Lia Faille Basenjis

12/07/2024

From Killara Field Spaniels but something to keep in mind.

So you want a puppy and decide to start contacting breeders and are shocked no one is responding to you.

I hear this time and time again that the breeders aren’t responding. So I wanted to share some insights to help a prospective owner as to how to approach breeders.

First of all most breeders have busy lives like you do. We often get multiple calls each week and many emails asking for puppies. It can be very daunting and very time consuming. I’ll be honest the elimination process starts early.

1. When leaving phone messages include your name, phone number and why you are calling.
Follow up phone messages with an email is helpful for those garbled calls.

2. Email typically works better. We can read emails while at appointments or while doing other activities

3. Put some effort into your emails. Simply writing “i want a puppy DM me info for purchase” comes across cold, uncaring and generally a bit insulting. Good Breeders put a lot of time, effort and work into raising puppies. Sending a 2 line sentence as if you are purchasing an item is not going to elicit a response.

4. Understand there is typically a wait. Thinking you can “just call and get a puppy” rarely happens with good breeders.

5. Ask thoughtful questions. This includes health clearanes, contracts, time line expectations. Asking “what colors do you have” is a conversation for a later date. Instead focus on the breeding practices and if this is the right breeder for you.

6. Be prepared for a conversation that last longer than five minutes

7. Do not assume just because you contact us we will sell you a puppy. I have countless people who send a message that states “i want a black puppy with a white bib, i can pick up anytime in next two months” Well how nice you think you are just entitled to a puppy I likely dont have.

8. Do not use abbreviations or symbols in messages. “Do U have any 🐶 ? How much 💰 sre they? Thx TTYL” - typically will be immediately deleted- i had one email that took me 30 mins to decipher their abbreviations- now i just delete

9. Some breeders are turned off by the “how much” question right off the bat. While this is a necessary question word it carefully- instead of How much are they? Ask “what is the expected price range of this breed” is a better option.

10. Please call during reasonable hours. If its past 8 pm I am not picking up the phone unless it was a scheduled call. Please check the time zone you are calling as well.

The approaches that work are introduce yourself. Tell the breeder a little about yourself and why you are interested in the breed. Ask if there is a good time to call them and talk further about getting a puppy.

Emails or calls that are well thought out shows me the person is putting some thought and effort into finding the right breeder. These are the people that typically end up being great homes.

The bottom line remember that Breeders love their dogs and put a lot of time and effort into our babies. We dont view them as commodities - they are our pride and joys that we cherish.

Understand we are people. We have families, busy lives etc. I had a person yell at me “what kind of business are you running you didn’t return my call yesterday”. I have people calling me at 10 pm to ask for puppies. I schedule phone calls and people think its ok to call me two hours later and get mad that I’m not available. Respect is a two way street.

The final thought I leave you with is good breeders truly care about their dogs. Think of how you would be if you were trying to find a home for your own personal pet. You would be protected and guarded and wanting people who are sincere in their inquiries. Good breeders are the same way.

12/07/2024

Hi I'm Flopsy.

I'm a 6 month old boy, outgoing but aloof till I get to know you and love giving kisses. I like my toys and mom says I'm mostly good in my crate and enjoy walks. I'm a fast learner and am very active.

Mom says I'm very pretty and could be in the show ring like my brothers, but I'm not sure it would be my thing. I think I'd like something like Agility or Rally better, just something to do with my favorite person.

Please let my mom's know if you'd like to meet me.

I'm looking for a family of my own so I can get out, of this nut house

22/03/2024

13/06/2023

Borrowing from a fellow breeder.
Please please.....call me if you have a question no matter how trivial it seems and certainly if it's important. It's what I am here for.

Call Your Breeder!
​​Republished from the Ruffly Speaking Blog December 28, 2009 by Joanna Kimball

I was tooling around the Interwebs reading general dog blogs (not the savvy breeder blogs) today and saw the following questions: 1) My puppy just arrived from his breeder and has an undescended testicle. What should I do with this defective puppy? 2) My breeder says I should wait until after my dog is eight months old to neuter; should I believe her? 3) I just found out that my puppy has coccidia and so do the other puppies from the breeder. Is this a bad breeder? 4) My puppy is biting other puppies a lot and I am not sure why she is so aggressive.

