I've searched a lot on the web to find sibe breeders, good ones and bad ones. On FB someone posted a link to a guy I consider a BYB. I've seen his website before and could tell from things like he doesn't get the dogs hips checked and lists the puppy's parents by coat and eye color. But he does do rescue. He's definitely not the worst BYB I've found, but I still don't agree with his breedings. So I thought I'd "go undercover" and see if I could learn more about him. Here's how it went:

Me: Hi, I was interested in learning what your goals are in breeding siberians. I currently have a female sibe I'm wanting to breed and want to get in touch with other breeders. Do you get their hips and eyes checked before breeding? I'm debating on whether or not to get those tests done. How do you choose who you're going to breed to who? How much do you usually charge for puppies? I've seen sibe puppies go from anywhere from $200 to $2000! Just wondering how people choose how much they are going to sell their puppies for. Thanks!

Him: Hello,

We do not do the hips test because we don't want to put our dogs under anesthesia to do it. All have had their eyes checked by a vet. We basically breed to improve the Sibes and get as close as possible to a show dog as well as for a healthy dog. The biggest problem in Sibes today in about 14% of them is that the boys may drop only one testicle; if it is not removed, it may cause cancer. We charge $600 because it is still affordable to people, but at the same time, it represents what a puppy's price should be between $400 and $700. We believe that anything over $700 for a puppy just makes the breeder a money-making yard breeder. All our puppies are AKC registered. There are some crazy people who think that by selling them for over $1,000, it makes them better dogs; if you look at their dogs carefully, they don't seem to be. Our males and females cost the same, most of these people mentioned above charge different prices for them.

Let me know if you have other questions

Me: For the hip testing, I dunno, I'd feel just terrible if I sold a puppy who eventually got hip dysplasia and it was something I could have avoided. On the siberian husky club of america, they recommend doing it and said the number of hip dysplasia in huskies has dropped a lot since breeders started testing. I'm sure you could find a vet who would do the x-ray without anesthesia. My mom had to get one of her dog's hips checked (not for breeding, he just had an issue) and she taught him to stay still on his back and they did it without any meds.

I see you do rescue too. How many rescues do you have now? Now this is a moral question, but with so many huskies in rescue, how do you justify adding more to the population? I feel so terrible when I see so many in rescues and shelters. Makes me feel bad for even thinking about breeding. I foster kittens for a shelter near me and I just hate it when I see people let their cats get pregnant. I hounded a friend to get her cats fixed, but of course she kept putting it off and the cat ended up having two litters! Just what FL needs, more cats. I was looking at the website you created, the husky breeder one, and I was a little shocked to see one of the breeders listed under Resources has 8 planned breedings for this year! That just seems like they're doing it for the money to me.

Does the $600 end up at least covering the cost of the litter?

Him: I used to show since I have a show girl, but I didn't really like it as much because people can be really mean, so I stopped.

No, I don't do agility or obedience. Obedience is hard with huskies.

That's why I give everyone a two-year guarantee. If anything happens to any of my dogs that is congenital, I would give them another one. In my many years breeding, I have not had any. Thank God!

Yes, I have done the X-rays, but some people want a vet specialist to do that and to put them to sleep. I don't have any of those doctors nearby.

I breed to improve the breed and only my AKC registered dogs; however, I also breed to help with the rescue; since they can be costly, and there are no grants available anymore, all the money I get from breeding goes to my rescues. I don't have all the available huskies at the house; they can be still in the home they are coming from or at a foster home until I find them a home. I currently have two rescues with me.

Wow! I never noticed that someone there had 8 breedings for the year. I will have to contact the board to see what we decide to do.

Yes, the $600 per puppy provides extra money if the girl has more than four puppies. The extra goes into my rescue.




That is the first time I have ever heard of someone breeding to help fund their rescue. That just seems so wrong to me in so many ways! Plus he puts so much credit to AKC papered dogs like so many other bad breeders. AKC is like a big filling cabnet. It's a convenient way to store names, dates, points, and titles. That is it! AKC does not care what their AKC dogs look or act like. Having AKC papers alone does not make a dog more to the standard. Going to shows or trials and having judges award the dogs who best fit the standard is the way you can tell, not just form AKC paperwork!
And just praying to the stars that you don't end up breeding a dog without hip problems when you can actually do something before hand to have a much better chance is just stupid and not worth it to me. Oh and his policy if the dog shows signs of something, isn't to just give you a new puppy like most reputable breeders do (cause they know you've fallen in love with that puppy), but to take that puppy back and give you a new one.
From what few pictures he posts on his website, he does have a couple nice looking sibes, but a few of them are pretty far from the standard. So who knows what he thinks the standard is supposed to look like.
Oh and the real kicker that doesn't have to do with him breeding is that a lot of his "rescue" dogs are not spayed or neutered! No rescue in their right mind would send out a dog not spayed or neutered! Plus one of them is a wolf hybrid!

Oh and the scariest thing is, he asked me zero questions! If I had someone e-mail me about wanting to breed their dog, I'd have a few questions to ask them.

