Do you keep puppies from the litter?

We may choose to keep a puppy from the litter.

Our goal when breeding is to improve the breed, and to do that, we need the best males and females. So, we have “first pick of the litter”. We’re looking for many technical details such as the size and shape of the ridge, ear pitch, tail hold, size and shape of colour patches, muzzle length, eye separation and shape, natural stance, the shape of their back in profile, and around 40 other points of assessment (see the full breed spec, PDF).

Pet buyers are typically unconcerned with these extremely minor variances, and typically only one puppy from a litter will be suitable for breeding with (and often none are!).

To the casual eye, all of the dogs we breed are “Show Quality”, and are within the breed specification (just not considered “ideal”).

Sometimes, we work with puppy buyers on Breeders Terms – more info.