The answers given to these concerned owners veered from decent to wildly inaccurate and harmful. The one aspect they all shared was this: Not a single one advised the puppy buyer to call the breeder. In fact, several were outright anti-breeder, with the undescended testicle one being the worst. That one got responses like “Well, what do you expect from a breeder who ships you a puppy that you bought over the Internet?” and (this one from a vet) “He needs to be neutered right away; testicles that aren’t down at eight weeks never come down and they develop cancer.”

In every case by at least one answerer the owner was given the impression that the issue was in some way, slight or heavy, the breeder’s fault.

I get VERY VERY nervous reading responses like that, and I think most breeders would agree. Those are questions to which there is not only one right answer, and they are ALL issues that breeders have much, MUCH more experience in than anyone else, including (maybe even especially) vets.

Why don’t people call their breeder? I think it’s a combination of things – they feel stupid that they had this issue; they don’t want to bother the breeder, despite the breeder’s insistence on calling with any problem; they’re mad at the breeder; someone has made them think that the breeder is not trustworthy. And sometimes it’s just plain old ego – they think they don’t need the breeder’s help and that somehow the collective wisdom of dogster is going to get them a better answer than picking up the phone.

And sometimes they have a point. There are times when it is NO FUN calling your breeder. If you call me with an issue, something has gone wrong. It’s either my fault or your fault or the dog’s fault, and ninety-nine percent of the time it’s not the dog’s fault. So you’re either calling me to say that I did something wrong, and I have to jump to it and make it right; or you’re calling me and I’m going to tell you that you’re doing something wrong, and then you’re going to feel dumb or get defensive or have to spend money fixing it. And remember, I’m on the dog’s side, not necessarily yours. It’s not that I don’t like you a huge amount or that I don’t want to be friends; my dearest friends are people I have bought dogs from, sold dogs to, or showed dogs with. I sincerely hope that we get to the point that we go on picnics together. But when the rubber hits the road, I’m bending over backwards for that DOG. So it’s going to be not so much waving grass and checkered tablecloths and “There’s nothing you could have done”; it’s going to be “You need to change this and change this fast.” Or, if the problem is my fault, I’m going to get off the phone and yell a lot and go kick holes in the grass. It probably won’t be a lot of fun for either of us.

However, that doesn’t matter. You HAVE TO CALL YOUR BREEDER. You have to call whoever is the most experienced with that breed and that pedigree and who is going to get you the best answer for the good of the dog, even if that answer puts some human in a tight spot.

Here’s why:

1) Many problems are breed-specific and the solutions are breed-specific too. That puppy with the undescended testicle? Turns out he’s only ten weeks old and he’s a toy breed. Small breeds often don’t have their testicles descend, or they can yo-yo around, until the dog is four or five months old. You can help them stay down by very gently manipulating them into place and you can also give supplements to help. Very obviously, the vet who so glibly gave that information had no real idea what she was talking about but figured the faster the nuts could get cut off the better. I don’t know what ended up happening to that poor puppy, but my guess is that he didn’t get the intervention he actually needed.

I once had a vet tell one of my owners that their puppy was severely dysplastic, based on palpation at eight weeks. Thankfully they called me right away, which allowed me to say that in Danes there is often a positive Ortolani sign in young puppies and it means nothing. I know this because of conversations with other breeders who remember when puppy hip palpation was all the rage a few decades ago, and entire litters were being put down based on that “clunk” in the hip joint. It wasn’t until a few survivors (who the breeder could not bear to put down and kept with the idea of having it as a pet for its whole life) turned out to have perfectly good hips that the horrible mistake was realized. That’s a very specific, very narrow piece of information of the sort that floats around in the collective consciousness of the breed fancy but isn’t taught in vet schools and most people would never know.

2) Remember that almost all vets are no more experienced at dog ownership than you are, and they are clueless about breeding. Most vets are dog owners the same way you are – one or two dogs at a time, whether adopted or purchased, virtually always spayed/neutered, probably not particularly well trained. There are many breeds that they see no more often than you do; chances are a vet is going to see a Scottish Deerhound twice in her life, and a Swedish Vallhund exactly never. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that – vets are under no obligation to be breeders – but it means that you need to let them be experts in what they are trained in, and not consider them as some kind of dog gods.

