed ~ This is added to give the appearance of stellar veterinary care. A dog receiving inoculations and being wormed is the bare minimum of care, it is not 'good health care.' A veterinarian cannot look at your dog, feel him over, take his temperature and announce, "Yes, he's got cataracts and a heart issue!" There are specialties that vets go to school for and complete continuing education in and beyond that certain tests have to be undertaken. What you want to see in your dog's paperwork are acronyms like OFA, CERF, BAER, PennHip. These connotate actual health screenings.

$1000 males, $1200 females ~ If nothing else seemed off to you, then this certainly should. Why are females more expensive than males? Hint: Males and females from a Responsible Breeder are priced the same. Females from Unethical Breeders are sold for more money because the ignorant assume that the buyer will behave like them and use the female's genitals for monetary gain. Dogs are not ATMs to Responsible Breeders, despite what the anti-breeder groups claim.

We hope the breakdown of this seemingly common ad makes sense to you. You always need to read between the lines in life; yes, even when it comes to adding a cute puppy to your home.

But why keep breeding if there are dogs dying in shelters? Don't breeders care about those dogs??

We would advise you to speak with any Responsible Breeder to learn their view on rescue efforts. In our experience, Responsible Breeders are intimately involved with rescue, not only by personally fostering dogs but by networking and helping with events as well. The mark of any well-rounded person is that they don't have blinders on - and so as heartbreaking as it is that not every dog has a home, Responsible Breeders understand very well that their contributions to their breed is very valuable.

With over 400 purebreds today, and each one filling a very real and specific need, it would appear that we have more than enough dogs to go around. There is pressure from anti-breeder groups to stop breeding completely; some vote for completely and let dogs die out, some say for a few years until we get the overpopulation/mass euthanization issue under control. The fact is - dogs are valuable in our lives and it would be irresponsible to stop breeding healthy specimans, even if only for a few years. A few years' time would be very detrimental to the advancement of several breeds and could spell the demise of some rare breeds. It is not practical and not a solution. The solution is to figure out how to change the cause-and-effect. The cause is Unethical Breeders selling to irresponsible, capricious people who throw dogs away, and the effect is the problem that all of us, breeders and anti-breeders alike, are distraught over.

Let's frame the question a different way: Where does the farmer, the rancher, the military, the special needs, or hunters turn to get healthy, stable dogs? You can make the argument that anybody needing a serious working dog can simply go to the shelter and try different dogs. But what a waste of time, money, and energy on getting a dog’s hopes up and then setting him up for failure, and possibly injury to himself and others if things don’t work out. Dogs crave stability. That’s not sensible or even ethical. Since the vast majority of shelter dogs are bred by Unethical Breeders, neither of whom care about temperament or health, it’s pointless to try random dogs from shelters instead of getting a known reliable dog who can fill their need perfectly. When you get a dog from a Responsible Breeder, you know what you're getting - health going back generations, temperament going back generations, drive and ability going back generations. For people with a serious need for a working dog, that is extremely important.

So working folks aside, why is it wrong to desire a healthy dog? The addition of pet insurance helps those who have dogs with serious issues, but there is nothing wrong, ethically or otherwise, with wanting a well-bred healthy dog with a known lineage. There will always be people who prefer the reliability of a dog with a known history, going back generations, and there will always be people who prefer certain traits found in a particular purebred. That is their right to feel that way and make buying decisions based on those preferences.

Well-bred dogs very rarely end up in shelters. Responsible Breeders maintain relationships with their puppy buyers and have clear wording in their contracts that their dogs are to be returned to them - no ifs, ands or buts - if the dog can no longer live with the original family. These dogs are often microchipped or tattooed so that in the unfortunate instance of a strenuous divorce or a death, a dog which ends up in a shelter or rescue despite precautions can be reunited with the breeder.