I am glad he does rescue (though am screaming inside that he'll adopt out unaltered dogs. that doesn't help the problem at all!) and glad he at least does eye checks (lets hope they are every year and not just once) and sort of knows the standard (though a few of his newer dogs look less and less like the standard to me). I guess like with everything there are always those shades of grey. Everyone's going to do things differently. Some get it right, some sort of right, and others way wrong.

That is pretty scary! I noticed that as well when I was reading through. I've tried to discourage a few people myself who have mentioned wanting to breed their dogs. It makes me sick...Granted I purchased both of mine from a BYB, but at the time I had no idea what they were and how they functioned. He brought up "papers" twice and he doesn't even work or show his dogs. Not wanting to put them under is a sad excuse for not having the correct tests done..And "obedience is hard with huskies" just makes him sound lazy to me. Yes, huskies are not the best candidates for obedience LOL, but it can be done and I'm pretty sure it has been done before (I don't keep up with obedience).

And when he says that he just gives the family another puppy if something is wrong with the current one, that's a little heartless /: if that family has grown attached to the puppy/dog then they're probably not going to want to give it up just to replace it with another. I know I wouldn't.

And letting rescues go to their new home unaltered is jaw-dropping! My first though is maybe he can't afford it or just doesn't want to spend the money?? Whatever his reasons, that is definitely a no-no in my book...Indy will be neutered asap, and I defintiely have NO intentions to breed him.

Also, I've recently learned that the "breeder" I got Diesel from is no longer breeding her dogs. Whoop! That's one less BYB out there

I know of one lady who did show her sibe in obedience and I know a few who do agility with theirs. It's not impossible! lol.

Exactly! The guy just sounds straight up lazy to me when it comes to getting the right things done. Kudos to him for doing rescue though; however, he needs to spay/neuter them!

I'd love to do agility with one of my future sibes. I plan on getting a husky that I can show in a few years and I'd love to do agility as well.

I've done a little agility with my two. Helps that my mom is an agility instructor! I've been waiting for it to finally cool off. It's gotten cold a few times, but sheesh it's been a very warm winter here in FL. I helped my parents put down sod in their backyard the other day (which I will NEVER volunteer to go again! Way too much work!). It's going to be a big agility area, so hopefully once the grass grows in a bit I'll start doing more with my girls. The place where my mom teaches is about an hour away, so to have a place closer will be awesome!

Here's Siku. She was being such a butthead that day! Kept running off to smell things.

That's awesome! The closest one to me that I know of is almost 2 hours away from me. There they teach obedience, rally obedience, agility and tracking. That's the club I want to go to once everything gets settled. I've always loved watching shows and competitions on TV. I was an Animal Planet junkie I'm jealous you'll have one so close and that your mom is an instructor!!

I want to get out there and watch local shows and competitions once we can start to travel away from home again.

I know Indy would never listen to me doing agility lol. He doesn't have the drive in him to do agility. He's scared of the jumps and tunnels! He's waaaay too shy. I tried to train it out of him but he's still hesitant when it comes to new objects and noises and crowds.

shaina&indy wrote:

I know Indy would never listen to me doing agility lol. He doesn't have the drive in him to do agility. He's scared of the jumps and tunnels! He's waaaay too shy. I tried to train it out of him but he's still hesitant when it comes to new objects and noises and crowds.

That's the issue I had with Mikko doing agility was attention. I took classes and he loved the equipment but could never get more than 3 pieces done in a row. The trainer kept insisting on clicker and treat rewards, the problem is Mikko is so not food motivated even with high value treats.


This guy doesn't do rescue if he lets animals go unaltered. He can call it that but he's flat wrong!

Chili has awesome focus in agility - it can be done - he was maybe even TOO food motivated and got antsy waiting his turn! Frosti did pretty good in obedience, too.

Indy is food and toy driven - moreso food, but when it comes to things like new large objects (trucks/barrels/trashcans/poles/everything!) food nor toy deters his attention. He wants to know what it is at that very moment, and he's scared of whatever it is about 95% of the time. You'd think I didn't socialize the poor thing but he goes everywhere I go except for work! Parties, outings, family outings, stores (drive-through lol), plenty of friend's houses, and goes to Adam's shop and my parent's shop.

Sara, have you tried to talk the guy into spaying/neutering his rescues? And also not breeding his dogs? Since he clearly isn't qualified to breed them. I know it's really none of your business when it comes to that, but I'm just curious as to what he would say if you had.

Both of Calypso's grand-parents were Champions at Obedience. You're right, it can be done.

After spending months and weeks and days researching Sibes, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of people have good intentions but poorly drawn out paths.

shaina&indy wrote:

Sara, have you tried to talk the guy into spaying/neutering his rescues? And also not breeding his dogs? Since he clearly isn't qualified to breed them. I know it's really none of your business when it comes to that, but I'm just curious as to what he would say if you had.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to e-mail him anymore. Figured if I said too much, he'd catch on and just stop talking to me anyway. I tried to see if I could guilt him into doing hip checks at least, but that didn't phase him. He seems pretty set in his ways. Doubt anything I could say to him will actually change the way he does things. Maybe I'll write up one last e-mail. Just need to figure out how to work it right and not sound like a know it all. You can get them talking more freely if you sound like an idiot. lol.

Hey, let's hope I at least convinced him to kick that one breeder off his site. No need for a BYB who plans 8 breedings in one year to get extra advertising!