Vets do not generally raise litters of puppies. They care for individual puppies but they do not raise litters. This is also true of many other dog professionals, trainers included. Most of them are not also breeders. So they are not necessarily going to know that, for example, all puppies have coccidia (the question is whether they get it badly enough to show symptoms, which is usually because of the stress of travel or a new home or new food) and the best thing to do is go find some Marquis paste (horse) or Baycox (pig) and knock it out. The trainer is going to tell you that it’s associated with dirty breeders and the vet is going to put the puppy on Albon for weeks on end.

3) People who cannot see your dog in the situation you are describing are always going to think the worst. The description of the puppy biting other puppies could be a real warning sign – or it could be a puppy playing in a completely normal way with other dogs, and the problem is that the owner doesn’t know what normal puppy behavior is. Maybe it’s a terrier, and it makes horrible noises and shakes the other dog by the neck while it’s doing it, and the owner has never seen that kind of interaction. The responses they got, which ranged from the puppy needing major interventive training because a puppy being aggressive that early is a sign of true mental illness all the way to send the puppy back now and if it were mine I’d euthanize it, would (of course) terrify them and make them convinced that the dog was abnormal and a huge risk.

A call to the breeder in a situation like that is (hopefully) going to get you a response that is based on years of experience with normal behavior for that breed and that litter in particular. It’s very likely that she’d say “Oh, yeah, the two that I still have at home are doing that exact thing” or “Yes, all Kerry Blues play like that” or “That’s a warning that you need to get more serious about your control of the food – sounds like you’re letting things get loosey-goosey and Malamutes are not a breed that can tolerate an open bag of food in the kitchen and a bunch of dogs underneath it.” They are very UN-likely to run around in a panic and talk about euthanizing your baby dog.

One more thing: Call your breeder, AND CALL EARLY. What seems to happen most often is that the owner has a concern – let’s say the puppy hates having his nails ground. The owner will mention it to his sister-in-law, who will come over and see the dog flailing around biting at the nail grinder. She’ll say “Wow, that’s pretty bad.” The owner then mentions it to a friend of a friend who knows a groomer. That person will tell the owner to put the dog up on the grooming table and put the noose up really high so the puppy can’t get his head down to bite. Puppy then hangs himself and blacks out. Owner goes to the vet, who offers to sedate the puppy for grooming. Owner pays for this three times, then gets fed up and calls the breeder, and says that he has to have the dog knocked out every four weeks and strapped down to a table and muzzled to get his nails done, and he thinks that this is an improper temperament for the breed.

This entire situation – which is NOT far-fetched – could have been cut off months before if the owner had just called the breeder. If you call me about nails, or about nipping, or about pulling on the leash, or about separation anxiety, or about ninety other things that are very common in puppies, yes, I will probably say that you’re doing it wrong. And I know you won’t want to hear it. But trust me that I’m not magic. I’m just sadder but wiser. You name an issue and I promise I did it wrong for years, and finally figured out (or was told, or was beaten over the head) how to do it right, and I’m honestly just trying to save you and the dog from some hideous stress.

If you buy a puppy from a good breeder, and I have had this pleasure several times now, you can’t get away from them without an hour-long lecture. Heck, I get the lecture even now, and I’ve had show dogs for a long time. Good breeders sit you down, either individually or at a puppy party or over the phone, and they go through a whole bunch of information from vaccines to worming to behavior to feeding. That’s our job. But we do NOT expect you to memorize it, and we do NOT think we could have possibly covered every conceivable situation, and we KNOW that there will be concerns later. So please, PLEASE, do not drive away with your puppy and call us only as a measure of last resort. We would all much rather have the owner who calls three times a week asking about a dandruffy toe than the owner who leaves and never calls again. You’re paying for a good breeder, so please use what you paid for.

22/03/2023

How to check your dogs body condition score:

1 Rib Check: Get your dog comfortable and run both of your palms across their ribcage, one hand on either side (your dog will probably think they’re enjoying a nice stroke!) Simply note how it feels and compare it to the chart.

2 Profile Check: View your standing dog from a side-on angle. It’s best if you are level with your pet so you get the most accurate view.

