How To Become PCA Breeder

How to become a PCA approved breeder

A word of Caution:

Pomskies are NOT a beginner breed. It is incredibly difficult to get a female husky pregnant by a tiny pomeranain. It DOES NOT happen naturally. Breedings must be done artificially. Please do not message us asking "How to get your husky pregnant by a pomeranian?" as we do not encourage inexperienced breeders to perform their own insemination. You can seriously injure both the male and the female if you do not know what you are doing. You can also cause an infection in your female that could render her infertile or even kill her. If you are not well versed concerning artificial inseminations PLEASE find a good reproductive veterinarian to work with. This can be obscenely expensive but this is why pomskies are so expensive.

Please DO NOT Attempt to breed pomskies if either of the following apply to you:

-You are hoping to make some easy money. Breeding pomskies is very expensive and doing it right is even more expensive. You should be spending 1000s, not 100s of dollars on your breeding stock. Then you should plan on spending about 100 dollars per progesterone test prior to breeding. Sometimes you just need one and sometimes you need 5 or more depending on when your female ovulates. Next you are looking at anywhere from 200-1000 dollars per artificial insemination depending on the vet you use and how high tech you go with your methods. Then you have the costs of ultrasounds and xrays and this is all before you have even had puppies. There are many more expenses you will incur raising puppies. Also even with all the medical intervention the conception rates are much lower than when working with like sized dogs so you could spend all that money and never have puppies. Countless people have contacted me asking why their dogs did not get pregnant. Most people that decide they want to try to breed pomskies will never have a litter. So be sure you are willing to invest the necessary time and money and potentially make nothing before you embark on this journey.

-You have a husky and your friend happens to have a pomeranian or vice versa. You should never select your breeders based on convenience. 9 times out of ten if you just breed what is convenient or cheap you will end up with what looks like a whole litter of giant pomeranians which not only completely defeats the purpose of pomskies but you will most likely have a hard time finding good homes for these puppies and they could end up adding to the overflowing shelters when they are not cute puppies anymore. Cute puppies do not make pretty dogs. Educated decisions on who you breed to who is how you will have beautiful pomskies. If you are not willing to educate yourself on genetics and the two specific breeds and then search the country for the best dogs you can find, please do not try to breed pomskies. These are living things that will easily be a 15 year responsibility for someone. Be sure that you are making the healthiest, best tempered and most beautiful contributions to the world as you possibly can so that people will feel honored, not burdened to own one of your puppies.

Becoming a breeder

So let's assume that you are interested in breeding pomskies for the right reasons and have set aside the time and money to really contribute to the lines that will be the foundation for a new breed of dog someday. Below is a checklist you can follow to be sure you will be accepted by the Pomsky Club of America and have the best chance at success.

1. Research, research, research! Study the breed standard for both the siberian husky and the pomeranian. Look up who is winning shows and study photos of them. See what the puppies their breeders are producing look like. This will help you distinguish a quality dog from a poorly bred dog. Familiarize yourself with breed related health issues. Above all else study genetics! There is not a lot of breed specific research unfortunately but I linked a few of the many articles I found helpful. I know the language is confusing but the more you read the more it will make sense to you and become invaluable to your program. We get so many messages from people wanting us to answer all their questions and all the answers are out there if you just take the time and search for them. These articles are a great place to start but we strongly encourage you to Google particular phrases you have questions about. Once you are familiar with the vernacular you will get much better, more specific articles in your search.

http://www.huskycolors.com/genetic.html

http://www.doggenetics.co.uk/albino.html

http://www.yumapoms.com/color-genetics.php

2. Find your dogs. Once you know what you want and have the necessary funds that a quality dog will cost you can start your search. There are many great sites for looking for the perfect dog. Be careful of scammers. If it is seems too good to be true it probably is. I advise looking all over the country if not the world. Do not limit yourself by only searching locally. It will cost you 300-400 to ship a puppy within the US but it is well worth it when that perfect dog or puppy arrives.

3. Find a good veterinarian to work with. Most vets do not know a lot about reproductive medicine and many do not even offer these services so you may have to call around to find one. I recommend finding breeders of english and french bulldogs or other such breeds that require medical interventions to procreate and asking the breeders in your area who they use and how they like them. If you are intent on doing your own inseminations please do not ask us how to do it. There is plenty of information online but I recommend having someone with experience mentor you. Either a vet or a breeder with experience. It is not worth risking your dogs' health to save some money and your chances of success are much lower.

4. Read through our code of ethics and be sure you can abide by them. We hold ourselves to a higher standard to protect our dogs and our customers. many breeders have their own personal code of ethics but having everyone commit to a written code of conduct gives both the families adopting the puppies and the other breeders who may work with you in the future peace of mind.

5. Once you have bred your female schedule an ultrasound 4-5 weeks after she ovulated. Ask your vet when they prefer to do it. Some have no trouble finding the pups at 4 weeks and some prefer to wait until 5 weeks.

6. Order the wisdom panel 2.0 dna test from Mars Veterinary. They sell them on Amazon.com We require that you test a puppy from your first litter before we will add you to our breeders list. This is to assure that our club is not abused by scammers. Be advised that the test is not 100% accurate all the time. They use a database of genetic markers from show quality dogs so if you are using low quality dogs that do not resemble the breed standard you may have some discrepancies in your results. There are also certain genes like tha merle factor that seem to distort the results sometimes. If you contact them they are very helpful in explaining and checking for possible errors. If their computer made a mistake they will run the test again manually and correct your results. We almost always get perfect results with the 50/50s though. It does get more muddy sometimes with future generations. The test is still a very useful tool for determining whether someone has accomplished that difficult first generation cross or if they are a scammer. If your test is not perfect but you can send us a copy of the parents' registration papers we will still register the litter so long as the test shows at least 75% pom and husky. If you get bad results and do not have papers on your dogs I would advise getting new dogs for your program and not repeating the breeding. We would not be able to register these puppies. It is always best to buy papered dogs because knowing their genealogy is very useful when planning your litters and choosing your breeders. If you have a really amazing dog but for whatever reason do not have papers for them I would advise running a dna test before they are bred and only using them if it comes back purebred.

7. You want to test your puppy as soon possible since it can take a few weeks to get the results. The best time is immediately after birth before the start to nurse. The milk has dna in it and can affect the results since it is a cheek swab test. If they have nursed you need to wait at least 2 hours to perform the test and this can be difficult because the pup should not be away from the mother that long until it is at least a few weeks old.

8. Come up with your kennel name and create a facebook page and/or website to showcase your dogs and puppies. When choosing a kennel name keep in mind that this will also be a part of all your puppies names so be sure it isn't too long or come up with an abbreviated version to preface your dogs' names.

9. When you get your results you can send them to pomskyclubofamerica@gmail.com along with photos of all the dogs in your program or a link to your facebook page or website if all your dogs can be seen there. We cannot register pomskies that you purchased from a non PCA breeder. This would be a huge conflict of interest to use puppies from a breeder we have not vetted and approved and I do not think the non PCA breeders would appreciate us using and claiming their lines either. We will also need to review photos of your puppies. All this information will be presented to our members and we will take a vote on whether we feel your goals are the same as ours and if we feel your lines would contribute to our end goal for our pomskies. Some breederrs have very different visions of what a pomsky should be and while we respect everyone's opinion, it does not make sense to work with breeders who do not have the same goals since we will have to cross lines with other breeders in the club down the line to keep a diverse, healthy gene pool. If you have a majority vote we will add you to our website and our private forum at that time.