Our philosophy regarding breeding Cocker Spaniels

There are quite a few things that set us apart from your ordinary Cocker breeders. Most notably, we are not trying to make dogs that will win dog shows... we're trying to make dogs that will be great companions. And our goal is NOT to breed as many pups as possible in order to make a ton of money. On the contrary... it's all about making a few great family dogs.

We raise our dogs in a family environment. We don't have chain link fences and little individual cages to confine our dogs. We think Cockers ought to be treated a lot nicer than that. We keep only a small number of dogs and have very infrequent litters. If we were trying to crank out a constant stream of puppies, we just would not be able to give each dog the attention it deserves.

Cockers love people and crave human companionship. It just breaks my heart to go in to a pet store and see a Cocker behind glass, or to visit another Cocker breeder and see the dogs locked up in cages. It makes them crazy. Cockers want to be with people... right by your side, at your feet, or sometimes even on your lap. That's just the way they are.

One of the neighbor kids with our puppies

The biggest thing we focus on with our pups is properly socializing them. We believe that during the first 8 weeks of the pup's life it's crucial for the pup to be handled by people.

Many breeders keep their puppies away from people in the belief that strangers might bring parvo or other diseases. We look at it completely differently. We go to great lengths to expose our puppies to many different people so that they get used to being handled and learn to love it.

At our house, socializing puppies starts literally on day one! Early on they're handled by members of our family, and within a few days they are introduced to the neighbors and sometimes even to their new owners. (Many of our pups have homes waiting for them before they are even born.) Once the pups are old enough to walk around a bit and confident enough to be taken outside without getting scared, we make it a priority to take them out in to our front yard almost every afternoon. When the neighbors see us out on our front lawn with the puppies, they know that means they have an open invitation to come over and help us play with the pups. The neighbors get a kick out of it, and it's great for the pups to be handled by so many different people. On weekends, we quite frequently have members of our Cocker forum come over and play with the pups... some of them driving from a couple hundred miles away to do so! By the time the pups are old enough to go off to their new homes, these puppies have spent countless hours with dozens of different people of all ages... and are truly people-lovers.

In the book "Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog", authors John Paul Scott and John L. Fuller explain the developmental stages of puppies. They say that from 4 to 6 weeks, it's important for puppies to become socialized to other dogs... and that from 6 to 12 weeks it's important for puppies to become socialized to people. When you understand this, you can see why we've been able to create such well socialized puppies here: they learn to get along with their littermates, their mother, and our other adult Cockers during the animal socialization period... and they learn to love people by being handled by our family, friends, neighbors, and their new owners during the human socialization period.

Since it's impossible to judge whether a puppy is show quality at an early age, some show breeders keep their puppies until 5 or 6 months of age. Then they figure out which ones are show quality, and sell off the others to "pet homes". Because a long coat is so important in the show ring, some show breeders keep their puppies in wire cages almost all the time to protect the coat. When you understand the developmental stages of puppies, you can see why buying a puppy that was raised this way can cause so many problems. Of course, not all show breeders raise their puppies this way, but some do... so you have to be careful. If someone tries to sell you a 4-6 month old puppy, or if you go to their house and their puppies are confined to wire cages... this should be a major red flag.

Playing with the neighbor kids is excellent for the pups

I mentioned earlier that (once our pups get to a certain age) we like to take them out in to our front yard to play with the neighbors. We set up a big portable fence around our front yard, and to spend an hour or two out there with the puppies each day. The sight of an entire litter of Cocker puppies on our lawn attracts many of the neighbors... including almost daily visits from a few of the neighbor kids. We like to have the kids and puppies play together, because it gets the puppies used to quick moves, loud noises, and not-so-gentle handling.

Many breeders would NEVER do this, out of fear of exposing the puppies to parvo or other diseases... but we feel the benefits from socializing the dogs far outweigh any risks.

We also encourage all the new owners to come visit the puppies as often as possible during the 8 weeks we have them here. Even though most of our new owners live several hundred miles away, many of them will make the drive here once or twice before the big day when they finally get to take their puppy home. In talking to other breeders, I've found quite a few that NEVER let their puppies get handled by strangers until there's money on the table and a sale is about to be closed. I just can't agree with that kind of thinking.

Having our pups get handled by as many people as possible is one of the tricks we use to make sure that, by the time the pups get to their new owners, they are at ease with people of all ages. Come to one of our puppy reunions and talk to the owners of our pups... and ask them how the personality of their Zim dog compares to other Cockers they've owned. You'll hear some interesting stories! It's amazing what a difference a little early socializing makes on the entire rest of a dog's life.

One very strong belief in our house is that puppies are not something that should be shipped.

You may have noticed that many dog breeders on the Internet are more than happy to ship a pup to make a sale. We would never do something that cruel to a young pup, so we ONLY sell our pups to people within driving distance of our home. Luckily, due to our location half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles, that's a LOT of people!

A puppy's first day away from momma is stressful enough without having to be in a cage in the cargo hold of a jet airliner. Can you imagine what that is like for a pup? Read some horror stories here. At a minimum, shipping a puppy by plane would be traumatic for the dog... and in some cases it can be fatal.