3 Overhead Check: Look down at your standing dog from an overhead angle.

What body condition score is your dog? Post your score in the comments below

14/07/2022

28/06/2022

I have heard so many guardians express that their dog has little or no confidence but they don’t know how to help. This blog is going to explain how you can build your dog’s confidence and why doing so, is so important.

23/06/2022

Learn about the veterinary topic of Interdigital Furunculosis in Dogs. Find specific details on this topic and related topics from the Merck Vet Manual.

23/06/2022

Puppy Buyer Etiquette

I am posting this specifically because I do NOT have any puppies here now, and don’t anticipate any for a little while, so you know that I’m not singling any real person out. This is because it seems that there’s a lot of confusion about the whole “proper” way to go about things. So, puppy buyers and anyone else thinking about maybe someday approaching a good breeder about a puppy, here you go:

1) STOP LOOKING FOR A PUPPY. The classic mistake puppy buyers make is saying “I need an xx breed puppy at the beginning of the fall” or whatever it may be. So they go out looking for litters due in August.
BAD IDEA.

Puppies are not interchangeable; one is not the same as the others. This is largely because every breeder has their stop-the-presses criteria for breeding or not breeding, and each has preferences for size, personality, working ability, etc. Breeder X’s “perfect puppy” is not the same as Breeder Y’s.

Stop looking for a puppy; look for a BREEDER. Make a personal connection with a breeder you feel shares your top criteria, and then wait for a puppy from them. Maybe they even have a litter on the ground, which is wonderful, but maybe they’re not planning anything for a few months. Or maybe they’re not planning anything for a year; in that case, ask for a referral to another breeder that shares those same priorities and has a similar (or just as good) personality and support ethic. However it works out, screen the breeder first, then ask about a puppy.

1b) EXPECT TO WAIT FOR A PUPPY. It’s VERY rare to wait less than a couple of months; four to six is normal. I’ve waited a year on a couple of occasions; no, even we breeders don’t walk through the field, able to pick puppies like tulips. We ALL have to wait, and we ALL have to get matched up by the puppies’ breeder. ESPECIALLY with a majority of basenjis being born only once a year, all at the same time, it’s QUITE likely you will wait at least a year, quite possibly more.

2) INTRODUCE YOURSELF THOROUGHLY. The initial e-mail should be several paragraphs long; block out at least an hour of quiet for the first phone call. When you initiate contact, clearly communicate three things: You are ready for a puppy, you are ready for a puppy of this breed, and you understand what sets this breeder apart from the others and you share that commitment. Specifically describe your plans for this puppy; be truthful. If you are not going to be able to go to four training classes a year, SAY SO. Don’t say “Of course, training is a huge priority around here,” or you’re going to end up with a puppy who’s flushing your toilet sixty times a day because he’s so bored and you’re not challenging him.

The ideal first contact e-mail usually goes something like: “Hi, my name is X and I’m writing to inquire about your dogs. I’ve been doing a lot of research on [breed] and I think they’re the right one for me because of [these four reasons.] I know puppies are a huge commitment, and I am planning to [accommodate that in various ways.] I’m approaching you in particular because of your interest in [whatever,] which is something I feel is very important and plan to encourage in [these three ways.]”

That’s the kind of e-mail that gets a response, and usually pretty quickly. HOWEVER, don’t say you’ve done a ton of research and then ask something that shows you haven’t done a ton of research! My favorite is the inquires for basenjis clearly NOT during normal puppy season who want a puppy within the next couple weeks. You have clearly not done research, and you have clearly now lied to me. Since placing puppies involves a HUGE amount of trust on my part that YOU will take care of MY puppy…do you think I’m going to seriously consider a home which started off lying to me?

If Breeders get something that says “Do you have any puppies and how much?” it generally goes in the recyle bin before you can blink. MANY breeders see responding to these as a waste of time…puppy mills and unethical breeders will still generally respond.

2a) Bring up price either at the end of the first contact (if it’s been successful and you feel a connection to this person) or in a follow-up contact. It’s nice to say “If you don’t mind me asking, about how much are [breed]s in this area, if there is a typical price? I just want to be prepared.”

