Lonely Hearts Yearn For Well-Bred Dogs

So much for my brilliant career as a matchmaker. If you read my five-part extravaganza on canine genetic disease that concluded last week, you know I offered to create a Canine Underground Directory of conscientious dog breeders in this region.

I saw myself as the dog lovers’ yentl. The good breeders would write in, the conscientious dog buyers would write in, and I would bring them together through the borrowed offices of this good paper. Soon, healthy puppies would be going home to loving families who deserved them. They would romp with laughing children in fenced backyards, accompany owners on healthful walks, curl up before the fire on cold nights, warming everyone’s heart. Long would they live. Grateful readers would chorus: “Thank you, dog yentl, thank you!” Somewhere, Barbra Streisand would sing.

Well, it didn’t quite turn out that way.

We heard from readers as far away as New York. And from all over the Inland Northwest. A woman in Superior, Mont., wrote of searching for an English bulldog puppy - “Just a friend, companion and pal for ourselves and our present beloved English bulldog.”

People from one end of the Idaho Panhandle to the other mailed their requests, dutifully including a return envelope, stamp affixed. A reader in Bonners Ferry is hunting for a Lhasa apso, West Highland white terrier or Shih Tzu. At the Ranch of the Rising Sun in Clark Fork, a search is under way for a golden retriever, yellow Lab, Doberman pinscher or greyhound (“No, I do not go to dog races!” wrote the lady of the ranch). A Moscow couple wants a flat coated retriever or Chesapeake Bay retriever.

People wrote from the high deserts and forests of Eastern Washington. One card from Colville featured a red apple bearing the word “Thanks!” and had “ThanksThanksThanks …” printed clear around the border. “Please send us information on Labradors and golden retrievers. Thank you,” wrote the polite fellow. (Thank you, sir, for writing.) A “large, laid-back friend” is what a Moses Lake man is looking for, preferably a Bernese mountain dog.

The correspondence had a tone of longing - a cross between an ad in the personals and a note to Santa Claus. But here’s the scorecard to date: Dog buyers 47, dog breeders 0. That is, so far, 47 readers have requested information about conscientious breeders, but not a single conscientious breeder has stepped forward to be identified. If this doesn’t make good breeders look like the kind of shy persons who keep the Powder Milk Biscuit Co. alive, it casts me as a man who believes in fairies.

So, gentle reader, instead of providing you with the Canine Underground Directory I was hoping to, I can only offer these speculations about the silence of good breeders.

First, good breeders are thin on the vine. I asked one of the region’s most respected breeders, a senior Spokane Kennel Club member, how many area breeders she knows of who take the necessary steps to avoid genetic disease. After a long pause, she said, “A dozen?”

Second, good breeders are so horribly outnumbered by people looking for a good dog that the breeders lay low. They don’t have to look for puppy buyers; the buyers are always beating the bushes, seeking them.

Third, good breeders are scared to death that one of their dogs might wind up in the gulag of a puppy mill. They figure that puppy millers, in their lazy quest for easy money, won’t take the trouble to locate one of their dogs, and that’s just how they want to keep it.

I will try to respond personally to readers looking for a breed for which I have a reference or two that might be helpful, and I’ll keep the candle of the Underground Directory burning.

Meanwhile, Nancy Flannery, proprietor of Thunder Mountain Dog Supplies in Spokane (509-928-3677), continues her Herculean effort of maintaining a regional list of breeders she considers a cut above the average. It’s a tough task, she says, because puppy millers periodically sneak onto her list; she kicks them off when she catches them.

So do your homework by studying the breeds you’re interested in, give Nancy a call and she’ll provide you names if she can. Please be sure to thank her for the goodness of her heart.