Excerpt from the book Born to Win, Breed to Succeed, written by Patricia Craige Trotter
What Your Mother Told You Is True
“Be careful not to rush into your breeding activities, and not to choose beauty at the expense of everything else. What your mother told you is true: beauty is more than skin-deep, and pretty is as pretty does. In essence, you will combine hard work with knowledge of structure, type, performance, and breed characteristics in order to create your dream dog. And you must remain committed to this principle: There is only one reason to breed a litter—and that is to improve your breeding stock. Not to sell puppies, not to go to shows, not to break records, and not to present yet more of the same dogs to a world already filled with unwanted ones.”
Every planned breeding must be a step forward— a deliberate act of preservation and improvement that respects the breed and serves its future. For when beauty…
When combined with soundness, health, and temperament, you are not only creating a dog that looks good, but also one that lives well and represents its breed with honor.