The breeder will usually give you two pieces of useful information: Her price, and the median prices around you. That way, if you decide to go a different way, you know about what to expect. If the second person you contact names a price that’s double the median, try to discreetly find out why. A very difficult pregnancy, nationally ranked parents, a surgical AI, c-section resulting in very few live puppies, those are some reasons a breeder could be asking more and it’s reasonable. If there’s no real difference from the other breeders except price, think carefully.

3) BE WILLING TO BE TOLD NO. Not every person is the right match for every breed. That’s just fact. There is no way on earth I could make our home appropriate for a Malamute puppy, and I’d have to lie through my teeth to get approved for one. And I have my entire life devoted to keeping dogs happy. I don’t expect you to have anywhere close to the obsession I have, so that means there will be some dogs that are just plain wrong for you.

If a breeder says no, ask why. If the answers make sense, don’t keep calling people until you finally get one who will sell you a puppy of that breed. Go back to the drawing board and be very humble and honest with yourself about what kind of dog really would be right for you and your family.

4) PLEASE DO NOT GET ON MORE THAN ONE WAITING LIST unless you are VERY honest about it. This goes back to rule 1. You need to understand that we think our puppy buyers are just as in love with the puppies as we are. We’re posting pictures, writing up instructions, burning CDs, researching everything from pedigrees to nail grinding, all so we can hand off this puppy, this supreme glorious creature of wonderfulness, with the absolute maximum chance that it will lead a fabulous life with you, and we’ve built all kinds of air castles in our heads about how happy this puppy will be, and what it will do in its life with you, and so on. Finding out that you had your name on four lists shows that you don’t realize that puppies are not packages of lunch meat, where getting one from Store A is basically the same as getting one from Store B.

Also, as soon as your name is on one of our lists, we’re turning away puppy buyers. If we’ve sent ten people elsewhere because our list is full, and then suddenly you say “Oh, yeah, I got a puppy from someone else,” it really toasts our bread. So just BE HONEST. If someone came to me and said “I’m on a list with So and So, but she’s pretty sure she won’t have a puppy for me, and I’d love to be considered for one of your dogs and I’ll let you know just as soon as I know,” I’m FINE with that. I understand how this goes. It’s not a disaster for me to have a puppy “left over” at 12 weeks because you ended up getting that So and So puppy; it’s just frustrating to have the rug yanked out from under me.

5. PLEASE DO NOT EXPECT TO CHOOSE YOUR PUPPY. This one drives puppy buyers CRAZY. I know this, trust me. I have a lot of sympathy because I’ve been there. But the fact is that when you come into my house and look at the puppies and one comes up and tugs on your pant leg and you look at me, enraptured, and say “THIS IS IT! He chose ME,” I’ve been looking at people coming into the house all week, and every single time this same puppy has come up and tugged at them and every single one of them have said to me “THIS IS IT!”

What you are seeing is not reality. You are seeing the most outgoing puppy, or you’ve fallen in love with the one that has the most white, or the one that has a different look from the rest of the litter (when I had one brindle girl puppy in a litter of red boys, every human that came in the house wanted her; when I had one red girl puppy in a litter of brindle boys everyone kept talking about how much they loved HER), or the one that’s been (accidentally) featured the most in the pictures I’ve posted. Or, sometimes, you have a very good instinctive eye and you’re picking the puppy that’s the best put together of the litter. And that puppy, of course, is mine, and you’re going to have to pry him out of my cold dead hands.

My responsibility is not to make you happy. And that, dear friends, is why I am posting this now, and not when I have a bunch of actual puppy buyers around 😀.

But it’s the truth. My responsibility is to the BREED first. That’s why my first priority in placing puppies is the show owners, because they are the ones that will (if all goes well) use this dog to keep the breed going. It’s not that I like them better than I like you; it’s that I have to be extremely careful who I place with them so that they can make breeding decisions with the very best genetic material I can hand them.

My second responsibility is to the PUPPY. I will place each puppy where I feel that it has the best chance of success and the optimal environment to thrive.

So while I do care, and I will try to take your preferences into account, do not expect to walk into my living room and put your hand in the box and pick whatever puppy you want. And do not expect to be given priority pick because you contacted me first; conversely, do not expect that because you came along late you somehow won’t get a good puppy.

