04/03/2022
Sitting here in my whelping room in a whelping box with an incredible female who has gifted us with beautiful new life, I can't help but reflect over the challenges we have endured particularly in the past 12mnths. Challenges that are more often than not dealt with by breeders in silence out of the publics view.
Being a breeder is not a job for the faint hearted. It takes dedication and passion. We have and will continue to overcome the challenges that lay before us, because that is apart of being a custodian to the wonderful breed.
With a thirst for knowledge, because there is always something to be learnt and wrestling with decisions, we sacrifice finances, time and friendships, and luxurious holidays in favour of turning that all into the breed for generations to come. We go without sleep and sometimes for days in hours spent planning breedings and implementing strategies, studying and researching health, watching over the birth process, and afterwards. Every little sneeze, wiggle or cry. Comforting our females during birth, with a hand that caresses their belly to calm and provide reassurance. Not trembling under blood to help support a life in trouble. With endless vet trips and fighting fatigue. Raising, socialising and providing a loving life for our dogs, endless cleaning and feeding. As breeders we go through unspoken loss and heartache more than most, we blame ourselves when things go wrong even when they are out of our control but with love there must be loss.
Skipping social events because a litter requires our attention. Disregarding birth fluids whilst putting our mouth to gasping newborns to save them, literally blowing life into a tiny, helpless creatures that may be the culmination of a lifetime of dreams.
Holding in our hands generations of proud and noble dogs and their breeders blood sweat and tears. Our strong and firm hands are often soiled, but gentle and sensitive to the thrusts of a puppy's wet nose. With shoulders that are stooped and sore and often heaped with abuse from other breeders, but they're wide enough to support the weight of a thousand defeats and frustrations. With ears that are sometimes red (from being talked about) or strangely shaped (from being pressed against a phone), often deaf to negative criticism, yet always fine tuned to the whimper of a puppy. With eyes blurred from pedigree research, always searching for the perfect specimen and analysing other breeders strategies. With a brain that is foggy on faces, but can recall pedigrees faster than a computer. So full of knowledge that sometimes you could say it blows a fuse! Cataloguing thousands of dogs for their qualities, and burying in our soul the failures endured. All with a heart that is often broken.
It isn't an easy juggling a business, family and a kennel and the challenges that come with it but we wouldn't change it for the world.
Under extreme fatigue from a high risk pregnancy, that feeling of relief when new life takes its first breath makes everything worth it.
