Time to Shake, Rattle, and Roll!

Time to Shake, Rattle, and Roll!

Note: This blog applies ONLY to us. We do not judge or belittle anyone. We are always mindful about what goals  we need to improve our own breeding program. ​
​A lot of forethought is so important when choosing two dogs to breed. There is no perfect dog, so we have to learn to be our dogs best critic, carefully recognizing their flaws and looking at what they excel at, and work towards improving their offspring, while always working towards our Breed Standard. 

Annie (left) will be one of our new "Rough" foundation bitches here. We loves what she brings to  the table both in confirmation and health. She will be getting additional testing done this spring. We have worked years to get here. We are very proud of our achievement and our look in many of our current, and up and coming. 

There are things we carefully consider with each breeding.
These are a few:

• Temperament 
• Structure, Size, Strong Bone
• COI 
• Working away from Breed Anomalies

There are some who would criticize and tell us to stop worrying about the little things like CEA. (example) Some would say since this isn't a progressive disease, it justifies the breeding of two affected dogs to get "the look" desired in the confirmation ring. We just cannot (in our own program) allow this pairing.
On occasion, since we do work to clean some lines, we have a dog who is CEA affected. We firmly believe all lines are important to the Collie breed. So we match this CEA affected dog to a CEA clear mate. All of the puppies will then be carrier of 1 copy and not 2 copies of the gene. In order to be CEA affected, a dog must have 2 copies of the gene. Thus the offspring of this match would never have to worry about being CEA affected. This makes sense to us, to our veterinarian's, and when used in conjunction with considering all other things has made us feel like we are making a difference for the Collie breed. 
Our ability to improve our program comes with each new test available to us, and also by recognizing a puppy who stands out from the rest, and keeping this puppy to watch grow.
We will be adding testing in 2023 that we feel will greatly improve our confidence in doing our due diligence for you and our dogs. 
We will be adding the following procedures/testing to our program:

• DMS Testing
• OFA Hips/Elbows
• Cardiac EKG
• Thyroid 
• Kidney Dysplasia  

These will be added in addition to our Canine Health Check testing which covers 227 Diseases, and 32 Traits including colors. 

As we have strived for in this past decade, we will continue to work at our contribution to improving the Collie breed.  Nothing is ever 100% and things still happen in breeding animals of any species that we cannot predict or determine ahead of time, but we will continue to work at growing and working harder to bring you the best we can! We will rise to the challenge of changes to make things better. Thank you for following us, and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask,
Marc & Suzi Newman

#windwhispersfarm, #genetics, #breedingbetter #change #testing #CEA