Hey, so this is just a follow-up to my previous posting about trying to find a reputable breeder (here).

My question(s):

• How likely are huskies to have a genetic eye/hip problems?
  
• What is the proper age to get a male husky neutered? I have read around 6 months for puppies typically, but the last two breeders I talked to said for a male husky it should be between 1 year and 16 months
  
• Would it be a deal breaker to not have hip/eyes covered under a health guarantee? This was pretty much the only thing I was uncertain about with this breeder
  

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For anyone interested, here is the breeder and some info/background - Liberty Siberians (also, their Facebook page is more updated than the website):

• She gladly welcomed me out to visit and I ended up going to meet the breeder; she spent 3 hours talking to me about their dogs, the breed, and answering questions I had at the time
  
• If this matters, they have around 30 adult huskies - along with five 4/6 month old huskies, and a 4 week and 2 week old litter.
  
• She said they typically only have one litter or possibly two a year, but might have more this year (somewhat lengthy explanation available if you'd like)
  
• She mentioned that they typically do not advertise their litters
  
• They show their huskies and it sounds like the majority of them have champion AKC and UKC, if not grand championed
  
• She definitely seemed to know her information better than pretty much anyone else I have talked to about the breed and extensively researches everything (ex: she has been researching the shots and everything that dogs get and was telling me that many of the shots are not worth getting due to x, y, and z reasons/ giving initial vaccines starting at 8 weeks instead of sooner / etc. etc.. - whether or not that is true or not I do not know -- here is her page about it)
  
• She provides support for the entire life of the dog and has a 'health guarantee' listed online -- but after talking with her, she mentioned that the health guarantee does not cover genetic eye/hip dysplasia problems (her reasoning is in more detail on her website, but this is he summary of it from what I take. Here are links to her Husky Health Issues)
  --- REASONING: dam and sire are health tested (OFA/CERF) and only breed ones that test normal/good - puppies cannot get genetic hip dysplasia if parents test fine (but can get it from an injury like breaking a leg/etc. or improper 'care' of the dog). Eyes are not covered by guarantee because it typically is not life threatening and dogs adapt to not seeing as good (again this is just my summary of how she explains it on her website)
  
• I don't want to make this too long so I am gonna try to keep it short and can provide more details if I think of any directly related to my question(s) or if you think anything else should be added please let me know.
  

The Eye one bothers me more than the hip one because right now there isn't a test that will tell you if hip is passed genetically or if it is due to an injury. She has valid points even if they feel a little like a cop out. Embark is working on trying to isolate though so one day we might actually be able to tell genetic vs. injury/work related HD. The fact that she does test is good and that she is showing is good also. She has a ton of dogs. Does she show all of them? Cataracts are not super common in the breed and your likelihood of getting them is low, BUT they do happen as another member whose very young dog is going under surgery very soon.

For the most part they seem fairly reputable. Some aspects are irritating but probably wouldn't be a deal breaker for me depending on price of dog and what they mean by support for life? Is it basically that she will give you her opinion on what to do if you ask her and help rehome if for some reason you need it or if you end up with the runt that never seems healthy she will actually help? Website doesn't look to have been updated in a while.

TwisterII wrote:

She has a ton of dogs. Does she show all of them?  

Yeah I thought she had a lot of dogs and did not know if that was common or not or if that mattered at all... I do not think they show them ALL every time.. but I believe that almost all of them are/have been shown and they do show quite a few of them at the same time -- she was mentioning that in the last showing several family members/expert at showing dogs (I think she used a certain term for that) helped out in showing the handful of dogs they brought with.


EDIT:

Quote :

Some aspects are irritating but probably wouldn't be a deal breaker for me depending on price of dog and what they mean by support for life?

The price of her puppies are $1275 on a spay/neuter contract.  
And I would have to get in writing exactly what she meant by that, but -for the most part- yes, it sounded like she meant giving me her opinion on stuff and if she needed to research to find the right answer for something that she would (I did not fully understand what the 'health guarantee' all covered since she mentioned it not covering the eyes/hips -- I believe she was saying if there was a major health issue or something like that that she would help out but I am not positive)

I'm going to make a few comments that don't do a lot to answer your question, then I'll see what I can do to give my view on your question.

