WHAT MAKES A STONECOAT DOG

Everything I know I learned from dogs.

Our goal is to produce superior guardians. In order to achieve that, we have pretty stringent criteria.

1) Working Ability - The dog must have working ability. This is a BIG one. We want our puppies livestock safe from early on. A good working puppy in the proper environment should be goat/sheep safe by 6 months, if not earlier. On occasion some pups can go through a naughty teenage stage, after all they are puppies. This stage should be short and easily manageable and we are always here to guide you. You will notice we don’t breed most of our dogs until they are 3 or 4 years of age. We wait, we want to watch each dog over a longer period of time to see what working behaviors each dog has, or more importantly, doesn’t have. This helps us when we are making our breeding plans. Furthermore, we aren’t interested in mass production or how many litters we can get out of our bitches before they retire. One or two litters of superior working pups is way better than six or eight litters of mediocre pups. Quality over quantity.

2) Temperament - This is the second most important thing we take into consideration. Temperament is highly heritable. We breed Anatolians that act like Anatolians. They will be aloof, independent, strong willed, and often dog aggressive and stranger aggressive. We take these working traits seriously, which is also why we breed for exceptional discernment and stable minds. A mentally stable Anatolian with good discernment, is a good canine citizen. Our dogs are fierce protectors of their family and livestock, however they are not loose cannons. They are loyal, loving and gentle with those they know. They can be taken to dog shows, the vet, grain store, etc and be expected to behave. However, they are not dog park dogs. Anatolians are calm and fair rulers, but nonetheless they are RULERS. All it takes is one ill-behaved, off leash dog to challenge their authority and you will be breaking up a scuffle or worse. Remember Anatolians value structure and order, they also demand respect. We believe in socializing all our pups and dogs, but also have realistic expectations of them and so should you.

3) Structure - To perform their function, it is crucial to select dogs that are structurally sound and capable of performing the job they were intended to do. Every breed is different because different purposes require different structures. The breed standard is the blueprint for structure. Our goal is to breed dogs that are built to last and fit the standard. Poor fronts, weak rears and weak toplines are a huge problem in Anatolians. Anatolians should have a good length of upper arm and a well laid back shoulder. The angle of the shoulder blade should be a 35 to 45 degree angle to the ground. The front assembly carries 60% of the dogs weight. Straight shoulders and short upper arms lead to pounding action and will ultimately break down the dogs front end. Rear assemblies should also be well angulated and in balance with the front assembly angles. Rears should not be over-angulated to the point the dog looks weak and squatty. On the flip, they should not be under-angulated to the point the back legs are straight and underneath the hips. An Anatolian’s topline should have a dip behind the withers and a rise over the loin, think ‘lazy s’ shape. The rise houses the muscles of the back, these allow for twisting and turning, speed and agility. Show breeders have been breeding out that lazy s topline for decades. So many show Anatolians have a flat topline. This is not correct for the working dog, only for the show dog that doesn’t need to defend against predators. The removal of the rise over the loin also leads to a swaybacked dog at a young age. Be cautious of these main faults if you are looking for a working dog. Structure is important for performance.

4) Health - If our dogs pass the above three things, then we move on to health testing. We believe in health testing, BUT we also believe health testing is only one tool for a breeder and it shouldn’t be the only tool. Many breeders only have health testing to back their breeding program, which is problematic if the dog lacks in all other areas. Just as we expect our dogs to be well balanced, our breeding programs must also be well balanced.

The breed club only requires Hip certification for breeding dogs. This can be OFA or Pennhip. OFA is strictly subjective, while Pennhip is objective. Pennhip is said to be reliable as early as 6 months of age, even though our breed club does not accept the results unless done at 24 months or later, this rule applies to OFA as well.

There are a few things that commonly affect Anatolians: hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia, thyroid disease, OCD of the shoulder, entropion and degenerative myelopathy. Only one of these disorders has a genetic marker and test, that’s degenerative myelopathy. So breeding dogs should be tested for that before breeding to make sure you aren’t breeding two carriers to each other. Dysplasia, OCD and thyroid disease are not as straight forward, there is both a genetic and environmental factor to these diseases. Entropion is said to be genetic, however the exact genetics are unknown.

