Breeding Ethics

If you're considering becoming a breeder, or if you're just considering bringing a Berner into your family, I hope you'll read through my webpages here.

Forward by Esther Wilson:

The foundation of my breeding views is to protect and provide for my chosen dog breed, Bernese Mountain Dogs. Not every breeder shares my views, but most ethical breeders share a good portion of my views.

There has been a meteoric rise in the popularity of the Bernese Mountain Dog Breed in the USA over the past few years. Consequently, many 'new breeders' are sprouting up all over.

A few of these new breeders are learning to breed ethically. Probably the majority of these new breeders are not breeding ethically, and are simply cashing in on the large prices a Berner puppy can bring ($1,000 to $2,000 throughout most of the USA).

Per my educated opinion, the typical response of the traditional group of Berner breeders is to be very suspicious of every new breeder and even to label every new breeder 'a (new) puppy miller'. In defense of the 'old guard', sadly, this view is correct more often than not. However, some good new breeders tend to get erroneously labeled as being the same as the bad new breeders.

You, the Puppy buyer, play the MOST IMPORTANT role in protecting the Bernese Mtn Dog breed from exploitation.

You are just as important as an ethical breeder - maybe even more important to our breed. Your money will go to support whatever the ethics are of the breeder you buy from.

One of your best contributions to our breed is when you buy a puppy from a breeder who is proven to be honestly working to improve the breed (and not just making puppies to earn a living).

Another important contribution you, the puppy buyer, can make to our breed is to notify BMDCA Breed Stewards about the operation of any questionable Bernese breeder you come across. While this may seem only a small thing to you, it can be a huge tool for Breed Stewards in warning other puppy buyers away from that breeder. The fact is, not everyone makes an educated decision. So your report can help save another innocent puppy buyer from making a bad purchase.

Below, I've listed a good discussion on how to determine the ethics of a breeder. And there's some good information about how to interpret all those items a good breeder employs.

I hope you'll take some quality time to read through my notes. I wrote them JUST FOR YOU! To help you become someone who also protects and provides for our beloved Bernese Mountain Dog breed (or whatever dog breed you become involved with).

-Esther Wilson, SageKeep Kennels

Rule #1-A of Breeding: A perfect dog will not necessarily produce perfect puppies (see also rule #1)

Everyone likes to believe their dog is perfect: health, appearance, temperament. And we often make excuses for any short-comings because we love our animals and think they're the best.

The fact is, there is no such thing as 'the perfect dog'. Like humans, every dog comes with it's own unique set of imperfections. Yet, it's the goal of responsible breeders to work toward achieving 'the perfect dog'. But how is this done?

A responsible breeder understands they are working with a living, breathing animal whose very being is effected by so many influences. So this breeder will attempt to objectively assess a dog's 'breed-ability' on four (4) vital issues: health, temperament, structure and conformation. To get an accurate view of what kind of puppies a dog will produce, it's necessary to have ample insight into both dogs considered for breeding and their ancestors (pedigree). These studies give valuable information about what genetic structure may be passed onto the puppies.

One checkpoint on the way to choosing a good breeding pair is for a breeder to have medical professionals assess the potential for certain medical problems in the dogs being considered. For berners, professional evaluations on hips, elbows, eyes, and thryoid can be important since these are afflictions common to the breed. (Note: cancer is also common, but this is a factor usually best determined by lineages until medical science provides some sort of a DNA screening method).

A breeder can determine a lot by studying the health, temperament, structure and conformation of the potential breeding pair's ancestors (the pedigree), most especially the parents and grandparents (1st and 2nd generations). This is powerful data, but it should not stand alone in assessing a dog's 'breedability'. It should be balanced with professional medical evaluations.

Note: When breeding, its thought to be more likely that you'll get the grandparents or great-grandparents or their siblings than the parents of a litter. Knowing the grandparents, and other (non-parent) pedigree participants is vital information in planning a litter. This is often where an ethical breeder and an unethical breeder will be different. An ethical breeder will know much or most of the particulars in a pedigree beyond just the parents of the litter. But an unethical breeder will not have this factual information..