First, I absolutely love the exchange given on this page between three AKC judges. If you have any questions about how a Sibe should look and why! then this is a very interesting read. ( of course other may disagree. but I found it interesting )

Secondly, this is a pet peeve of mine and has little to do with the quality of the dogs. For whatever reason, their web site comes to a screeching halt at seemingly at the end of 2014. Their site is our window into their world - what are we to assume when it's four years out of date? Should we assume that the results they're so proud of continued or were they en masse disqualified? (I should hope not but this is simply an example.)

I tried three time to create an account so I could see if there was anything behind the "About Us" and "Pricing" tabs - such as the health contract that they don't mention of their main menu. Three times I failed, so I think their captcha's flawed (or I'm just plain blind)

I like the look of their dogs, I like that they show them and they mention that they sometimes have them in harness so many of my particular quandaries are taken into concern immediately.

That they don't post:
links to the pedigree of their pups
the specific health tests of the pups offered
prices for pups (understandable? but would help people decide)
contact information is restricted to their membership

My typical "too many pups" is something I'll disregard since they do work and show.

You said that they have a health guarantee on line but I couldn't find it so have no comment there. Genetically, and I'm open to disagreement, she's right that two genetically clean parents should never have a defective pup - but sports are known to happen and should be covered in the health guarantee.

For what it's worth, they look good to me but with reservations.

Some of the previously listed info I was only able to obtain after meeting and talking with the breeder - such as the health guarantee / pricing / etc..

Honestly, I have looked past the majority of the things that I was hesitant about at first (like what you were mentioning) because this is the most/closest I have been able to find in terms of a reputable breeder -- and as you were somewhat indirectly saying, that doesn't automatically make them a bad breeder.

I definitely enjoyed meeting with her and talking with her... I just do not like taking risks, especially on something like this, so I would feel much better about having those guarantees and that's why I mentioned that was pretty much the main/only thing holding me back on this breeder~~ although they don't seem to be too common.. I recently heard back from a member of SHCTC who has the breeder of merit/etc. and said that she does not have health guarantees either -- I believe it was partially to do with only having 1 litter a year

While this is something we don´t like to think about and @TwisterII addressed - what happens if, for whatever reason, you´re unable to take care of the dog? Good breeders actively encourage their customers to return the dog to them and for some it´s a part of the contract.

Lifelong support of the "I´ll answer any questions you have." doesn't mean a lot if you, god forbid, have an accident that takes you out of the dogs life for .... however long. She should be ready, willing and able to accept the return of a dog who has found himself without a competent (bad word) owner - no, I´ll go one further, she should demand that the dog be returned to her.

Not having that guarantee is like buying a brand new car and not carrying insurance - what happens if.

aljones wrote:

While this is something we don´t like to think about and @TwisterII addressed - what happens if, for whatever reason, you´re unable to take care of the dog?  Good breeders actively encourage their customers to return the dog to them and for some it´s a part of the contract.

(not in the breeders words) she did mention when I was talking to her in person that they take the dogs back if the owner is incapable of properly caring for the dog.

aljones wrote:

Not having that guarantee is like buying a brand new car and not carrying insurance - what happens if.

That is very true. That's why I mentioned that I don't like taking risks and probably wouldn't even be debating this if she had the guarantees.. It's so hard to find a reputable breeder who does offer the guarantees.

Side-thought from my other thread: would you expect a reputable breeder to offer the health guarantees for /2 years/3 years/life...? I am not sure what is common since I have not found many breeders in general who offer it.

I'm honestly of two minds.  I come from Texas where it's not uncommon that million dollar deals are sealed with a handshake - logic being "If his word's not any good then what's a piece of paper worth?"

On the other hand, generally, you can't take a handshake to court - they tend to want those pieces of paper.

While her price is higher than I'd pay ( I do rescues ) it's definitely not an unreasonable fee.  It's not an exorbitant amount of money, unless of course it's coming out of your pocket.  To protect that investment, I'd require / demand that her words be put on paper - we all hope you'll never have to take action on that piece of paper but it's nice to know it's there if you need it.

If she says that h/d isn't a problem so she doesn't put it in her health guarantee and your pup is that sport who develops h/d anyway, assuming you've done everything right, then do you trust her word that she'll provide real (read financial) support in caring for it before / during and after surgery?  For me, for short term, verifiable 'things' a handshake's fine. But longer term, I'm going to want it on paper.

