Breeding Better: Ethical Breeding with Knose's Roy Dunn

It's the Dog People Podcast with your host, Jack Lawrence. Secretly, I decided to start this podcast for For some free dog training advice. You know, Malinois seem to be like the dog at the moment. Like, I think people see them on Instagram doing these incredible things.

Yeah.

Go, oh my God, that's awesome. And then they get one like, oh my God, what the fuck have I done? And Max O'Neill.

You would not believe how many people I meet and I go, what made you want to get, say, an Aussie Shepherd? They go, I don't know. I'd go, had you met one before? They go, no. If you want to ask me how often I walk my own dog a week, it's only twice a week.

It's the Dog People Podcast, a podcast hopefully bringing Bringing you a no-nonsense approach to dog training so you never have to shout. It's OKays Friendly. My name's Jack Lawrence. Of course, not a dog trainer, but that's why I've got Max O'Neill, Down Under Dog Trainer, the man in the know when it comes to dog training. And the people in the nose when it comes to everything pet insurance, of course, as you'll know, is our friends at nose.com.au. That's spelled K-N-O-S-E.com.au. The legends at Nose have been teaming up with us over the last couple of months, helping us on our little mission to just create happier dogs and have less dogs in shelters. And as part of that, we're very pleased to be joined Now Roy is the head of the breeder team at Knows, where he combines his hands-on experience as an Australian Labradoodle breeder with a focus on DNA testing and early puppy training to support ethical breeding practices and healthier pets. Roy, thanks for joining us, my friend.

No worries. Thanks, Jack. Thanks, Max.

Now, regular listeners of this show will know that we have this conversation a lot when we talk about breeders or adopting. I personally, Roy, have always adopted dogs. My latest dog, Kira, she was a foster and then I adopted her. But I am in the process of slowly starting to think about dog number 2. And for me, for the very first time, I am going to be looking to go down the route of a breeder because I'm looking for a certain specific type of dog. So, you know, great to get you on, not only because of your vast experience, obviously, as a breeder, but also the work you do with the team at Knows and the involvement that they have with breeders, which we're going to get into very soon. You know, when I'm, when I'm going out on the hunt for this potential dog, whatever it might be. What would you expect as a breeder to see in other breeders and be like, yep, that's, that's where you need to be looking?

Some red flags and green flags, eh?

Yeah.

You know, I see things online about this and it's challenging because you'll get people who say, oh, well, make sure that you can go to the person's property and see their breeding environment and who the— what the bitch was. And they're all, they're all good things. The other thing to consider is that the breeder might be in an area which carries parvo. And doesn't necessarily want someone coming into their breeding environment and bringing that stuff with them. So if some breeders are a little bit standoffish, um, that, that could be, you know, one of the reasons. So it is, I guess, a potential puppy buyer needs to be fair in what they're expecting. And, and I think when you're looking at a, a, a good breeder, um, they're concerned about the whole puppy's life, not just necessarily, you know, the period of the 8 weeks before they leave and that's it. They're very choosy about where their puppies go. So you'll find good breeders will often ask you a lot of questions.

Yeah.

Like you will be interviewed about how good a home you're going to provide for that animal. And so Yeah, I think a great breeder is really looking at the whole dog's life, not just the sale. There's probably, what health testing have the parents got? Can you see the results? It is okay to ask if you can see the mum, but look, in some cases there's a lot of breeders nowadays who are using guardian-type homes, and sometimes that mum leaves A couple of weeks before the dog turns 8 weeks. And I know in our circumstance, sometimes that's the case. And it's, so it's not always easy to show that mum because its home actually wants it back as soon as possible because they want their, they want their forever dog back, which is, which is fine. And so, so I think there's several things that you can go through and you've got to put together a bit of a portfolio. It's not just one or two things. How do I feel about— will they take the dog back if I can't keep it? How are they socialized before they go home? Vaccination records. Is a breeder getting defensive because I'm asking so many questions? Putting all of this together forms your opinion about this breeder. I don't think just because they can't supply one thing, for example, can I meet the mum, and it's a no, shouldn't in isolation be a reason you don't go for that breeder. But if they say you can't meet the mum, I don't really have a picture of the dad, no, I don't take the puppies back, if you can't find it, you'll have to work that out yourself, all of a sudden starts to paint a different picture.

So one thing that you would consider on its own, you know, personally most people go, oh, that sounds like a red flag. One thing on its own you're saying shouldn't necessarily be where you draw the line and say, well, okay, well, definitely not using them. It needs to be, you know, a multitude of things and weighing it up.