Unfortunately, many professional medical evaluations as they exist today have limited accuracy. It's important to understand which evaluations are usually accurate and which are negotiable.

One important evaluation on Bernese Mountain Dogs is 'Hips and Elbows', frequently called 'Orthopedics'. Today, there are two (2) basic American based institutions which offer a professional opinion on a dog's orthopedics.

Note: PennHIP only certifies hips, not elbows; OFA certifies both hips and elbows

Note: The Institute for Genetic Disease Control (GDC) merged with OFA effective June 2002.

Also, there are similar institutions in other countries. For instance, there's the OVC and/or the WCVM, either of which could be called the Canadian version(s) of the OFA (except neither OVC nor WCVM has an online searchable database).

OFA is the only of the above websites to have an online database where you can inquire about a specific dog's clearances. I refer many puppy buyers to that website to research the pedigree of a puppy they're interested in purchasing. OFA's online databases are incredibly useful breeding research tools.

Another Online Searchable Database is http://www.BernerGarde.org. This database includes a wealth of Bernese information. And it does include SOME orthopedics clearances for SOME Bernese. Its important to remember that BernerGarde is a voluntary information submission database. While there may be some data missing or inaccurate, its still a great database that is a powerful research tool online for Bernese.

The Bernese Mountain Dog Club of America (BMDCA) &The Bernese Mountain Dog Club of Canada (BMDCC)

The current BMDCA Code of Conduct requires a breeder to obtain clearances from OFA or OVC when the Berner is aged 2+ years (prior to breeding). Currently, the BMDCA does not officially address the topic of certifications done by WCVM nor PennHIP. I believe the main reason for this is because neither WCVM nor PennHIP have searchable online databases for public research and the BMDCA prefers people to use a publicly searchable database like OFA offers.

However, the BMDCC DOES recognize both WCVM and PennHIP, as well as OVC and OFA.

Rule #2 of Breeding: There is no perfect decision when assessing 'breed-ability' of a dog

Unfortunately, there is not a perfect science to judging a dog's breeding potential. A responsible breeder makes his/her best choice based on factual research, professional medical input and insight into what she/he believes can be gained from the mating. Even when approached responsibly, breeding is a gamble: it's a calculated gamble. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't work. Most often, there's a mixed report (which can keep a breeder busy trying to figure out what to try next). There have been breedings between superb dogs that produced poor quality Berners, and the reverse, too, where some poor dogs have produced a quality litter. Many breeders often look past one breeding to determine the breeding worth of any one dog.

An ethical breeder is one who accepts personal responsibility for protecting the gene pool of their dog's breed. An ethical breeder will ensure that any breeding mistakes he/she makes do not affect the gene pool of the breed. An unethical breeder will have compromised ethics in regards to gene pool protection and gene pool participation.

If you visit the websites listed above, you can find good information on how a dog's hip and elbow health are evaluated professionally.

PennHIP is a clinical assessment and perhaps offers the potential for the highest accuracy of evaluation yet available. I heavily rely on PennHIP results to guide my breeding program. PennHIP does not give a 'pass or fail' type of grade. The actual measurement taken of each hips' movement and the loosest hip of that dog is put in perspective of a group of dogs in that same breed. There are two problems I see with this evaluation is (1) that the procedure is relatively new and typically a little more expensive than OFA. Therefore the 'group' of dogs used for assessing your dog's measurement is not as big a group as could be best for evaluating one dog in the midst of the group. Once this group grows for each breed, it will offer better insight as to where your dog's measurement stands on an average in your dog's breed. And (2) the measurements can be effected by inaccurate positioning of the animal in the x-rays. Another problem I see with PennHIP is that this certification is only for HIPS and does not include Elbows. However, it is necessary to bear in mind that this is the only clinical assessment available for canine HIP clearances in the USA or Canada (or worldwide, I believe).

