© All rights reserved | Wilde Acres MD | 2025
So, I bred my golden retriever.
I wanted to breed her for three main reasons.
The first reason is because she is an excellent dog, and I thought she would have excellent puppies.
I train a ton of dogs every year, and I often wonder what the parents of these dogs were like. Why did people breed them in the first place if they were going to carry on undesirable character traits?
I know this happens often because I’ve heard people say they’re going to breed their dog, and I personally know that dog has all sorts of undesirable traits. Most people just don’t see their dog clearly because they don’t have enough experience observing dogs. They look at their personal dog, love them, and think they’re a good specimen.
I’ve been watching dogs for 20 years, reading behaviors and character traits in all of them. I also remain more emotionally detached than most dog owners. That gives me the understanding that there’s actually a much smaller group of dogs I would breed if given the opportunity than the dogs I know people are breeding.
So, knowing that people are out there breeding less complete dogs, it’s a no-brainer to me that if I want the opportunity to train truly awesome dogs from the absolute earliest age, breeding them was a really high-quality option.
The second reason is for the experience. Now, I’m not saying I wanted to leverage my dog’s health and wellness for my own personal experience exclusively, but the experience was something I always wanted to have. For 20 years, I’ve been working with dogs I’ve met around eight weeks old, and sometimes I’ve been lucky enough to meet puppies at four or six weeks old when breeders allowed it. I wanted to see what it was like from pregnancy all the way through the neonatal phase and the first 8 to 10 weeks.
Yes, I could have fostered a pregnant female and watched that process unfold, but I wouldn’t have had the same relationship with the female. Watching my own dog—who I know very well—experience slight changes in personality and dramatic changes in physicality and energy level was a much better educational experience for me. Again, I don’t want to leverage my dog’s health and wellness solely for my own benefit, but this is truly for the benefit of many people and dogs I’ll be able to help in the future based on this knowledge.
This phase of a dog’s lifecycle was truly the biggest chunk I knew the least about. Calling yourself a dog trainer while only experiencing dogs from eight weeks old until the end of their lives doesn’t provide a full picture. I’ve watched hundreds of dogs go through almost their entire lives. I’ve cuddled eight-week-old puppies and then had the great honor of helping to shepherd them into the next phase when they were old, tired, sick, and ready to leave this life.
After helping so many people transition their dogs to the other side, across the rainbow bridge, I felt like having the experience of bringing dogs into this world was going to help me grow.
And it has! The education I’ve gained so far from Chloe and her puppies has been incredible. It’s a highly compressed learning phase for me because every single day the puppies are growing, changing, and learning more and more. Every breeder, puppy client, and adult dog client will benefit from the experience I’ve gained over the last few months.
The third reason I wanted to breed Chloe was absolutely for my own selfish, hedonistic desire to play with newborn puppies. There’s absolutely nothing like cuddling a one-, two-, or three-day-old puppy in a milk coma. Their eyes are closed, their ears are closed, and they gladly fall asleep in your warm embrace. I wanted to hold them, and I wanted my three-year-old son and my wife to be able to play with them too.
There’s definitely no financial gain directly from this litter. I’m not charging anyone for the puppies—I’m only charging them for training going forward. The amount of time and energy I’ve spent so far, and will spend by the time the dogs are almost 10 weeks old, is a pretty heavy lift. I haven’t broken down the actual cost of the entire breeding process, including health testing of the parents, vet visits while Chloe was pregnant, and the time I had to spend away from work and clients, but I’m sure it’s not insubstantial.
The indirect financial gain, though, comes from the education I’ve received so far and will continue to receive. That is potentially invaluable. No matter what courses I took on puppyhood or whose experience I gleaned tidbits of knowledge from, I wouldn’t have learned nearly as much as I did by doing it myself.
Breeding Chloe has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. From watching her transition through pregnancy to caring for her puppies, I’ve gained a deeper understanding of dogs and their development than I ever thought possible. This experience isn’t just about Chloe or her puppies—it’s about becoming a better trainer, a better advocate for dogs, and a better resource for the people who love them.
And yes, holding a newborn puppy in a milk coma is just as magical as I imagined it would be.
© All rights reserved | Wilde Acres MD | 2025