We test all our dogs hips, through either OFA or Pennhip. We prefer OFA, even though subjective, because it allows us to take the X-rays without sedating our dogs. Sedation always has risks and we prefer to avoid it, if possible. On occasion we will use Pennhip, especially if we know the dog was injured as a result of working. OFA does not take injuries into account, it is strictly pass or fail. Pennhip will grade each hip individually and assign a number that will indicate whether the dog is at risk for dysplasia, they will also note osteoarthritis if present. So in cases where work related injuries are present, we will opt for Pennhip for a more accurate result. We test elbows on most of our dogs. Sometimes the dogs aren't compliant when it comes to holding them down on the table, so we X-ray hips first as they are required, then will try for the elbows. 99% of our breeding dogs have both hip and elbows recorded with OFA. We also test thyroid on most of our dogs, some are submitted to OFA for recording, others we check bi yearly at our vets. We also DNA Embark test most of our dogs, this will show us dogs that may be affected by DM, Low Alt etc. It also tells us what color traits our dogs possess. We try to post all health testing results on our website, we also include the actual hip X-rays for people to see. We believe in being straight forward and open when it comes to health testing. If you don’t see something posted, just ask, sometimes we are so busy with the farm we don’t get to update the website as frequently as we should.

With all that said, I want to be clear on dysplasia, entropion and thyroid disease. Two OFA excellent dogs can still produce a dysplastic pup. Just like two entropion clear dogs can produce puppies with entropion. Same with thyroid disease. These diseases are multifactorial and caused by more than a simple, autosomal recessive inheritance. We will always be ethical in our breeding decisions and do what’s in the best interest of the dogs. We will always be open with our lines and discuss each and every dog with those who are interested. The only way to better the health of the breed is to be able to discuss it openly.

Stonecoat currently has 30+ of our own production in the OFA database. We also have an additional 25 dogs in the database that are either our early program dogs, imports, outside dogs in our program or co bred dogs. Puck alone has 32 offspring in the OFA database, I only know of one other male Anatolian who has more tested offspring at 36 pups in the database. Puck also currently has 14 OFA excellent puppies in the database, no other Anatolian has more tested excellent pups on record. To us, these numbers reflect structurally sound dogs raised in a proper environment.

Some things that aren’t true when it comes to health testing:

1) If a dog has OFA hips on record but no elbows, it means the dog failed elbows. FALSE- I mentioned a few reasons above why this may happen, one being hips are the only required health test. Also, Pennhip does not grade elbows.

2) If a dog has OFA Elbows on record but no hips, it means the dog failed hips. FALSE- As I mentioned above there are several reasons this may happen, Some breeders only believe in using Pennhip, Pennhip does not have an open public database. So they may pennhip the hips (private database) and then OFA the elbows (public database).

3) If a breeder Pennhips a dog, but doesn’t pay OFA to record Pennhip results, then the Pennhip results are probably fake. AGAIN FALSE. OFA only recently started recording pennhip results for an additional fee. Paperwork from Pennhip on results is proof enough.

4) Consider the source, look at the person or people saying all these FALSE things in regards to health testing. Most are new breeders that have one or two tested dogs, usually not of their own breeding. Some are desperate to make puppy sales or they are show only breeders who are compensating for the lack of working ability. Heck, I've even seen longtime Anatolian breeders say these things and when I look at their OFA history they have 15 or less dogs in the database, however they may have produced 100’s. In order to have a better understanding of inheritance of some of these diseases, more breeders need to test all or the majority of their offspring. The larger the database, the more information we can gather. We don’t believe in blindly breeding dogs when there are tools to help us make better informed decisions, but we are also realistic and believe in breeding for the WHOLE dog. Which means we look at many, many things before a dog is deemed worthy of being bred here at Stonecoat. Breeding for the whole dog results in puppies with more than one thing to offer to the future of working Anatolians. Is health testing important? Yes. Should we only rely on that? No. The goal should be to produce well rounded dogs and that means using all the tools available to us as breeders.