Conformation breeders and performance puppies

corbinam

corbinam

Moderator
I have a question for all you breeders out there (and anyone else who has any experience on either end of the spectrum!)

How do you decide which puppies to place in performance homes? I ask this because we were truly fortunate to get Lexi as a performance prospect--she's exactly what we were looking for. She's smart, drivey, and structurally sound (at least the parts that matter when it comes to performance). We ended up with her because of her underbite.

However, that begs the question, it seems like a performance prospect in a litter of shelties bred specifically for conformation would be difficult to place. For example, if a dog is structurally sound, it would go to a conformation home. If not, a pet home. Obviously you wouldn't want to place a puppy that is not structurally sound in a performance home.

I know some breeders value performance as much as conformation--but many do not. (Or at least they want the main focus to be in the breed ring).

If a prospective performance home came to you for a puppy, how would you choose the right puppy for them? What are the chances that you would have a good "fit"?
 
First, structure is huge. Performance dogs need that structure long term for working, where conformation dogs really only need to run in a circle. So for conformation breeders to pass off any unsound or not perfect puppy as a "pet/performance dog" irritates me to no end.

Second, I don't have "drivey" over the top dogs, so I don't produce over the top puppies. What I do have is sound, happy, biddable dogs who love to work, and who don't have fear/noise issues.

When people come to me for dogs, I let them see everything. I don't hold puppies back or any of that nonsense. I pull out tug toys, teeters, noisy things, anything I can find, and I let the people play with the puppies. When Barbara came to see Savvy (after telling me she didn't want a puppy), she played tug for a solid hour, then had the puppy standing with all four feet on the tippy board, balancing. Then said "I will be back Christmas Eve to get her." :smile2: I had another puppy buyer who introduced her BC to the two puppies I brought for her to see, then took the puppy that stood down the BC.

My next litter will be harder, because I plan to keep one, and I already have a list of people who want puppies. I should get good bodies and sound minds on all the puppies, as the sire and dam are both sound, reasonable dogs.

Also, if you want to start looking for agility dogs, check out Bob Millers pedigree updates every month. See what kennel names are on his advanced title - performance list, and which ones ARE NOT. I've been looking at his list for years, and there are more than a few big name kennels that never, ever appear on his advanced title list.
 
Rachael, I think that you may be one of the breeders that I would classify as holding conformation and agility both in high regard.

Every breeder that I spoke to (in the past) offered us the puppies that were NOT going to be conformation dogs. I don't want to discredit them as I love our breeder and feel that she knew what we were looking for (perhaps better than we did), but we were given the choice of 2 puppies. Out of a litter of 9, these were the 2 with underbites, therefore would not have made it in the conformation ring. We asked her opinion and she said that Lexi was sassy, and very smart (she was the one who would run to the door with the others, but as soon as she realized the dogs had to go in and stop playing, she would run away again) and ideal for performance.

I would actually hesitate to look at dogs bred specifically for agility without doing a TON of research. First and foremost I want a dog I can live with...and I've seen many breeders take "drive" too far. These dogs can be hyper and unruly--even with an outlet and proper training. And I've seen some people breed for working effort and drive, but forget about structure entirely (eek!)
 
ClantyreSheltie said:
Also, if you want to start looking for agility dogs, check out Bob Millers pedigree updates every month. See what kennel names are on his advanced title - performance list, and which ones ARE NOT. I've been looking at his list for years, and there are more than a few big name kennels that never, ever appear on his advanced title list.
Click to expand...

Where do you find this list, Rachael?
 
Kind of reminds me of the Saddlebred world where the saddleseat show people would offer the sporthorse people the saddleseat rejects. In reality, the sporthorse people wanted the same type of horses that made the top five gaited horses- not the rejects. However, the saddleseat people didn't seem to get it, nor did they care, to be honest.
I've seen that a lot in the conformation world of shelties as well. Anything that isn't a conformation prospect MUST be a performance prospect. :rolleyes2: A lot of conformation breeders don't seem to get that we need the same structurally sound ones that they would want, except we don't particularly have to have the pretty pretty head. I think the problem is that a lot of conformation breeders value the conformation ring, and what a dog does there so much more than the performance rings, so it is a given then that they would rather see their prospect puppy go into a conformation home than an agility home where the dog would be equally successful. I think part of the rest of the problem is so many truly don't understand what is needed in a performance prospect.
There was a very big, well respected breeder a little while back who posted to one of the sheltie lists (I won't mention the name of the breeder) who claimed agility is easy, and the titles are easy to earn.. This is the type of uneducated response that leads me to feel so many don't really know enough about what the performance people really want, as they have NO clue what is truly required of a top performance team to be successful. I also know many a breeder who has told me their puppies could be just as good as mine, yet I have watched them fail due to temperament issues that made them unable to be successful. Again, these breeders don't understand what is needed by the performance people.
I think a lot of people breeding strictly for performance, who are ignoring structure are starting to learn that it is important to pay attention to it. Granted, not all. I still have friends breeding for drive alone, and who pay no attention to structural soundness... but a lot of people are breeding now with structure in mind as well as drive.
Good examples of people breeding with performance in mind, but also paying attention to good structure would be Claudia Frank of Jusdandy and Nina Plail of Plail Shelties.
 
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I agree with a lot of what you said. I can see it when I watch Edan run against other Shelties. He's not a high drive dog but as having an "aptitude for agility", which, admittedly, is how I phrased what I was looking for in a Sheltie. (I was completely green to performance and didn't really know what I was looking for/at.) However, I was also looking for a good companion animal with a good temperament since, first and foremost, this was my pet.

While I wouldn't trade Edan for the world, I have learned what I would like in my next agility dog and will probably look for performance focused breeders.

HopeShelties said:
I think a lot of people breeding strictly for performance, who are ignoring structure are starting to learn that it is important to pay attention to it. Granted, not all. I still have friends breeding for drive alone, and who pay no attention to structural soundness... but a lot of people are breeding now with structure in mind as well as drive.
Click to expand...

I agree with this also. One of the local breeders is very focused on high drive performance Shelties. She also enters her dogs in confirmation events to ensure her breeding stock is structurally sound. Her current stud dog earned his AKC CH title at 9 months. (And I have the pleasure of teaching one of his BEAUTIFUL Blue Merle pups in my current Agility 100 class.)

So, I've learned a bit about what to look for and what not to look for. It would be nice if confirmation focused people had even the slightest clue about performance; and honestly as someone who does performance I think I'd rather purchase a pup from a breeder who has titles in a variety of things - performance and confirmation - than just confirmation.
 
I have had this conversation with a breeder in my area that breeds only for the breed ring. Everything she has that doesn't make it as a conformation prospect she labels performance. A couple of her pups have had horrific structure and I have told her flat out no serious performance people would want them. Yes they did have nice ,bold outgoing personalities but it is oh so much more than that.

I think performance prospects who would not be conformation dogs would be dogs with not so correct heads, undersize or oversized or minor bite issues. I had Sangria and if a serious performance home would have been interested I would have placed her with them. She had drive, structure and was obviously going to be way oversized. No one was immediately interested so when a great pet home came along thats where she went.

I think, you just have to find that breeder that understands the needs of the performance dogs an has the kind of dog you like, know what you want so you can relate that to the breeder and then be prepare to wait if that litter doesn't have something that fits.
 
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