The Good Dog Pod

In this episode, Laura Reeves chats with Good Dog's leadership team (Lauren McDevitt, Chief Experience Officer, Cat Matloub, Head of Partnerships, Community & Legal Affairs, and Monica DeBosscher, Head of Partner Strategy) about Good Dog’s 2020 Campaign to End Online Puppy Scams.

Cat gives some examples of the types of scams she has seen in the dog world. With COVID-19, the number of pet-related scams has increased significantly.

And in a world full of scammers, Good Dog is on a mission to protect our breeders and puppy buyers, which means using tech expertise to eliminate these scams.

The Good Dog team speaks about the challenges when it comes to holding both buyers and breeders responsible for their actions. This frequently happens in the payment stage of the transaction - where one party will back out of an agreed payment, leaving the other party helpless. This is heartbreaking - for the victim and for the puppy.

Part of Good Dog’s goal is to bring world-class technology and security to the dog world in the form a breeder-focused payment system. A system that won’t punish breeders when they get scammed, but rather that will completely support the transaction. Good Dog wants to take away having to think about payment when dealing with something as precious as a dog. The more a breeder can focus on making a good match for their puppy, and less time worrying about money, the better the experience will be for everyone.

Monica discusses why dealing with scams as a breeder can be so difficult (and sometimes impossible to challenge). That’s why Good Dog stands behind every transaction. She gives a couple examples of how using payments through Good Dog has saved breeders thousands of dollars.

Lauren talks about how payments through Good Dog is different from something like PayPal, and how it technically works to protect both breeders and buyers.

Learn more about Good Dog's 2020 Campaign to End Online Puppy Scams in the link below!

https://www.gooddog.com/good-breeder-center/2020-campaign-to-end-online-puppy-scams

Be sure to check out the resources below for more information and context for this episode!

About Dr. Casey Carl DVM: Dr. Carl is the Associate Medical Director at Paw Print Genetics. He is a veterinarian and is a strong proponent of using preventative medicine to limit animal suffering. He has experience working with the AVMA in addition to his 4 years in clinical practice.

Laura and Dr. Carl talk about the primary colors in dogs, and what the different loci mean (you may have heard of things like e-locus or k-locus). Dr. Carl gives an overview of how genetics works in influencing what colors dogs are.

They then discuss what affects nose color and foot pad color (it isn’t always the same as what affects coat color!).

Get a brief overview of how genetics works, what genetic mutations entail, what loci are, and what we’ve learned from the dog genome over the past decade.

Dr. Carl explains what merle is from a genetic standpoint, as well as what harlequin and merlequin are in Great Danes. He also describes the health challenges associated with breeding merle dogs.

Resources:

Canine Base Coat Color Genetic Flowchart

Your Guide to Canine Color and Trait Genetic Testing

This week Laura speaks about Good Dog’s Club Partnership Program with special guests Wendy Ball of the Bichon Frise Club of America (BFCA) and D'Arcy Downs-Vollbracht and Sandra Hickson of the Dandie Dinmont Terrier Club of America (DDTCA).

Good Dog has long been in awe of all the work that the Parent, Speciality, Regional, Local, All-Breed, Performance and other clubs do and their commitment to the preservation and protection of dogs, breeds, education, and canine health. Through the Club Partnership Program, Good Dog provides clubs with financial support (including an annual grant of up to $2,000 and contributions to breed-specific research), recognition, policing, education and free legal and tech support, among other things.  

Wendy describes how the BFCA will be using their grant from Good Dog to rebuild their club’s website. Bichons are a very popular breed and as people are looking to acquire healthy, well-bred Bichons having a good club website that is easy to navigate, accessible, and can provide vital education to the public is absolutely critical.

D’Arcy, who is the Health & Genetics Chair of the DDTCA, describes how the DDTCA will be using the grant from Good Dog to provide vouchers to breeders and owners to get eye exams. She speaks to how making such exams more accessible not only provides significant benefits on the data collection side of things, but also helps leave a legacy of health for the Dandie Dinmont Terrier breed. 

Our guests also talk about their individual experiences as early members of Good Dog’s Good Breeder community and how they believe the organization is helping educate the public and build a better world for our dogs!

Learn more about Good Dog’s Club Partnerships Program at https://www.gooddog.com/good-breeder-center/breed-club-partnership-program

About Sue Willumsen: Sue works in veterinary medicine and got her first Labrador in 1980. She has been very involved in the dog world ever since, showing and competing with her dogs. She is an AKC-licensed judge in several breeds.

About Barbara Gilchrist: Barbara got her first Labrador in 1964. As the dog was rather difficult, Barbara focused on getting involved in obedience with her. She was then the first woman to be hired at a local field trial kennel, for which she dropped out of college to work for. She’s been very involved ever since, breeding many champions along the way.

About Susan Patterson: Susan is a renowned Labrador Retriever breeder and breeds under the Fenwyck Labrador Retriever name. She has been breeding since the 80's when she first got involved with various Labrador Retriever clubs.

Our guests discuss the history of the Labrador Retriever breed standard (and why we shouldn’t be asking about American versus English Labs). The breed standard was written by the parent club which was very field-oriented at the time, which has misrepresented the current state of the breed to a certain extent.