OFA & GDC are very much alike and merged databases effective June 2002. Historically, OFA was either public or confidential (depending what the dog owner chose upon submission of the radiographs) and GDC was only public published info. Neither OFA nor GDC offer clinical evaluations (scientific) but rather only offer subjective evaluations (opinions of a professional). It has been proven that the SAME x-rays of the SAME dog were submitted from several different veterinarians and each received different evaluations. Why? Because each group of professionals had a different combined opinion. The way an OFA evaluation works is three (3) professionals assess the group of x-rays and an overall score is achieved as result. The problem I see with OFA and GDC is (1) The set of x-rays may not portray an accurate view of the subject matter and (2) Evaluations are only professional opinion and NOT scientific fact. Also, it is well known that many breeders will keep taking radiographs hoping their dogs will pass. There are documented situations of a dog with unclear elbows having received corrective elbow surgery and new radiographs taken that pass OFA.

Any tool like PennHIP, OFA/GDC, and OVC must be used in context with education, integrity and intelligence.

Many Berner breeders in Canada (and the USA) believe that OVC is a very useful clearance and use this entity exclusively and successfully.

However, many Berner breeders in the US believe that a Berner breeder will go to the OVC in the hope to gain desirable clearances (and gain those clearances) after receiving negative clearances from OFA. Whether this reflects on an ineptitude in the OFA or in the OVC, who is to say?

There is a growing trend of Berner breeders opting to go to the WCVM for orthopedic clearances on their dogs.

SageKeep kennels uses WCVM for elbows and hips clearances, as I feel this institution may be more accurate and trustworthy than the OFA or OVC. However, to comply with BMDCA COC, I still submit to the OFA registry. And I hope the BMDCA will one day get educated enough to recognize the valuable breed help that WCVM (and PennHIP) offers.

The WCVM has a prestigious history of clearing service dogs for use by the Canadian government. In fact, after receipt of orthopedic clearances by the WCVM on a 12 month old dog, the Canadian government will invest as much as $55,000.00 in training that dog. While the WCVM's track record is not perfect, it enjoys an incredibly high success rate of initially rating a Canadian service dog's orthopedics.

IMPORTANT NOTE: However faulty the evaluation methods may be for PennHIP, OFA, GDC, OVC and WCVM, THESE EVALUATIONS ARE FAR BETTER THAN NOTHING. And very importantly, they do contain a good chance at accuracy.

Breeding dogs with desirable orthopedic clearances is a basic foundation of ethical breeding. This helps offer the litter produced an elevated chance for desirable orthopedics.

There are many maladies which effect large breed dogs, like Berners, besides hip and elbow dysplasia.

One such malady is Progressive Retinal Atrophy, often called 'PRA' for short. This is a genetically based eye disease which results in a dog's becoming blind.

There is a test available to detect this disease. To learn more about PRA testing, visit the following website:

It should be noted here that many breeders choose to have this test done only once in a breeding dog's lifetime. However, this is supposed to be an annual test. I know of a BMD breeder who told me they've done this test on a male BMD for 9 consecutive years and each test was negative. Then, in the 10th year of that same dog's life, he failed his 10th CERF test as he had developed PRA over the prior year.

In Bernese, PRA (Progressive Retinal Atrophy) is an eye disease that often has onset later in a Berner's lifespan (hence the Progressive part of its name). Having CERFs done later in a Berner's life is definitely more important than having them done in their younger years.

There are as many other professional medical assessments as there are general diseases in large breed dogs. Some of these assessments are more important for certain lineages that include dogs presenting that disease. A malfunctioning thyroid and cancer are other examples of diseases typical to many large breed dogs like Berners.

Again, there's no perfect puppy and no perfect breeder. The better breeder is someone who is aware of the health issues in their breeding dogs' lines, actively pursues clearances regarding those diseases, and does their best to produce a quality litter of healthy, sound puppies.

Send mail to web@sagekeep.com with questions or comments about this web site. Copyright © 2004 SageKeep Kennels, all rights reserved. Last modified: 08/19/06

Send mail to web@sagekeep.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2004 SageKeep Kennels, all rights reserved.
Last modified: 08/19/06