"So you're a new breeder and you bought a male and a female and had puppies. But you get a lot of negative feedback on the Pomsky Facebook groups - WHY?
There are a few things that really causes Pomsky breeders to be upset. If you would like to have a quality and accepted breeding program, read below:
Get a mentor before you buy your dogs. Your mentor can steer you away from badly formed dogs, bad breeders, and show you what DNA to look for. This will save you thousands in costly mistakes. And yes, we get mad when we spend hours mentoring a new breeder and they go purchase a subpar puppy from another breeder because it's cheap.
Buy your foundation dogs from reputable Pomsky breeders. PetLand, Lancaster, and Craigslist are not where you want to get your future breed stock. If those puppies were breed quality, they would not be sold in the store, they would be offered directly from the breeder at a higher price. If a reputable breeder advertises the puppy as 'breeder quality', then those are the ones you buy. Breeding dogs should be the best of the best. Cute puppies does not equal pretty adults. Breeding is expensive, if you can't handle the 12-15k/year, then leave it to the experts, we're accustomed to huge financial risks and expenses. The larger picture is that if we continually breed subpar dogs, the entire breed will never succeed.
Embark DNA test and do the Patella test BEFORE you breed your dogs. Never breed a dog that is 'at risk'. If a puppy is a carrier, the rest of the DNA, conformation, temperament should all be stellar to be considered.
Don't breed dogs with extra breeds in the line. Only Husky, Pomeranian, and American Eskimo. If your puppy comes back with GSD, Klee Kai, Corgi, Spaniel or other, do the responsible thing and re-home that as a pet only dog. Again, this is what your mentor helps save you from. We did recently ask the official opinion from Embark regarding these other breeds showing up on the Embark DNA reports. They stated that if the breed is mentioned on the report, it IS in the dog. The 5% rule is just the level of accuracy within the breeds represented. This means that if the report states 50% Husky, it could be 45% - 55%.
Don't get upset when a breeder says your dog is a beautiful but pet quality dog. 95% of Pomskies are pet quality, not breeder quality. We're not saying it to be rude, we're saying it because breeders see the larger picture and the goal for the breed. It's constructive criticism - not being offended, and asking for details will help you understand why.
Have a solid puppy contract and a strict spay/neuter agreement. It protects the puppies. As breeders, we have seen a lot of really terrible consequences of litters that didn’t have strong spay neuter contracts. If you need help with this, reach out.
If your current dog didn’t come with a spay/neuter contract, or if you did not pay for breeding rights and told your breeder that you wanted pet only, the breeding community is small and does not take stolen breed rights lightly. Reach back out to your original breeder for breed rights, otherwise it’s easy to be removed from the Pomsky social media platforms and blacklisted due to stolen breed rights.