What makes us different ?
Darcy a black female from a blue / black mating *Retired after C-section
Why are we different to a lot of other breeders ? what separates us from backyard breeders ?
Unfortunately the dog world is full of crooks looking to make a fast buck, quite often large sums of money without considering the welfare or the health of the dogs they breed from or the pups they produce. The two biggest red flags for these type of breeders are, they will no doubt be operating under the radar of licensing authorities so will be unregulated and unlicensed and without a shadow of a doubt will not be declaring their incoming from breeding to HMRC and so avoiding tax.
Thats why we aim to set the bar high in terms of welfare, health, facilities, professionalism and ethical breeding……. It’s ok saying this but how do we achieve this ?
Our dogs live as part of our family living happy, healthy lives full of love.
We have been family breeders for many years, we are both Vet and local authority inspected & approved breeders. As well as keeping accounts and declaring our income to HMRC and paying any tax due we have also invested heavily in our facilities. Our dogs are part of our family so are generally not kennelled dogs, if we are at home the dogs are out with us and have free roam of our home and spend their time with us. The only time they are kennelled is if we go out for any length of time or possibly I'm out walking one or two dogs and also when they go to bed. We have indoor kennels and drainage system in a purpose built extension to our home, which includes kitchen, utility room and washing machine solely for our dogs, indoor whelping kennels, incubation and isolation facility. We also have outdoor kennels with heating set at 18 degrees, lighting, drainage, runs and CCTV so we can see them all the time. Also a big communal run for all our dogs with direct access to our house so they can come in and out as they please. Everyday we go out and about on adventures so we have a pickup truck, kitted out with purpose built dog boxes so we can travel all over for walks and fun times.
Extension to our home. Investing in purpose built whelping set up.
Purpose built dog room, whelping/ incubation/ feeding/ washing everything we need to maintain high standards.
As ethical breeders we aim to make welfare, health and life enrichment the main factors.
All our breeding SBTs are L2-Hga & HC-HSF4 clear and BVA Phpv eye screened. When we introduce a pup to our pack it isn't a given they will go on to breed within our programme, we are selective. We have had many females over the years that we decide may not be suitable for breeding. For example in 2016 we had a fantastic female called Peppa who we got as a pup from a reputable breeder however at 2 years old she had a luxating patella (no fault of breeder just bad luck) so we had the knee operated on, fixed and instantly retired her from our breeding programme despite her visual quality and pedigree. Many backyard breeders would have put money first and bred once recovered regardless. After her operation Peppa was spayed and rehomed with a family friend and is living a great life.
More examples Maggie and Ziggy both got from reputable breeders, again with the intention to breed further down the line just weren't quite the quality we wanted as they matured. Maggie head and ears I felt we couldn’t improve on and would impact the quality of the pups produced and Ziggy her coat was not the quality we would want to breed from so these two girls were rehomed as pets and again are living happy lives.
Myself and Vinnie out in the dog wagon !!
As family breeders our dogs are part of our family.
Also another factor in ethical breeding which morally separates us from backyard breeders is C-sections as soon as a bitch has a c-section we instantly retire her from any future breeding as we feel its unfair the risk of it happening again. If bitch delivers the pups fine but struggles with whelping or motherhood in general we again retire her from any future breeding. Two examples of this is Darcy and Bow they for reasons stated were retired, spayed and rehomed with lovely families.
Darcy a beautiful girl who had a difficult birth and required a C-section so the right thing to do was spay her.
Paige a beautiful blue female great dark coat, great skin and whelped with ease and took to motherhood well. So unlike Darcy who struggled we know as breeders she is well suited to our breeding programme. Welfare is always priority.
Its all about selecting the best, healthy SBTs for any breeding programme and who whelp easily without stress. We breed both blue and black SBTs and there is a lot of noise about blue on blue breeding and producing pups with dilute blue coats that go on to have colour dilution and often skin issues. Well there is certainly some truth in that as the unregulated, unlicensed over breeding of blues over the past decade has done exactly that diluted the coat and ruined the breed. Most of the pups available now for sale are poorly bred examples, there are some good ones out there and some good breeders but they are certainly in the minority and the situation is getting worse due to the lack of enforcement. Backyard breeders putting two blues together who have poor coats and skin, quite often they get away with it and pups are fine just poor very dilute in colour but the more this done generation after generation well then comes the inevitable health and skin issues. We only breed blue to blue if the SBTs in question have good quality coats and skin, this is so vitally important I can't stress it enough. If we had a SBT in our programme whos coat and skin was not in the very best condition then quite simply they would not be bred. Colour, brindle points are all secondary, its the quality of the coat and the health of the skin witch is important. 60% of the pups we produced here at Vaderblustaf now come from black / blue matings and the blue/blue matings importantly are from healthy SBTs who have previously had litters together and the pups themselves are healthy examples have great coats and quality skin. As we move forward in 2024 and beyond we will continue our philosophy to increase and strengthen our black lines within our breeding programme so producing the best possible blue and black pups.
Happy, healthy and impressive Vinnie.
So in a nutshell, what makes us different to unregulated/ unlicensed breeders is we don't just put two dogs together and call ourselves breeders….. We selectively breed for health and quality, maximising % of pups we produce who go on to live full, happy, healthy lives and minimising % of future health issues. We rehome as pets the SBTs who for any reason we feel would not be good addition to our breeding programme this can often prove expensive and put us at a loss but in terms of breeding ethics and importantly welfare of that particular SBT it is the right thing to do. We constantly invest in our facilities, dog welfare, health and life enrichment. We are one of the very few licensed, DEFRA, Vet and local authority approved breeders in the UK. We don't claim to be perfect but we will always strive to constantly improve, evolve and move forward.