Most breeders believe they are among the best.  
​You're ahead of the crowd. You're doing your homework. You're educating yourself about the health problems of today's Doberman. You even know the tests that breeders should perform on their dogs before breeding. But when you reach out to breeders, and ask about health testing, COIs, and ancestor health and longevity, you're disappointed. Again and again. You're learning that each breeder falls into one of the three categories below. It's up to you to decide what's acceptable to you. You must make your own decision based on your standards. 

Here is how we respond to the following scenarios. NOTE: The standards below assume that we are happy with the temperament, conformation, and ancestors' titles/accomplishments. 

---

Breeder does NOT perform these health tests on their breeding stock and doesn't  know the litter's Genetic COI.
​
We Walk Away.

If the breeder disparages health and/or genetic testing, tells us their lines are "cardio free" or doesn't understand genetic COIs and the implications of inbreeding on the breed and individual dog, we respectfully walk away. 

There is no such thing as "cardio free". The best breeders will explain the importance of COIs and will understand the importance of knowing a dog's Genetic COI. 

---

Breeder completes only some of the
Health Tests we'd like to see, but can't tell us how long each of the puppies' ancestors lived and/or what those dogs' cause of death was.  

If the pup's parents have the right working temperament, ideal conformation, reasonable Genetic COI, and acceptable results on the health tests that have been performed, we may ask the breeder about getting the missing health tests done. We often offer to pay for the testing.  

If the breeder isn't as up to speed about the puppy's ancestors as we'd like, or can't tell us how most of the more recent ancestors lived and/or what the causes of death were, but they'd like to know, we offer to work with the breeder to start investigating. Good breeders will want to know, and will be happy to have help finding the answers. Some good people have honest intentions and just haven't dug in that deep yet. Every breeder has to start somewhere. 

If the breeder isn't interested in filling the gaps in health testing, isn't excited about uncovering missing information about the health and longevity of his dogs' ancestors OR if our research reveals too many short-lived dogs, we move on. 

If the breeder has most of the answers and we don't find any red flags, we take what we have found and (with permission from the breeder) get feedback from the breeders we respect and trust the most. 

Breeder completes all of the Health Tests we want to see (and we can live with the results) AND the breeder can tell us about the ancestor's on the puppy's pedigree (how long they lived and the cause of death) AND has created a litter with a reasonable Genetic COI (recall the breed average is 41.4499%). If they're participating in the non-profit Doberman Diversity Project, all the better! 

We've found the IDEAL breeder. We thank them, hug them, and get on their waiting list -- even if it's YEARS long.  

Then, we tell the world. Sadly, this kind of breeder is quite unusual.