Blog

  • The dog on paper vs. the dog in front of me – are labels destiny?

    The dog on paper vs. the dog in front of me – are labels destiny?

    A few nights ago, I saw a story on Instagram – the person had x-rayed her young dog and the HD score came back as C/D. She was heartbroken. The replies were kind, but they carried a particular heaviness – a feeling that a line had been crossed, that certain lives or activities might no… Read more

  • Dog ethics, unpacked (Part 3)

    Dog ethics, unpacked (Part 3)

    The first two posts in this series were about mechanisms and limits: how breeding decisions shape populations over time, and what genetic testing can and cannot tell us when outcomes are uncertain. This post is about a different kind of question: what kind of future for dogs counts as better? Read more

  • Risk and uncertainty of dog genetics, unpacked (Part 2)

    Risk and uncertainty of dog genetics, unpacked (Part 2)

    Health discussions in dog breeding often sound more decisive than the evidence allows. Genetic information is probabilistic, contextual, and population-dependent, but it is repeatedly treated as categorical, individual, and decisive. Read more

  • The language and mechanisms of dog breeding, unpacked (Part 1)

    The language and mechanisms of dog breeding, unpacked (Part 1)

    A lot of misunderstandings about dog breeding start with language. Basic genetic terms are often used loosely, and different ideas are treated as if they were the same thing, which makes it harder to judge risk and harder to ask good questions about the dogs people live with and breed from. This post unpacks a… Read more

  • Dog breeding, unpacked

    Dog breeding, unpacked

    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. Each post focuses on a different layer, because treating all of these as one question is one of the reasons these conversations stall. Read more

  • Fireworks, puppies, and why early life matters more than we realise

    Fireworks, puppies, and why early life matters more than we realise

    We ask modern dogs to tolerate noise, crowds, novelty, and confinement—often without asking how prepared they were to cope. Fireworks expose the cost. This piece explains why early life matters, why timing is the intervention, and why later training cannot fully replace foundations laid before a puppy ever comes home. Read more