08/02/2025
The Origins of Oasis, aka “I Used to be Hardcore Adopt Don’t Shop, and Now I’m a Breeder”
I used to believe no one should breed dogs. Not while dogs were dying in shelters. Not while rescues were full and fosters were burned out. Not while the world already felt like it had too many dogs and not enough homes.
I have C-PTSD among other things, and my childhood trauma resulted in me projecting intensely onto dogs needing homes in rescues and shelters, which led to me volunteering, fostering, adopting, and becoming a hardcore “adopt don’t shop” person for a decade. It wasn’t until several years into therapy that I realized I was projecting. After I slowly came to that awareness, I was gradually released from the intense emotions I felt around this. I used to wake up feeling physical pain from the urgency of all the dogs being euthanized every day. I knew what it felt like to be unwanted, unloved, abandoned. I was them and they were me. It felt like saving the dogs would be like saving myself.
I would harshly judge anyone who had a dog from a good breeder, my feelings a mix of envy and jealousy; envious of the dog who had never known a terrible upbringing, jealous of the owner who didn’t have to deal with the issues that come with owning a traumatized dog. All because I was projecting onto the dogs in the shelters; they were me being passed over and not chosen because people would rather have dogs that come from a clean slate. I had a huge chip on my shoulder about it. I took people’s dog-owning choices personally and was not fun to be around.
For years, I volunteered at shelters and fostered for rescues. Eventually, I burned out. I got compassion fatigue. And I got angry - livid. Livid that so many dogs were being born into the world without anyone caring where they’d end up. Livid that even the best homes weren’t enough for dogs who weren’t genetically stable. Livid that no one seemed to be putting temperament and health at the forefront. I was anti-breeding because of that, and I hated all breeders.
I used to check kill lists daily to see if we could save any of them, because subconsciously it felt like I was saving myself. This was a savior mentality that wasn’t sustainable for me, because I would overextend myself and become immensely compassion-fatigued; something I saw in all of my fellow rescue and shelter workers as well. The debilitating emotional pain came from my projecting onto dogs I wasn’t able to save, and it often made me time travel back to when little me couldn’t be saved. Because no matter how many dogs we pulled and found homes for, what I could never change was my own past trauma. For me, it ultimately wasn’t healing because it wasn’t sustainable, even though I thought the opposite at the time.
This makes it sound like I stopped caring, but in reality it freed me from a steadfast judgmental stance stemming from my own trauma and led me to learn more about the actual state of pet overpopulation and the deeper pervasive factors that perpetuate it than what I had known superficially before. Because somewhere in the middle of all that, I adopted my own rescue pups, Naboo and Sam: my two “perfect” pediatric speuter mutts.
Naboo is a chow-herder-retriever mix. Sam was a shepsky-dobe-aussie. Neither came from a breeder. They were carelessly bred, but somehow they were everything I wanted a dog to be. They were not perfect, but they were easy dogs for a first-time dog owner and healthy, never needing more than routine exams. If this kind of imperfect perfection could happen by accident, imagine what we could do if we didn’t leave it to chance.
What if we bred dogs who were meant to be here, in this modern world, in these homes? What if we raised them with intention from their very first breath and never left them behind? What if the solution to the mess created by careless breeding was not being against all breeding, but supporting careful breeding? What if the solution to pet overpopulation wasn’t breeding less, but breeding better?
By the time I left the film industry in 2018 and started working at a dog boarding facility, I had already seen mismatched dogs in homes of friends, but then I got to see it in the public. I started working as a pet sitter and started my own private daycare and boarding, then completed my training certification with KPA. I got my rough collie Mellow, who later became my foundation dam. Mellow is perfect temperament-wise, but as a purebred her COI is 24%, which is exceptionally low as the average collie COI is around 40%. For context, a sibling to sibling or parent to child pairing would be 25% COI. With longevity in mind, which correlates with COI, I knew I wanted to crossbreed.
Being in rescue and then training also opened my eyes to many aspects: seeing firsthand the tremendous risks (to owners and dog both) of placing dogs ill-suited for adoption, the downsides to the success of the no-kill and “adopt don’t shop” movements, the wide variety of breeders, the increasing lack of stable healthy pet dogs and the rising demand for them, and the right for those who want them to be able to access them. Along with personal experience that a traumatized existence of suffering is worse than a humane death, it all led me to realize what I actually wanted to do about it that was also more emotionally sustainable for me, instead of projecting and reacting. It had always felt insufficient to me to be only focusing on the existing dogs instead of at the source producing them.