Last question from you, and this is my opinion - as I said, I do rescues and @TwisterII will undoubtedly have a better answer.  Since h/d normally doesn't show up until well past puberty and into at least 'middle age' a 2 / 3 years health guarantee will probably have expired before h/d shows.  So, what's that really worth?

Opinion - if a breeder can show me that the parents of the pup I'm considering buying are genetically clean then I think it becomes a matter of "It's my dog and I'll bear the burden of whatever happens." For sake of argument, if her contract says that you'll return the dog to her if anything untoward happens - are you really just going to hand your pet back to her without quibble.  I know fir sure that *I* wouldn't.  There reaches a point where no amount of guarantee is going to mean anything when it's your dog that needs medical attention - it's your dog!!

Knowing that you're looking for all the assurances that everything has been done so that the parents are genetically stable is the best you can hope for, I think.  If you're comfortable that she's being up front then do it, but if you're not comfortable ... well, it's time to rethink, no??

Sorry that my comments tend to be ambiguous, I think it's how you really see the breeder and your relationship with her.

I believe that as time goes on and more research is done on HD you are going to see a lot of breeders drop the HD part of the health guarantee off the contracts because it is hard to PROVE that the HD was genetic and not just your pup running up 8 flights of stairs 3 times a day since it was 8 weeks old that caused the issue. It's hard for the breeder to sometimes trust that the people aren't running with their dogs at 6 months old and ruining them. Especially in such an active breed where it's hard to see any way to keep them under control without overexercising them. That said, once the HD gene is isolated so that they can spot it in genetic testing then I believe it will be easier to hold breeders to that guarantee and you may see it coming back. Right now there are a lot of studies showing all the various ways HD comes about, which is what this breeder is leaning on to get out of offering the guarantee. To me, genetic HD will show up early. I think we say by 2 years because dogs are done growing for sure by then, but genetic HD I think will show up before a 2-3 year guarantee runs out. I got Keno at 3 years old and he was showing massive signs of cartilage damage in his hips that would suggest this was a malformation he had lived with for a while and X-rays at a much younger age would have shown it. Probably shortly after his 1st birthday.

I would not put a lot of thought into her lack of health guarantees in this case. If this is a pairing that she has produced pups from before I would ask if you could get a reference from someone that has a pup from a previous litter of this pairing if possible. Any puppy from any breeder, no matter how good they look on paper or sound in person, is going to be a risk. That's just life. You could have the most solid healthy bred dog on the planet and it might still get parvo on the car ride home or be attacked by an owl in the back yard. You are doing your due diligence and I think you've found a pretty decent breeder. Meet the breeding pair if you can, look through the pedigree and show status, and if you like their personalities and history, I would go for it.

TwisterII wrote:

Meet the breeding pair if you can, look through the pedigree and show status, and if you like their personalities and history, I would go for it.

EDIT: never mind, I forgot there are individual pages for the dogs and it is on those pages. Also, it is not a pairing that she has done before from the sounds of it. However, she has said that people lineup for litters from this dam/people call asking for when this one will be having a litter.

Told you she'd do a better job of it than I did ... my lack of information regarding pedigree animals all too often leaves me in the lurch.  Sorry if anything I said misled you.

And ... that's interesting, I thought HD showed up later, I didn't realize it could show up that early.

ETA:  Depending on the pair, I did see some pedigree's on her web site.  Do you know who the sire and dam of this pup are?
For example, look at Strut about 1/4 of the way down the screen is his ancestry. I presume the others have theirs as well<??>

aljones wrote:

ETA:  Depending on the pair, I did see some pedigree's on her web site.  Do you know who the sire and dam of this pup are?

My bad, I forgot that she had different web pages for the dogs, thanks!

The dam is Gracie and I do not know the sires name.

Also, something I just noticed, most of her dogs are in UKC events.. How does that compare to AKC/does that really mean anything if the are BIS/etc. in UKC?

Bootnaz wrote:

Also, something I just noticed, most of her dogs are in UKC events.. How does that compare to AKC/does that really mean anything if the are BIS/etc. in UKC?

@TwisterII !?!?!?! I don't do registerable dogs, so I have no idea!