Does it feel more like a transaction, I guess? Rather than a relationship that you're building with that breeder.

As a breeder yourself, I mean, you know, we get this topic a lot, adopt, don't shop situation, and Max has been very vocal on the fact that he thinks going to breeders is the better way to go because of the simple fact that, as you've spoken about, breeders who are ethical like yourselves will take a dog back as opposed to allowing that dog to end up in a shelter. How do you go on a day-to-day facing that battle of that argument that sort of constantly floats around?

For me personally?

Yeah, for you personally as a breeder, yeah.

Or we breed really good dogs so they don't come back to us. Look, we have had a couple that have had to, you know, they've changed circumstances and sometimes it's even later in the dog's life. And we've just worked with those people to rehome the dog to somewhere that we think is suitable. And the benefit is, is we do have a lot of, you know, people, you know, on our social media and that sort of stuff who, you know, may at any particular time be looking for something. So we— We have an application process that they can go through. And I think that's important too. Is there a form you have to fill out that asks you questions about the suitability of your home? Are you on 2 acres or are you living in a unit in Melbourne? And we try to find out, and even through a bit of temperament testing, see what would fit in each circumstance.

Right.

So when we're rehoming, we still go through that process too. You know, where has that dog come from? Have they been used to living in a bigger area or have they been in a unit? And then we can sort of work from there and see what's going to be best for that dog.

So, because Max, even like you said to me with Nelson, when you got Nelson, who's obviously a purebred phenomenal Rottweiler, even as a dog trainer, it wasn't a case of, oh yeah, sure, sweet, here you go, you can have a dog.

Yeah, no, I got grilled. There was a big old interview process and went down and met the breeders and everything. And yeah, that is— a good breeder won't just give a dog out because like you said, it's a It's a long-term relationship and you want to know that your dog's going to a right home. So if you are looking for a breeder, don't see all this sort of stuff as a deterrent. They're not trying to put you off. They're just trying to make sure, like, hey, if you genuinely want this dog, you'll be willing to go through this process.

And again, ultimately, that hopefully means less dogs again ending up in shelters, which is the plan. And that's what we all want. We want less dogs in shelters and more dogs staying in the same homes forever and living happy and fulfilled lives.

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You know, the Labradoodle breed is extremely popular as well. Why do you think that is, that the Labradoodle breed's so popular these days?

I think the Labradoodle's quite unique. They do get lumped into the, into the doodle sort of category, but the difference between especially Australian Labradoodle and particularly breeders who are registered with the ALA, the Australian Labradoodle Association, need to consider that this is a— it's actually a very developed breed. It's not a, you know, simply, oh, let's get a Labrador and a poodle and put them together. That's not the case. Like, the Australian Labradoodles actually can be made up of 6 different breeds. I know within the ALA there's, you know, we always look at the crossbreeding element, you know, making sure that that is extremely low, whereas that's not always the case in some breeds. So you're really getting a dog that, you know, originally, yes, they put it together to see if they could get a, you know, seeing-eye dog that was hypoallergenic. That didn't work. But what came out of it was a dog that ended up— that has been developed for, I don't know, it must be 35, 40 years maybe now, as a really a dog that was— that's been developed for living in a family and in a home environment. It's— that's really what it's been developed for, for a family environment. And there's actually not many dogs that are purely developed for that reason. So I think that's where the Labradoodle really sits and, and wins in a sense, um, is because That's where it's, where it's been, what it's been developed for.

So I had no idea it was originally put together for the hypoallergenic seeing eye dog situation. So, so when they say it didn't, didn't work, it wasn't hypoallergenic or it wasn't a very good seeing eye dog?

Um, wasn't a very good seeing eye dog. I don't think it was trainable enough. I'm not 100% sure, but I'm sure I could look it up.

Yeah, okay.

Out of interest, jumping in there, um, when you said that it could be up to 6 different breeds, that surprised me. Could you Fill us in on that one, please.

So, the Poodle, Labrador Retriever, and then the English or American Cocker Spaniel. And so, when—

Right.

The reason why— And those are the main 4. And so, when you see people having a Labrador— a Labradoodle that might have a wool coat or might have a fleece coat, that's the Cocker Spaniel bringing in that fleece coat. So, most Labradoodles nowadays will have a fleece coat.

Right.

But they can have a wool coat, which is more like a poodle.

Yeah.

Both of them are low shedding. Then you've got the Irish Water Spaniel and the Curly Coat Retriever.

Wow.

And those 2 were brought in for colour. They were brought in originally for colouration.

Wow. Okay. Thank you, pal. I never knew that. That's, that's something new every day. That's cool.