When I read Trish McMillan’s article “Where Do Good Dogs Come From,” it made more sense to me how the movements have connected and exacerbated the whole situation. I was hearing the same stories from fellow pet professional colleagues and trainer friends. I saw firsthand pet sitting clients who could not manage their aggressive dogs, that I had to recuse myself from and give resources that were refused while still worrying I would see them in the news.
But it wasn’t until I found the Functional Breeding group and The Functional Dog Collaborative (FDC) that I realized there were ways to tackle the issue from the other end with many like-minded people. Most of them were pet professionals, dog trainers, veterinary staff who had seen these issues progressing and come to similar conclusions.
There are about 77 to 88 million dogs in the U.S. Roughly 8 million dogs are needed each year to replace the population. Only 3.4 million come from shelters. Another million are rehomed privately. That means if every single one was adoptable, we still fall short. AKC breeders account for around 1.3 million dogs per year. Even adding that in, we are left with 2.3 to 4.2 million dogs that have to come from somewhere. (Sources cited in link at the end)
And they do come from somewhere. They come from careless breeders. Pet stores. Puppy mills. Dogs bred without a second thought about health or temperament or lifetime care. Did you know AKC doesn’t require health testing? I didn’t. The first stop after I softened on my anti-breeding stance was “only titled purebred show dogs should be bred.” That was before I found out about the genetic COI and inbreeding of purebreds and how AKC doesn’t require health testing. But I’ll save that for another post because I digress.
The dogs who suffer most are the ones unsuitable for most homes, often because they require special homes without other pets or kids. Many dogs who end up in shelters were never meant to be placed in homes at all. The people who breed them carelessly will always exist and continue breeding despite any laws, as those laws are unenforceable. The people who would adhere to laws in the first place are people who would listen and could be compelled to breed better. So I don’t believe the answer is to stop or ban breeding, or that that’s possible. It seems counter-intuitive, but I believe the answer is not to be against breeding but to support breeding better and encourage other breeders to breed better. Shaming is the most counter-productive method there is to get people to do better, but the most common reaction. I am appreciative for FDC’s approach that support is always better than shame.
I breed dogs for the same reason I fostered them: because I love dogs, but I also love their people. I want people to know the peace of living with a dog that fits into the family and thrives, that can be part of a family from the start. I breed to reduce the suffering that comes from mismatch and misunderstanding. I breed because behavioral soundness matters. Because how a dog is raised, how their parents were chosen, how their nervous system was wired, how their first eight weeks were handled… it all makes a difference.
It’s not all in how you raise them; it’s all in how you health-test them and interpret the results, breed and pair them thoughtfully, raise and socialize them mindfully, consider placements carefully to make the best matches, and then it depends what happens to them in their lives. As Sara Reusche says (and I am butchering this I’m sure), “before the puppies are born, assume everything is genetic/nature; after the puppies are born, assume everything is nurture/environmental”, and I follow this religiously.
I arrived at purpose-bred companion mixes for a good reason (also a topic for another post). My priorities are temperament, health, and longevity. What I do not prioritize and couldn’t care less about is breed purity, breed standards, and appearances, as those do not have any bearing on how compatible a dog is with their home. I do breed to my own standard, but it is a temperament standard and health standard. The standard I follow is in line with the FDC and Companion Dog Project (CDP) guidelines. It’s not based on aesthetics or appearances; it is based on health and temperament - things that greatly impact a dog’s life and their humans’ lives.
So I used to believe no one should breed dogs. Now I believe we should breed better. I breed because dogs give us everything and we have affordable testing available now to prevent so many things. I breed because humans deserve dogs that fit into their lives without having to become a dog trainer themselves. I also breed because the people who should be breeding are often the ones too guilt-ridden to do it, too shamed, too heartbroken from rescue, too worried they’ll be seen as part of the problem.
But I am not part of the problem. I am part of the solution I wish I had seen ten years ago.
Sources:
https://www.facebook.com/572435000/posts/10163367331065001/?mibextideezt
https://functionalbreeding.org/trish-mcmillan-cpdt-cdbc-accbc-where-do-good-dogs-come-from/
Here is an updated 2024 study; the change in numbers are marginal: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1108365
Trish McMillan is a Certified Professional Dog Trainer, a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant, and an Associate Certified Cat Behavior Consultant. She is also an internationally known speaker and behavior consultant who has been involved with animal sheltering for more than twenty years. Trish is one....
