I’m writing a short series of three posts to separate some of the questions that tend to get mixed together in discussions about dog breeding. It separates questions that are often collapsed into a single argument: how breeding works in practice, what science can and cannot tell us about risk, and where moral disagreement actually sits. Each post focuses on a different layer, because treating all of these as one question is one of the reasons these conversations stall.
This series is for breeders, dog owners, and prospective dog owners. It is also for people who find themselves involved in debates about breeding, rescue, or “ethical” dog ownership and want clearer language, better questions, and a more realistic understanding of what different choices actually imply for dogs. It is not written to settle arguments, but to make responsibility more visible.
The first post looks at how selective breeding works in practice. It clears up some common misunderstandings around terms like inbreeding, closed gene pool, and linebreeding, explains how they relate to each other, and shows where real genetic risk has come from historically. The point is not to defend breeding, but to give readers a more accurate map of what these terms do and do not imply.
The second post builds on that foundation and focuses on health risk and genetic testing. It looks at what current science can and cannot tell us, how uncertainty is often misunderstood, and why phrases like “the science isn’t there yet” are frequently used in ways that obscure rather than clarify real trade-offs.
The third post steps away from mechanics altogether and deals explicitly with moral disagreements. It treats questions about shelters, profit, consent, and responsibility as moral positions rather than scientific claims, and examines what different ethical rules actually imply when they are applied consistently.
What this series is and is not about
This series is not an argument for breeding over rescue, or for breeders as a group, or for any particular identity within the dog world. I am not interested in defending labels, tribes, or moral allegiances.
I am interested in dogs, and in what it actually means to take their lives seriously in the world we ask them to live in. What I care about is not where a dog comes from, but how a dog is prepared for its life.
That distinction matters because dogs today are expected to live in environments that are louder, denser, more mobile, and more demanding than they were even a few decades ago. We ask them to cope with cities, travel, constant stimulation, long periods alone, and close integration into human routines. If we claim to care about dogs, then the way we prepare them for that reality deserves far more attention than it usually gets.
Why this material is rarely explained
Breeders rarely explain population genetics in public, and the reasons are mostly practical. Explaining this material clearly means sitting down and translating technical ideas into ordinary language. That work takes time, and it requires writing and teaching skills that are separate from breeding itself.
A further reason is that public explanations tend to be read in ways they were not intended. When breeders describe how decisions are actually made, including limits, trade-offs, and uncertainty, those descriptions are often treated as admissions rather than explanations. Context is lost, nuance collapses, and statements about risk are taken as evidence of wrongdoing. In that situation, being vague is usually safer than being precise, even when the information is accurate.
Why I have chosen to write this
My own situation is different because I breed on a very small scale, which means I am not managing volume, reputation, or how things look in public in the same way. That makes it easier for me to explain how these concepts work and to be explicit about the risks involved.
I didn’t start out knowing any of this either. I learned it because I decided to breed my own dog and had to go looking for the information, and I know how difficult that process is if you are not already embedded in breeding circles. The knowledge is scattered, the terminology is dense, and many conversations assume background that ordinary dog owners simply don’t have.
In learning how breeding and population genetics work, I also came to understand how much damage has been done in many breeds, and how often that damage traces back to practices that were once normal, under very different assumptions and with far fewer tools available. I’m not pretending that all breeding practices can be defended, and I’m not interested in dismissing past harm by appealing to good intentions. In fact, I hope that some breeders will read this and be inspired to improve their practices!
Progress requires honesty about the past and transparency about the present. Now that we know more about how genetic risk is created and how some of it can be reduced, continuing as before is not neutral. It is a choice.
However, breeding practices do not change in isolation. Practices in most areas of life only shift when expectations shift, and expectations shift when people buying dogs know what to ask and why it matters. One important reason I’m writing this is to make those questions easier to ask, because long-term outcomes for dogs depend as much on informed demand as they do on informed supply.
Ultimately, I believe we owe it to dogs to do better than we have in the past.
I recommend starting from the first post and reading through in order, but here are links to all three posts:
- The language and mechanisms of dog breeding
- Risk and uncertainty of dog genetics and health testing
- The ethics of dog breeding (coming tomorrow)
I know it is a lot to read – I have made it as succinct as possible, but these are complex topics and I wanted to do them justice. I hope you arrive at the same conclusion, if you read them to the end.
BusyDoggie 