and Maya!

bi black collies are so pretty. i wish they were in standard

“hey this dog looks to be struggling to perform very basic functions and that is very worrying” “well ACTUALLY if you STUDIED THE BREED STANDARD you’d see that this dog is actually the IDEAL ______” YEAH. THIS TOO IS THE PROBLEM. WHAT ARE YOU NOT GETTING.

hate to burst some of y’all’s bubbles, but i am in fact very pro-intentionally breeding more dogs. i do believe that there are ethical ways to put more happy, healthy dogs into the world. i just happen to also believe that hyper-specific standards, especially those which require physical traits that often lead to poor health (but also those which simply needlessly limit an available gene pool in pursuit of a certain aesthetic), are antithetical to this. as a result, i believe that conformation titles are, in many cases, irrelevant when considering the ethicality of a breeder. if a standard is fundamentally flawed, then meeting it is inherently unethical. i find it disingenuous when breeders claim to be tied down by a standard because breeding for healthier and less exaggerated dogs would keep them from placing well in a show ring. the people creating the next generations of dogs should not be prioritizing winning over well-being, and there’s no amount of “aw shucks, i wish i didn’t have to 🥺” that’ll excuse continuing to do so. breeders who know better should do better, and titles that come at the cost of a breed’s wellbeing should not be pursued.