I know Kohdi has some UKC way back in his lines so I looked it up once, but, I didn't really gain a whole lot of knowledge from it. It stands for "United Kennel Club" an all breed registry that instead of focusing on breed looks, bases credibility on looks AND performance. What does this mean? No clue, haha. I'm guessing instead of just trotting around a show ring, they're judged out in the field the breed is designed for, in the Siberians case, sled pulling and things of that nature. Again,  I'm guessing though.

@Bootnaz...just ask for the name of the sire. That way you'll know too if it's one of her own dogs or one brought in for this breeding. I love the due diligence you are putting in your search! It will pay off for you I'm sure.

Loved the 3 akc judge article, as Al mentioned, very good information there!!!

I would agree with most everything already posted on the health guarantee. When I was looking for a puppy, I had just lost my two huskies to epilepsy so a health guarantee was of extreme importance, however, to me now, it really doesn't mean all that much. It's better, IMO to find a good breeder whoSE lines are proven for that extra peace of mind assurance that goes along with it.

As far as the number of dogs she has. Wow! LOL. But you know what, it probably means nothing more than she keeps her dogs for life. A good breeder keeps a pup or two from a litter that shows promise for future litters/their program. My breeder kept two from Kohdi's litter, and one from Mishka's. Some breeders use the pup as intended, for future breeding, but then at 5 or 6 years of age, retire the dog and adopt her out. My breeder does that for the most part (she did keep Kohdi's dad though, for life, I'm unaware of how many others she did the same, though) but like, I know Mishka's mom was adopted out when she was 6 or 7. And other breeders hold on to the dog, like family (I'd actually prefer that but that's just my preference and do understand why they may not) . How many dogs the breeder has is not as important as how often she breeds/how many litters per year. With that being said, were all 30+ of them, Huskies? Having another breed there as well can be an issue sometimes.

Artic_Wind wrote:

@Bootnaz...just ask for the name of the sire. That way you'll know too if it's one of her own dogs or one brought in for this breeding. I love the due diligence you are putting in your search! It will pay off for you I'm sure.

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With that being said, were all 30+ of them, Huskies? .

I do know it was her dog, I just don't know the name - but I did send an email asking since I did not get ahold of her yesterday. And I hope it does, thanks!

As far as were all of her dogs huskies - yes. They were all purebred huskies (she mentioned getting some from breeders in Pennsylvania/Poland/etc.)

I would ask for a 2 year hip/eye guarantee or at least legal promise to pay for those if the vet that treats it says it is not due to injury or poor care.

I rarely sell a pup off my hybrids but, if I do, I guarantee them for three years, on the condition they are given proper vet care and a check up every six months after puppy vaccines are over, guarantee is only good if the vet determines the problem is not due to poor care or injury - those things are the owner's responsibility.

I wouldn't expect a breeder to cover things that could have been prevented by the owner.I wouldn't, I'm not paying for a virtual stranger's lack of knowledge, lack of resources or, lack of observation and care for the dog.

Example, dog escapes, gets hurt, leads to hip problems - well that's on the owner, the dog should never have escaped. They can dig, jump, climb - make sure it doesn't happen if you own one.

In my opinion UKC is worth more than AKC. The show ring has put together a lot of dogs that look a certain way but would undoubtedly fall apart if used for what the breed was actually intended. UKC requires that they can perform their intended duty as well as look good, meaning those dogs won't fall apart if you actually used them for sledding and should be sound for a running partner. AKC is just nearly worthless in my mind since they don't actually do anything to keep track of the quality of dogs they are giving papers to. As long as both sire and dam are papered they will issue papers to the pups, without actually verifying that the pups are from that pairing or that they are in standard for the breed. They will also issue limited AKC on a picture. So my rescue dogs who "look" pure can be registered with AKC and have paperwork to compete in anything but conformation shows, but they don't give much credit to conformation titled dogs who also perform in other aspects like pulling. Personally I like seeing UKC titles in the the lineup as it makes me feel like the actual working structure of the dog in the pedigree will be more apt to be a solid usable structure.

