Breeding Philosophy

2 week old puppies

Here at HappyLegs, we take breeding seriously. Each litter is planned and well thought out, taking into account not only the physical appearance of the dogs involved, but the pedigree as well. When selecting a sire for a particular bitch, we endeavor to find a dog that complements the bitch, that has strengths where she may have weaknesses, and that does not share any of the same faults. While we rarely inbreed, we also rarely outcross. Our litters are most often strongly linebred; we therefore know what is behind most of the dogs in the pedigree and are hopefully better able to stamp the HappyLegs ‘type’ in each and every litter.

We breed a litter when we are personally looking for something to keep for ourselves, or when we are trying to bring in something in the line we may be lacking. Timing for litters depends on our own schedule and availability to take care of a litter. It also, of course, depends on the timing of our girls; not all of them come into season when they are supposed to or when we would like! Therefore, the dates of our scheduled litters are often tentative. As we co-own many of our show bitches, not all of the litters are born at HappyLegs; some come here to be placed. We also perform a good number of long distance breedings with chilled or frozen semen, so most often the stud does not live with us.

If you are interested in a particular litter, feel free to contact us via email or through this website and we will let you know when or if that breeding will take place.