Hi, Chris--
As a Cairn terrier person, I did check the few breeders that have signed up on your service, and so far-- all three are legitimate breeders who are members of the national club and actively participate in breeding, conformation and seem to breed for all the right reasons. (They do not sell dogs as "cash crops," per se.) So Cairn-wise, it's all good.
What are your criteria for signing up someone as a breeder? Do you have safeguards against puppymillers or backyard breeders?
You have mailed several people I know who are legitimate breeders and they are also wondering about how you determine whom you will accept in your breeder referral section.
The Cairn Terrier Club of America and its satellite clubs offer breeder referrals as well, but if you adhere to certain ethical guidelines, I see no reason why your site cannot be an asset.
It's imperative that this is done well. There are way too many dogs in purebred rescue. The responsible breeders stand behind what they produce 100%.
Thanks!
Jill
kkibak
12-10-2006, 05:17 PM
Hi Jill!--Chris and I run the site together, and I generally take care of more of the tech-side of things like adding new features and building the site while Chris deals with our breeders, so he will probably have a better response than me, but I can answer most of your questions.
First, it's really refreshing to hear your positive attitude. A lof of breeders are (understandably) very concerned and are immediately adversarial. Usually after we talk to these folks (we are happy to answer any questions or to discuss the site in general either by phone, e-mail, or here in the forums) they see that we are really working very hard to make sure we include only ethical breeders.
What are our criteria for signing up someone as a breeder?
First, the e-mails we send out to breeders go to people we have reason to believe are ethical breeders--usually they are listed on their respective breed's club page.
Second, Chris does his best to research each breeder before approving them (we have denied many questionable breeds).
Third, we are actively working to enlist the help of breed clubs in our approval process. For clubs that have agreed to help out, we have a custom program set up that sends an email with breeder information to a club representitive. If the representative does not approve of a breeder, he or she can simply reply to the automatic e-mail and let us know, and we will (of course) respect their advice and exclude the breeder from our listings.
We genuinely want the same things as many of our concerned visitors, and if you have any suggestions or ideas to improve the approval process we would love to listen. Currently we have a few clubs in the program I mentioned above and it seems to be working well... and I know Chris is actively contacting other clubs to try and involve them as well.
Like I said Chris is the authority on this aspect of the site, so he will probably be able to say more than I have, but I'd like to end by saying one more time that any suggestions you have will be welcomed with open arms. We truly want to make BR the best it can be and an integral part of that is protecting dogs by approving only quality breeders.
ckelly
12-10-2006, 06:36 PM
Hi Jill,
Thank you very much for your post. I think Kris did a pretty good job of explaining our stance on breeder approval, so I don't have much to add. My process for finding and approving breeders goes pretty much like this:
I look through national breed club breeder referrals for people to contact, and I actively stay away from directories such as terrificpets.com, nextdaypets.com, pets4you.com and others because I don't know how/if they screen breeders.
When a breeder signs up, I look through his or her website carefully looking for positive signs (showing, OFA and other medical detail, breed expertise, etc.) and negative signs (too many dogs/litters, more than two breed focus, suspiciously low prices for dogs, etc.). In some cases, I will conduct phone interviews if I'm not sure about a breeder.
Recently, I've reached out to breed clubs looking for volunteers to help us in this task. If you'd like to help us out with Cairn Terrier breeders, we'd be very grateful. Please feel free to respond here or send me an email (ckelly@breederretriever.com) if you have any further questions.