The flip side to rescues and shelters existing due to Unethical Breeders is the simple fact that there will always be some people who do not appreciate and respect dogs as valuable, sentient beings. We cannot ban and regulate people from owning dogs or even breeding them (except perhaps at the Puppy Mill level), so there will always be some need for shelters and rescues. We propose that with education and encouragement of good breeding practices, that need will be severely diminished.

How can breeders justify charging so much for dogs?

Simple - raising dogs responsibly isn't cheap. The claims of Responsible Breeders making "tons of money" off of their dogs can be easily squelched with a little education on what a Responsible Breeder actually spends on their dogs.

Think for a minute about what being a Responsible Breeder entails:

$2,000-$2,500 - Pre-breeding health testing

$4,000 and up - Actual breeding expenses (stud fee, boarding if necessary) **Costs can escalate much higher-- figuring in cost of surgical implant--$3000.00 or more.

$1000 and up - After breeding (whelping box and supplies, extra food for the b*tch)

$4,000 and up - Whelping--C-sections are often required with some breeds like greyhounds are very expensive, $3500 and more for emergencies (dew claw removal, vet check for b*tch and litter--these costs are additional)

$1200 and up - Puppy Supplies for a minimum 8 weeks (food, toys, cleaning, veterinary care, playpen, etc.) and this is assuming the puppies don't get sick or suffer an accident (greyhound mothers are notorious for stepping on their pups. 

That's over $10,000 on average, for raising a litter, depending on the size of the litter and your local costs. And this assumes that everything has gone well and there are no emergencies. In large breed dogs you can expect to spend an extra $3,000 or more. For the record, WINDROCK estimates a base cost of $10,000 for each litter.

Emergency C-section - $4,000 and up (depending on clinic and your area)

Mastitis - $800 and you will be bottle/tube feeding puppies and replacement milk is expensive.

Supplements if b*tch won't nurse - $200 per puppy if you are raising orphans 

Parvo and loss of puppies - $3,000+ loss

Other difficulties - $$$$$$$

Of course, this just accounts for the actual dollar amount of goods and services. Many Responsible Breeders take leave from work the first week or 2 that their puppies are born or otherwise arrange for and pay for supervised care. Time is money and the loss of other income and simply what your time is worth is not accounted for here.

This does also not take into account the loss accrued via gas money, entrance fees, boarding, flights, food, hotels, and other costs associated with traveling and showing/working dogs to their Championship. It takes a few years to reach that top level of performance, and that adds up to a pretty penny itself.

Compare this to a puppy mill or backyard breeder. A puppy mill will spend the minimum it needs to spend to keep their dogs alive. Simply being alive does not equal a good quality of life. Backyard breeders can range from bare bones to paying for the minimum veterinary care of shots and deworming. It's important to keep in mind that dogs from either a puppy mill or backyard breeder are disadvantaged from the start, from their very conception, and their environment just simply isn't ideal for shaping a healthy, happy and stable dog. Love doesn't produce a healthy dog - being informed and loving your dog to want the best for them does.

What about mixed breed dogs? What about the claims of crossing poodles with other breeds to make a hypoallergenic dog?

This is a very contentious issue today and we'll do our best to lay out the facts.

Wally Conron, breeding manager of Royal Guide Dogs of Australia in 1988, received a letter from a blind woman in Hawaii, asking if they could breed a dog that wouldn't inflame her husband's allergies. Conron immediately thought of a standard poodle as a good choice and set about training them - 33 in total - only to discover that they just didn't have what it took. He decided to mate one of his star labrador retriever b*tches with a standard dog and only 1 of the resulting puppies proved to be non-allergenic. Since the rest of the them weren't selling because they were mongrels, they were dubbed 'labradoodles' to the public. This bit of PR genius worked and the 'oodle' craze began.

