Breeding Philosophy

Horses

Great Danes

We breed all of our dogs and our horses for
health, temperament, and conformation, in
that order. Without health, they are
nothing. Without a good temperament,
you can't do anything with them.
Without correct conformation, they can't
do their jobs.

All of our Iberian horses and foals are registered with IALHA (and
IWRI, as applicable). Our Appendix Quarter Horse is registered with
AQHA.
Gelding of our colts is due only to limitations in our facilities and does
not represent in any way the temperament or quality of the colt. We
typically geld either late fall or early spring. If interested in a stud
colt from us, please contact us early so arrangement can be made.

All of our breeding dogs are fully registered with the AKC.
We reserve FULL AKC registration ONLY to pups meeting show and
breeding quality, and will designate which, if any, pups in any litter
that meet this requirement. ALL other pups, including ALL Merles
are sold as pets under a spay/neuter requirement with LIMITED
AKC registration. This registration is issued only after the
spay/neuter certificate has been received by us. We encourage as much
continued contact as you would like; however, we do require at very
least a current birthday photo of the dane sent to us each and every
year. We also require that, should you be unable to keep your dane for
any reason at any time, the dane is to be returned to us, unless other
specific arrangements between you and us are made BEFORE the
dane leaves your possession. Qualification of any amount of refund
for the returned dane will be made at our discretion. Moving, divorce,
"getting too big", etc are NOT valid excuses deserving of refund. We
do everything we can to ensure our puppies arrive in appropriate, dane
ready homes, but we can never expect to be 100% accurate 100% of
the time. So PLEASE do your homework and be absolutely sure you
are ready for a giant breed dog before you commit to adding one to
your family!

Our ultimate goal is to produce a foal or litter of puppies that exceeds
the quality of both its parents. We make use of every available tool in
order to accomplish this. All of our breeding bitches are bred only once
a year or less, health tested, and OFA certified. We also make use of
color DNA testing, as needed, in both our horses and dogs. We breed
genotype to genotype as much as possible, only looking to phenotype
and pedigree when no testing or screening is currently available. We
make careful selection of all of our studs as to accurately match them
to our mares and bitches. This selection starts a year or more before
the expected breeding. We look at the stud's whole picture: his
conformation, pedigree, titles, conformation of his ancestors,
puppies/foals he's sired, bitches/mares he's bred, type of temperament,
where he's going in life, in short, his past, his future, and his present.
We breed only to studs that would produce a foal/litter we would
consider to keep ourselves. We breed our bitches ONLY to OFA
certified studs. After we have selected a small handful of possibilities
through this initial search, we will only then look at his genetic color.

When breeding our Great Danes, we make every effort to stay within
color standards for the breed; however, we will NEVER sacrifice
health, temperament, or conformation for the sake of color. This
includes Harle x Harle breedings! Our Harle Danes will NEVER be
bred to another Harle as such a pairing nearly always produces MM
merliquins/whites with health issues. This "color pure" breeding
compromises our 1st requirement of health and is typically only carried
out in a selfish attempt to increase Harle colored pups in a litter!
http://www.gdca.org/health/deafness.htm
http://www.chromadane.com/colordisease.htm

Should the crossing of color lines ever be made for any reason, such as
any necessary improvement in our lines, full disclosure will be made
and all pedigrees will be marked. For such litters, DNA color testing
will be made available at your request for no additional fees, for
show/breeding potential puppies only.