There's no reason for us to ship puppies. We hear from so many people in California who are looking for puppies that we never have any trouble at all finding good homes for all of our puppies within a few hundred miles of our house.

If you're looking for a Cocker puppy, we urge you to locate breeders near you rather than dealing with breeders that would have to ship a pup to you. To locate Cocker breeders near you, check the breeder listings at the Open Directory Project.

We take very seriously our responsibility to make healthy puppies. While many breeders administer their own shots and do their own tail docking (to keep their costs down), we prefer our puppies to be treated by real vets. Our pups have usually been seen by our vet at least two times before heading off to their new homes.

Our commitment to healthy pups starts long before the pups are born, though. We have carefully chosen each of the dogs in our breeding program to ensure that we are creating high quality puppies that conform to the breed standard. All but one of the dogs in our breeding program has a champion show dog for a parent, and each is tested to ensure that we are not creating puppies with genetic defects.

Being a responsible breeder means being willing to do the right thing, not the easy thing. Years ago we discovered that one of our dogs had a minor heart condition. We decided to retire that dog from our breeding program, even though it set us back several years. We didn't want to take the chance of making a new generation of Cockers with heart defects. In 2003, we realized that one of our dogs seemed to have an awful lot of puppies that ended up with cherry eyes. We retired that dog, too, even though many Cocker breeders consider cherry eyes to be something that just goes with the breed. We think we can make a better Cocker than that. In 2004, a stud dog we obtained from a world-class breeder turned out to have a genetic hip condition. Rather than take the chance of making puppies who could inherit the condition, we neutered that dog before he ever even fathered a litter. We've decided that for the next few years we'll use proven, healthy stud dogs belonging to other breeders. The last thing we want to do is make unhealthy puppies.

Which brings me to the subject of linebreeding and inbreeding. Linebreeding is where you breed two dogs who share some common relatives. For example, you take the grandson of a famous show dog and you breed him to the daughter of that same show dog by a different mother. This is linebreeding. Some show breeders like to do this in order to produce puppies with qualities similar to that one dog. Inbreeding is where two very closely related dogs are bred... say a father to a daughter. You sometimes see this in puppy mill pedigrees, or from truly careless or ignorant breeders. Besides the moral issues, there are medical reasons that human fathers shouldn't breed with their daughters. The same holds true in the canine world. Yet this stuff still goes on today. Here at the Zim house, we are totally opposed to inbreeding and linebreeding. We believe in breeding across lines, not within them.

Another thing we really place a lot of importance on is finding good homes for our puppies. We do not sell our pups on a first come, first served basis! It's all about making a good match between the puppy and his new family. And just in case someone makes a bad decision, we give all of our new owners a two week period to evaluate their new puppy and to bring it back for a full refund if it does not meet their expectations. Also, if at ANY point in the lifetime of one of our dogs the owners decide that they can no longer keep him, we will help them find a new home for that dog. We don't ever want to find out that one of our dogs had to be taken to a shelter because it was unwanted.

Another thing we want you to know about is the way we lay the ground work for potty training. We have heard many times from the new owners of our puppies that they were easy to potty train compared to their other dogs. We think we have something to do with that. Many dog breeders just keep puppies in cages with wire bottoms... and the puppies can pee and poop anywhere in the cage. This teaches the dog it's OK to just squat and go anywhere they want to. That's easy for the breeder, but very bad for the new owners. We take a very different strategy... very carefully setting up the living arrangements in our Puppy Palace in ways that encourage good potty habits. A puppy has a natural inclination to not want to pee or poop in her own bed. We encourage that, by placing newspapers right next to the bed... and our puppies very quickly learn to get out of bed and go on the paper. When they're a little older, we train them to go out the doggie door of the Puppy Palace and pee and poop in the papered area just outside the doggie door. By the time they're about seven weeks old, we never have to clean up pee and poop in the Puppy Palace because the puppies are totally trained on use of the doggie door.

One final thing that really sets us apart from other breeders is the way we allow total strangers to take part in so much of what goes on around here. With our PuppyCam, you can take a look at what's happening with the puppies any time of the day or night. And with our Cocker Spaniel forum, you're not only free to ask us questions and make comments, but you can also talk to the owners of our puppies. This way, you don't just have to take our word for it when we say that our puppies are well socialized and that they make great pets... you can actually talk to some of the people that own our dogs.

There is a LOT more to this web site than just this page!
Please explore the rest of the site by viewing our table of contents,
or by clicking on one of the quick links below.

If you've enjoyed this web site, please take a moment to let me know!
My email address is: jimzim@charter.net
I'd love it if you'd send me pictures of your Cocker Spaniel, too.

Have a web site of your own? Please link to us! Just copy this code to your site:
<a href="http://www.zimfamilycockers.com">Zim Family Cockers</a>
(you can modify the text of the link, of course)
Click here for a banner that you can use on your site.

Our Breeding Philosophy We breed well socialized pets, not dogs for the show ring

Our Breeding Philosophy
We breed well socialized pets,
not dogs for the show ring