However, Mr. Conron has this to say about his brainstorm so many decades ago:

"This is what gets up my nose, if you'll pardon the expression. When the pups were five months old, we sent clippings and saliva over to Hawaii to be tested with this woman's husband. Of the three pups, he was not allergic to one of them. In the next litter I had there were 10 pups, but only three had non-allergenic coats. Now, people are breeding these dogs and selling them as non-allergenic, and they're not even testing them. Get on the internet and see. All these backyard breeders have jumped on the bandwagon, and they're crossing any kind of dog with a poodle. They're selling them for more than a purebred is worth and they're not going into the backgrounds of the parents of the dogs. There are so many poodle crosses having fits, problems with their eyes, hips and elbows, a lot have epilepsy. There are a few ethical breeders, but very very few. Whatsisname, Obama, the American president, announced he was thinking of getting a labradoodle. He didn't get one in the end, but I wrote him a letter saying what the pitfalls were. I said, if you're going to buy a labradoodle, check both parents, make sure they have a certificate. A lot of them are untrainable."

He further stated, "I opened a Pandora's box, that's what I did. I released a Frankenstein. So many people are just breeding for the money. People say aren't you proud of yourself, and I say, no. Not in the slightest. I've done so much harm to pure breeding and made these charlatans quite rich."

That's quite a statement!

Anecdotally, there are a lot of surprises with poodle mixes. There are claims of hypoallergenic qualities not being present despite assertions to the contrary. There are claims that a specific type can be produced with so-called F1 and F2 generations, but we have yet to see that happen. What we do so see more often than not are dogs growing in massive size, much larger than either parent. We see accounts of excessive hyperactivity and a general lack of self-control. We see accounts of unruly hair that not only sheds like crazy but tends to mat more easily due to the nature of curly hair. These are the known issues with the standard poodle mixes and they are so prevalent that hearsay is now becoming the accepted qualities.

There are different triggers to the term "allergies" in people. You can be allergic to the dust and dander that is normal in a dog's coat, and you can also be allergic to the proteins found in their saliva and urine. Without a proper allergy panel, you'll never know for sure what the triggers are. Unethical Breeders don't bother with that information and are quick to slap the titles "hypoallergenic" and "low-shedding" on anything with curly hair and it is a great disservice to not only the dog but the owners as well. Since ALL dogs shed hair and produce dander, there is literally no breed of hypoallergenic dog. The best you can do is control the coat with frequent, sensible grooming.

The development of a guide dog with a low incidence of aggravating allergies is a very noble venture, but the reality of what this idea has spawned is a very sad reality altogether. Very few breeders are trying to continue Mr. Conron's work in a responsible manner and they're not having success in developing a type, any more than he did. The rest of the breeders have dollar signs in their eyes and have realized that they can sell a mutt - the exact same that is in any shelter or pound - for 3 and 4 times the amount simply by creating a name that has "oodle" or "poo" in it. It's simply shameful.

Even beyond the massive amount of deliberate poodle mixes are the other creation that have garnered a lot of attention, especially when a celebrity buys one of these mongrels. Chihuahua x dachshund mix (chiweenie), Cavalier King Charles spaniel x bichon frise (cavachon), beagle x pug (puggle.) There are a lot of health issues with these mixes, particularly when you breed a brachiocephalic dog with a different breed. You create a dog that generally has more desire to run and be active but it cannot due to the shortened snout and subsequent breathing difficulties.

Now all of this being said, there is a class of mixed breed dog that has a solid place. We're talking about working dogs, bred specifically for a serious need. These dogs are represented by lurchers (sighthound/herding dog cross) for hunting, Belgian shepherd/German shepherd dog/Belgian Malinois crosses for precise police and military work, American bulldog x Catahoula Leapord dog/Plott hound mixes for hunting traditionally in the southern states of the US. There are other mixes but these are the most common. These types of dogs are bred from healthy, tested stock by working people and are sold to working people. With the exception of Unethical Breeder getting on the bandwagon and irresponsible people throwing the dogs away, these sort of dogs have a great life, doing what they were bred to do.