They also talk about the temperament spectrum, and what to think about and what questions to ask before getting a Lab (or a dog in general).

Sue talks about the health testing typically done on Labs (and what advances have been made in testing).

They finish by discussing the ‘24/7 tech support’ that breeders provide their puppy buyers - how important it is, and how fun it is for them to keep up with the growth of their dogs!

Learn all about America’s favorite breed, the Labrador Retriever!

About Sue Willumsen: Sue works in veterinary medicine and got her first Labrador in 1980. She has been very involved in the dog world ever since, showing and competing with her dogs. She is an AKC-licensed judge in several breeds.

About Barbara Gilchrist: Barbara got her first Labrador in 1964. As the dog was rather difficult, Barbara focused on getting involved in obedience with her. She was then the first woman to be hired at a local field trial kennel, for which she dropped out of college to work for. She’s been very involved ever since, breeding many champions along the way.

About Susan Patterson: Susan is a renowned Labrador Retriever breeder and breeds under the Fenwyck Labrador Retriever name. She has been breeding since the 80's when she first got involved with various Labrador Retriever clubs.

The experts discuss how the Labrador hunts in the field, and why its structure as defined by the breed standard is so important.

They talk about the differences between specialty dogs and show dogs. The type of hunting that takes place now is very different from the hunting that took place 50 years ago, which results in different types of Labs built for different purposes.

In this rebroadcast of a Pure Dog Talk episode, Laura discusses the disbanding of her local kennel club and the general state of clubs across the country.

Today our club membership is dwindling and the members there are aging. They get together to put their shows together and that’s about it. And yet today with the continuing threat of the animal rights making owning a purebred “unethical”…we need our clubs more than ever! Let’s get back to being kennel clubs for the public!

Laura put together 5 tips for joining and succeeding in an all-breed club, plus 5 more tips for club leadership. Tune in to learn more!

About Dr. Jessica Hekman: Dr. Hekman is a veterinarian who studies the genetics of dog behavior. She founded the Functional Dog Collaborative to give support to those who are responsibly breeding dogs.

The Functional Dog Collaborative defines what they mean by responsible breeding (which is informed mostly by what sort of dogs you’re trying to produce). Dr. Hekman describes why they decided to include behavioral health as part of that definition, and why it’s so important to responsible breeding.

For her day job, Dr. Hekman looks at canine genetics and how it relates to behavioral health. She wants the Functional Dog Collaborative to be able to support that research, to help both breeders and puppy buyers.

About Susan Patterson: Susan is a renowned Labrador Retriever breeder and breeds under the Fenwyck Labrador Retriever name. She has been breeding since the 80's when she first got involved with various Labrador Retriever clubs.

Susan talks about what to look for in a Lab in order to know what type of dog they will be. While all Labs share the same looks, not all Labs are the same - and that’s important to keep in mind if you’re someone looking for a companion dog versus someone looking for a hunting dog.

Susan matches puppies in her litters with their humans to best match up certain characteristics, the most notable one being drive. Some dogs are couch potatoes, and some need to have a job. Regardless of drive, however, every Lab needs to have proper structure and health to ensure longevity and quality of life.

It’s important to understand that you don’t have to have a Best in Show dog to have a dog with proper structure - making sure your Lab has good hip and elbow placement is as important for a hunting dog as it is for a performance dog or even a couch potato!

Judi speaks about the Dilute Retriever Policy and why it was created. She describes why Good Dog stands with the Labrador Retriever Club in only recognizing Yellow, Black, and Chocolate Labrador Retrievers.

Cat then talks about the process of how Good Dog goes about making these decisions, and the importance of these decisions to Good Dog. In short, Good Dog relies on the experts (such as Judi and Susan) to inform and develop these policies.

About Bret Cody: Bret owns That’ll Do Photography and specializes in getting action shots of dogs. He got his start photographing Border Collies and Kelpies at herding dog events and continues attending events where he photographs all the action.

Laura and Bret discuss how Bret got his start in the action dog photography world, and how breeders can apply his techniques to produce high quality photos.

Some of Bret’s tips include:

• Get at eye level
• Pay attention to the background
• Utilize interesting noises to grab the dog’s attention
• Use support to steady the camera
• Be aware of your light source
• Try to get the dog when they’re ‘in stress’
• Make sure the eyes are in frame
• Learn the tool you have
• Take lots of pictures!

About Leader Dogs for the Blind: Leader Dogs for the Blind is a philanthropically-funded service that provides guide dogs to the blind and visually impaired. Read more about Leader Dog here.

Laura talks with Beverly Blanchard, Manager of Canine Development at Leader Dog, about how Leader Dog produces effective guide dogs. Specifically, how are dogs taken from puppy to certified guide dog? It’s a long and difficult process that requires a whole lot of effort from both the trainers AND the dogs!

Leader Dog is in a unique position where their guide dogs come from family homes that whelp and raise the puppies specifically for their guide dog program.

Bev then discusses the important differences between guide dogs, service dogs, and therapy dogs, since those three categories of dogs are often blurred together.