In Retrospect
During my early teens, I’ve always been fascinated with the Chow, but I couldn’t own one because the price was quite prohibitive for my age then. When I started to have my own family, I bought a German Shepherd, who was unfortunately run over by a car. That was 1992. My next dog was a Dalmatian- I bought one out of curiosity for the breed’s polka dots. Sadly, she died 9 days after. It took me roughly six months before I bought another Dalmatian again and from then on, I started to learn the fundamentals of dog breeding. However, I couldn’t deny that my passion for Chows was still there, and I never stopped dreaming that there would come a day when I would own one.
Four years after, that dream of mine came to past when I was finally able to buy my first three year old Chow from a friend. I expected to have puppies; however, it was very frustrating because my friend assured me that she was a proven bitch- although I never really knew the dog’s whole history. Fortunately, I was finally able to produce puppies, but I thought to myself that the length of time it took me to produce them would pretty nuch be the same if had I just bought a two month old puppy and waited a year to start breeding.
Not long after the succeeding months, I bought two new Chow puppies. During those times, I still lacked knowledge about the breed’s standard and as such, I just kept on breeding and breeding. I had the wrong notion that if my moderate quality bitches were mated by stud dogs of champion bloodlines, the puppies would already be of best quality. But as the years went by, I discovered that I was wrong and it wasn’t just that simple.
Learning the Ropes
I was into breeding and there were times whe I got to produce puppies that were beautiful (at least for me) since they were more of the sad face type. Although I was happy for the outcome, not all of my bitches produced those types of puppies. During those times, I would have to admit that the higher prices hindered me from buying more nice puppies. However, there was always the desire in my heart to produce Chows of top quality, and that prompted me and wife to buy male and female puppies of better bloodlines.
It wasn’t long after when we started joining dog shows. Again, we had to learn the fundamentals. Like a baby, we went into the process of learning the fact that producing quality puppies wasn’t just about beautiful sad-type faces, but rather, it was all about seeing Chow puppies in terms of their overall entirety and soundness. My desire to learn more about breeding quality Chows for show prompted me to make an even bolder step of buying top-of-the-line puppies.
Interestingly enough, we too, like many other breeders, already had our ups and downs in breeding. There are times when the outcomes don’t meet our expectations but we just have to face the fact that unexpected things do happen, and I would say that these things only made me stronger. Our philosophy in breeding is that it is simply a continuous learning process.
- Jessie Yu