Sometimes the person who calls me when the puppies are seven and a half weeks old ends up with what I’d consider the “pick” for various reasons (sometimes because somebody called me up and said they’d gotten a puppy from someone else; see rule 4 above).

I am going to try to do my absolute best to match puppies to owners as objectively as I can, not according to who called first.

I've waited for a puppy from another breeder before. I think I initially contacted a year before puppies were due. I waited through two other litters, where there might have been something for me but then in the end I was told no. Then I waited until 8 weeks when there was a thought that this one might really be the one, and then another two weeks until the breeder made her final picks and sent me a puppy. I was about ready to vomit with the tension. I UNDERSTAND. But the rewards of waiting and being matched with the right puppy are greater than any frustration with having to sit with an empty couch for a few more months.

6) ONCE YOU GET YOUR PUPPY, THERE WILL ONLY BE THAT PUPPY IN THE WHOLE WORLD. If you’ve been sitting around with your fingers crossed saying “Please, Molly, please, Molly, I only love Molly,” and I say “I really think Moe is the one for you,” you’re probably going to feel disappointed. But take Moe and go sit on the couch, and put your finger in her mouth, and realize that she has a really cool white toe on one foot but none of the other feet have white toes, and let her try to find a treat in your pocket, and I guarantee you by the time you’re five minutes out of my driveway Moe will be YOUR puppy. And a year later you may remember that you thought Molly was so pretty, but Moe… well, Moe could practically run the Pentagon she’s so smart, and her face turned out MUCH more beautiful than Molly’s did. And so on.

7) PLEASE FINISH THE ENCOUNTER WITH ONE BREEDER BEFORE BEGINNING ONE WITH ANOTHER. If you end a conversation with me saying “Well, this just all sounds wonderful, and I’m going to talk it over with my wife and we’ll call you about getting on your waiting list,” and then you hang up and call the next person on your list, that’s not OK. If you don’t feel like you click with me, or you want to keep your options open, a very easy way to say it is to ask for the names and numbers of other breeders I recommend. That way I know we’re not “going steady,” and I won’t pencil you in on my list. If you are on my waiting list, and you decide that you don’t want to be anymore, call me AS SOON AS YOU KNOW and say “I’m so sorry, but our life has gotten a little crazy and I need to be taken off the puppy list.” And I make sympathetic noises and take you off. If, then, you decide you want to get a different puppy, be my guest. Just keep me apprised and let me close off my commitment to you before you open it with another breeder.

…Which brings us to something that is super important and most puppy people don’t realize:

8 ) EVERY BREEDER KNOWS EVERY OTHER BREEDER. Now of course I don’t mean the bad breeders, but the show breeding community is VERY small and VERY close-knit. If you’ve been on my list for three months, I’ve kept in contact with you, I think you’re getting a puppy from me, I’m carefully considering which one to sell you, and finally I match you with a puppy when they’re eight weeks old, and THEN you e-mail me and say “Sorry, I got a puppy from Arizona, bye,” my instant reaction isn’t going to be “Oh noes!” My instant reaction is going to be “From Jill?” I probably e-mail Jill several times a year, if not several times a month, and I’m probably going to pick up the phone in the next sixty seconds and say, “Did you just sell a puppy to Horace Green from Topeka? Did you know that he put himself on my waiting list three months ago and has been saying all along how excited he is?” And two minutes after that she’ll get a call from Anne in Oregon and Anne will say “Did you just sell a puppy to Horace Green from Topeka? He’s been feeding me lines for eight weeks! I had a puppy ready to go to him next week!”

And we will take your name in vain, Horace Green from Topeka, and Jill will feel bad that she sold you a puppy, and oh the bad words we will say. And Horace Green from Topeka will be a topic of conversation at the next Nationals, and t-shirts will be made that say “DON’T BE A HORACE,” and someone will name their puppy Horrible Horace and everyone will get the joke and laugh.

In the end, “Be excellent to each other,” as Bill and Ted so correctly ordered us, is pretty much the paradigm to follow. If you err, err on the side of this being a relationship, not a transaction. Try to act the way you would with a good friend, not with an appliance salesman. And the ending will be as happy for you as it is happy for us.

Adapted and edited, original author Joanna Kimball.

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