TwisterII wrote:

In my opinion UKC is worth more than AKC. The show ring has put together a lot of dogs that look a certain way but would undoubtedly fall apart if used for what the breed was actually intended. UKC requires that they can perform their intended duty as well as look good, meaning those dogs won't fall apart if you actually used them for sledding and should be sound for a running partner. AKC is just nearly worthless in my mind since they don't actually do anything to keep track of the quality of dogs they are giving papers to. As long as both sire and dam are papered they will issue papers to the pups, without actually verifying that the pups are from that pairing or that they are in standard for the breed. They will also issue limited AKC on a picture. So my rescue dogs who "look" pure can be registered with AKC and have paperwork to compete in anything but conformation shows, but they don't give much credit to conformation titled dogs who also perform in other aspects like pulling. Personally I like seeing UKC titles in the the lineup as it makes me feel like the actual working structure of the dog in the pedigree will be more apt to be a solid usable structure.

That makes sense, thanks! I really appreciate all of your (and everyone elses) input/responses!!

Hi. I don't mean to hijack this thread but if anyone has any breeder recommendations in PA, NJ, NY, DE, MD or even New England, I'm all ears. I've searched the AKC site for Breeders of Merit with pupskies near me and I get nothing. However, if I go to the national club site, it just has a list of breeders with e-mail addresses and phone numbers...so, no website, no photos, etc. If there's a resource I'm missing, please let me know. Thanks!

glorth2 wrote:

Hi. I don't mean to hijack this thread but if anyone has any breeder recommendations in PA, NJ, NY, DE, MD or even New England, I'm all ears. I've searched the AKC site for Breeders of Merit with pupskies near me and I get nothing. However, if I go to the national club site, it just has a list of breeders with e-mail addresses and phone numbers...so, no website, no photos, etc. If there's a resource I'm missing, please let me know. Thanks!

Try and see if they have Facebook pages, that's what I did.

Also, consider a bit further away. I'm not familiar with the breeders but, family in the area say there is a good breeder in Charlotte, NC called the Husky Palace. I don't know but, family nearby says it's not a puppy mill or back yard breeder and, the dogs they've seen all appear healthy and are out doing things with the people there.

I won't go into all the things I find distasteful about Husky Palace - let's just say that I don't have the time.

Their "guarantee" is a joke - a really bad joke.

ETA: Sorry, it was getting late for me and the pups and I didn't want to take a lot of time then to provide input.

How many different ways can I say "Puppy Mill"???  This "kennel" is run by three different families (related??) in two different locations breeding three different breeds of dogs ( Siberian Husky, Alaskan Klee Kai and Dobermann Pinscher )

They (Siberian Pups) come with an AKC limited registration but nowhere on their site can I find the AKC registration for any of their dogs (maybe it's my oversight?)

Nowhere do they show any pictures of the pups birthing / living conditions - just some real cute pictures of puppies.

On one part of the site, referring to Sibes, they say that no one will deliver a pup to your door and in reference to AKK's they say "I will personally deliver pup to your front door." This is a peeve of mine - if they can't be consistent with what they write on their web site ... how consistent will they be after the fact?

Last comment:  they breed and sell wooley's and treat them as if they were a normal part of the Sibe standard, when in fact they're a non registerable fault!

If you have any doubts about my feeling about these folks, go read - seriously read - their health guarantee.  If they do OFFA / CERT they never mention it.

*I* am very definitely not impressed!

bluemoods wrote:

Also, consider a bit further away. I'm not familiar with the breeders but, family in the area say there is a good breeder in Charlotte, NC called the Husky Palace. I don't know but, family nearby says it's not a puppy mill or back yard breeder and, the dogs they've seen all appear healthy and are out doing things with the people there.

Oh, I am. I don't want to have to fly anywhere and I don't think I could afford to have a pupsky shipped but, I'm in southeast PA and included NE so, pretty good radius for the right thing.

Side note, I'm kind of surprised that there isn't a forum re: breeders here. Is that to encourage rescues? Just curious.

Edit to add: I'm also looking at rescues in the area. I hate to sound superficial but my 2 previous huskies were wolf gray with blue eyes. I like that or like that silver gray color.

Well, there is a rescue in the area - maybe adopting rather than buying a Husky would suit you if you can't find a breeder you like, give one that lost it's forever home a new forever home.

http://neshr.org/

There is also http://www.sibes.com/ in the area.

bluemoods wrote:

Well, there is a rescue in the area - maybe adopting rather than buying a Husky would suit you if you can't find a breeder you like, give one that lost it's forever home a new forever home.

http://neshr.org/

There is also http://www.sibes.com/ in the area.

Yes, my point was, I know the ones that are local to me but am expanding my search. Using petfinder atm.