So most, I would say nowadays, don't have Irish Water Spaniel and Curly Coat Retriever, and people probably tend to not really use them much. And look, the ALA dogs are all, you know, like—

It's Labradoodle and Labradoodle now, isn't it? Yeah.

6th generation Labradoodle, Labradoodle, all that sort of thing. So, yeah. But I mean, even our— in our own breeding, we had some dogs come through with open faces, which comes through from the Curly Coat Retriever.

So, what— sorry, I'm lost.

Open—

what do you mean open faces?

Curly everywhere.

Oh.

But their face is like smooth. Right.

All right. There you go.

Fair enough.

I didn't know that either.

Open faces. Not the best thing to come through for a Labradoodle, but, but it shows that, I guess it shows the diversity in the breed.

So obviously at the start of this, I mentioned that Nose has a really great relationship with breeders and we'll get into obviously more of that very soon. But not only that, because of what Nose does with obviously health claims and that sort of stuff, you guys have a really interesting set of data that you get to collect in regards to certain dogs, claims, and in fact, where they're bred and where they come from. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

So, when we're talking about choosing breeders, with our claims, we get to see where the dog comes from often. And so we've got a bit of a database, you know, whether they come from a, you know, are they a purebred breeder? Are they crossbred breeder? Are they commercial breed?

Nice.

And then we have all the stats as far as who are the healthiest.

Oh, wow.

That's cool.

Or that's who bring out the healthiest. Do you want to have a guess?

Yeah. That's—

oh, we want to guess who it is. So, you've got all your purebred breeders, so, ANKC.

Yeah.

Your oodle breeders, and then you've got your commercials. They're really sort of the—

Oh, yeah. All right.

You would have to do this. I wouldn't.

I'm not even—

And obviously, the commercials are largely breeding oodle breeds.

And what— and sorry, what's commercial breed again?

So, commercial breeders, as in people who breed commercially and have got a licence to do so.

Okay. And how does that differ from— So, like an ANKC breeder.

So, ANKC is a breeder that generally breeds for shows.

Right.

Okay.

For showing dogs and that sort of thing. So, they're all your— ANKC are all your purebreds.

Yeah. Gotcha.

Well, called purebreds. So, your Rottweiler, that would be a—

Yeah.

We'd call that a purebred. May not have got it from an ANKC breeder, but we would call it a purebred dog.

So—

Gotcha.

We can say purebreds, if you like, poodles, and commercially bred dogs.

I don't think it's fair that a dog trainer answers this question. I think we leave it up to the people listening.

All right.

What do you think, everybody? I'm going to give you some thinking music and then Roy's going to give us the answer. All right, Roy, who is it?

So the answer is commercial breeders.

See, I thought because you seemed so jolly about it, it was going to be the oodles. No, I thought here we go.

I'm actually— look, I dislike when people bash things because they just, you know, they think, oh, because it's this, it must be this. But I sort of liken it to if I'm going to get a phone, I want to buy it from someone who builds them regularly, have been doing it for years, have sold lots of phones, and know exactly what they're doing. So I guess I liken commercial breeders a little bit in that way. They do it all the time. They know what they're doing. Just because they're commercial doesn't make them bad by themselves. And the fact is that they, because they know what they're doing, they actually breed dogs that end up having a better loss ratio, which is claims versus premiums, than all of the other sectors. And it's actually not by a little bit, it's by a reasonable amount.

So if you want to have less issues with your dog in general, obviously we're not going to sort of blanket everyone, but if you're looking down that route, maybe a commercial breeder is the way to go?

Well, you know, the other thing is too is they have a lot more stringent requirements on them than say a backyard breeder. Now when I say backyard breeder though, we got to— that could be, if you've got less than X amount of breeding dogs at your house, you don't— like in Victoria, you actually don't have to be registered with your council to do that. So it's a, you know, backyard breeder is a bad connotation but there's, you know, good ones and bad ones. This is I guess where we go into how do you choose your breeder. and lining up all those different things, you know, with registrations. Do they have a website? Are they interested in you or are they interested in the whole puppy's life, not just getting a sale? So with the commercials, what people, you know, if anyone was going to have an issue with commercial, the issue would be that there's a bitch that is there for breeding purposes only. And that would form the first 4 years of her life doing that or so, or maybe 5, but then goes to their forever home. For me personally, that's the part that I'm like, do I like that or not? But at the same time, they have legislation that says that animal has to have X amount of human interaction each day. And so, there's legislation around that to make sure that it's not just, you know, left in a shed somewhere. That type of thing. So, if you're going to stomach commercially bred dogs, that's the part that I would, you know, you know, you'd have to look and see how they're raised and that sort of thing. But I've been to commercial operations and they're actually very good. They have constant checks. And if they come around and a female dog even shies a little bit away from one of the people who are checking, they'll get a black mark against them.

Yeah. Wow.

So it's quite strict. Quite stringent. So it's certainly not what is probably made out in some scare campaigns about what they are.

And I guess that's where I was going to ask is, because I think a lot of people listening are probably going, how does this differ from a puppy farm or a puppy mill? We've all probably heard that term.

Yeah. And it's a tricky one because they, the commercial breeders do get lumped into that area. And I guess it depends, you know, for people who don't like them. That's what they would get called. But you've got commercial breeders who are doing it legitimately and under very strict requirements. And then you've got puppy farmers who, I guess, would not have any registration or trying to fly under the radar.

And just flog them on Gumtree and at local post offices and stuff like that. Yeah.

And, you know, by the health of the dogs that are coming out of there as well.

Absolutely. And we can— and this is the beautiful thing about, you know, we can see all of that. So we know that, um, you know, if we have a Labrador breeder and we can see that there's so many claims coming out with bad hips, that there's something going wrong. They're not— they're obviously not testing for hips, or something's happening. And we can actually go back, talk to that breeder, and say, can we help you work on this? And if they don't want to, they won't be in our program for Much longer.

Yeah.

And so, that's a really great thing. I think one of the biggest probably takeaways from chatting with yourself is like, obviously, you know, as we said, there are people out there that don't like this commercial dog breeding, whereas from the research, from what you guys get to see every single day, they are producing the healthiest dogs.

They're producing the dogs that have the least claims.

Least claims.

At least.

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, we're going to be specific about what it is, but I mean, from that, you can, you could read that. Yes, absolutely. There's stuff that they're doing that means there's a dog that has to have less claims, which you would think, yes, leads to a healthier dog. So it's interesting because—

Very interesting.

A lot of people would probably believe the total opposite to that. And I think they have to have a, like, there's really stringent things, like it's a 3-year guarantee that they have to provide. So if that dog had something wrong with it within the 3-year period, they can go back. So it's pretty hard.

So I noticed that you guys have this, the program where the people can attach the NOS sort of, I suppose, logo to their breeders. Like, and you would, you obviously, you guys would take that extremely seriously. I'm sure that they must have to go through quite a lot to get that.

Yeah, it's a real challenge because just like we've gone through and said that commercial breeders actually have a better loss ratio than most other segments, in the same way, someone who's a micro breeder could be a lot better than someone who's got lots of registrations and seems like a really good breeder. So when they come into the program, there is a, you know, unless we can see some obvious red flags when we talk, talk to them, there is a benefit of the doubt in a sense provided. But the benefit, what we get to see is the loss ratios. So we're going to know really quickly if there's something going on in that breeding operation. If their loss ratios start to fall the wrong way and we see that they fit into a percentile that is above normal, we, we come in and we have a conversation with them and see if we can, um, work with them to tidy up their act, or otherwise they won't be able to use the program.

So you actually actively work with these people if you think that they're sort of starting to fall in certain areas and say, hey, how can we sort this?

Absolutely.

That's really cool.

Because sometimes it might be something that they're unaware of.

How are you finding breeders are taking some of this feedback when you provide it to them?

Oh, it's definitely varied. You find out basically it's the same when we talk about when you're choosing a breeder. If they get defensive, it's the same thing. If we talk to them about this stuff and they start getting defensive about it, They're not going to make any changes. And then there'll be some that are really interested and go, oh wow, I didn't know that. And through that, we can, you know, try and help give them a little bit of visibility about what's actually happening with their dogs after they leave their house.

Yeah, that's fantastic. I really like that.

Yeah, and highly beneficial for the breeders as well.

Yeah, I'd want that feedback.

110%.

Yeah, there you go.

Well, Roy, thank you so much indeed for your insights in all of this stuff. It's been really fascinating. And as we always say, obviously, you know, pet insurance is a very personal And, you know, you obviously make your own decisions on that. But if you are thinking about pet insurance, nose.com.au might be a really great place, place to start, especially after hearing all of, all of that stuff from Roy. It's fantastic. So Roy, appreciate your time.

No worries. Thanks for having me, guys.

Enjoyed that.

Thanks, Roy.

The Dog People Podcast is a Mashed Pumpkin production hosted by Jack Lawrence and Max O'Neill. Edited, produced, and audio production by Jack Lawrence.

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