by Rory Kress
“Besides handling the puppies every day, you take each puppy—and it’s right between this specific age time frame [of three to sixteen days old]—you pick up the puppy, and you hold it head over butt,” Patrice explains, detailing the exercises she does with each litter, miming the motions with a puppy-sized empty space between her hands. She keeps detailed diagrams in the room where the puppies are born to ensure that she does it right every time. “And you do that for five seconds. No more. It’s very specific—you don’t overdo it. Then you turn it upside down so it’s tail over head.”
“And they’re not freaking out?” I ask, shocked, imagining myself trying to swing Izzie upside down at any age.
“Oh yeah, they’re squirming and everything else,” Patrice says.
“But you’re holding them. You aren’t moving them. You’re just holding them there,” Robert clarifies.
From there, they tickle the puppies’ feet with different objects like a Q-tip or a pencil eraser. Then they have them stand on a wet cloth for a few seconds.
In these early days, Patrice holds vigil, tracking the puppies’ feedings and plotting their growing weights on a chart.
“I pick them up, make sure to handle them, give them kisses on their little heads,” she says.
“You gotta give them kisses on their little heads,” Robert interjects with mock seriousness, as if prescribing a lifesaving medication. Even though he’s joking, he’s not wrong: the dogs in large-scale commercial breeding operations almost always lack this kind of positive and gentle intimacy with humans altogether.
From three to five weeks old, the puppies are moved upstairs onto the main floor of the house, into what would typically serve as a laundry room adjacent to the kitchen. There, Patrice and Robert erect a small baby gate so that the tiny puppies can safely observe the goings-on of the household and begin learning not to fear the various daily activities and noises they will be seeing and hearing once they are placed in a home.
At five weeks, the puppies are then relocated to large pens overlooking the couple’s formal living room. There, Patrice has access to her home’s sound system and plays the puppies special CDs to help prevent them from developing phobias of the typical noise triggers that upset most dogs: sirens, crying babies, honking horns, airplanes. She plies them with baby toys to help them develop early motor skills and approaches them wearing different hats or disguises so they can experience what other people may look like without barking or scurrying away.
At six weeks, the real fun begins as Patrice invites into her home any prospective puppy buyers as well as her circle of friends to come help socialize the newest litter—often with a side of margaritas, Robert makes sure to add for the record. Patrice instructs the gathered crowd to touch the puppies’ toes, to put their fingers gently into their mouths, to tug lightly on their ears, all in an effort to help the dogs continue to grow accustomed to human touch.
Between eight and ten weeks, it’s time for the puppies to go to their new homes. After weeks of socialization and mingling, the puppies are finally ready. But Patrice and Robert play matchmaker, deciding which human will get which puppy—or, more often, which humans will go home empty-handed. They have several criteria they look for in an owner. For one, they will rarely, if ever, sell a puppy to a home with a child under the age of seven. In other cases where the children are of age, Patrice and Robert watch in their interviews to see if the children listen to their parents and are respectful. They cringe to remember one family where the children came to the home to meet the puppies and were jumping on top of their tables. They went home sans terrier. Robert, for his part, likes to investigate exactly why any given family wants a puppy at that particular time while inquiring into exactly how much research they have put into this specific breed.
“Look at it this way: there are cats, dogs, and then there are terriers. They are very, very different,” Robert cautions.
With me, he’s preaching to the choir. Dan and I often joke when we see other dogs happily jogging along with their masters or chasing and retrieving tennis balls or rolling in the grass that those are real dogs. Izzie is our little imposter, some sort of strange creature that has her own agenda, which may not involve returning any tennis balls, and will do what she sees fit when she sees fit, thank you very much.
But of course, most buyers are more naïve to this breed than I am after years living side by side with a terrier of my own. Robert recalls one prospective buyer he turned away based on the type of personality the man was seeking in a puppy. “I said, ‘You need to get a golden retriever.’ He wanted a dog that was going to be there when he wanted to interface with it and would otherwise go and lie down in the corner. I said, ‘No, you’re not going to get that here.’”
When Dan and I bought Izzie from a pet store back in early 2011, there was no interview process of any kind. No one asked us any questions about why we’d selected this breed (allergies) or whether we’d ever even owned a dog before (we hadn’t). No one needed to know if we had a backyard where the puppy could play (we didn’t). In fact, Dan and I had been the ones asking all the questions then. Thinking back on it now, most of our naïve and clueless questions would have been a red flag to a breeder like Patrice or Robert that we were woefully unprepared to take on a puppy at all, let alone one from a breed that is known to be a bit, shall we say, high maintenance. The pet store was a far easier experience: we showed up and walked out with Izzie after relinquishing $1,000 for her purchase, all within an hour or so. Perhaps the only question we heard was “Visa or MasterCard?” But I’m coming to see that buying a dog should not be quick, easy, and convenient. There should be questions. There should be barriers to entry. This isn’t a pair of sunglasses or even a car. This is a creature that you are committing to for the span of its entire life.
I can’t help myself: I have to know if Dan and I would have made the cut to be owners of a responsibly bred wheaten when we first set out to get Izzie back in 2011. I lay it all on the table for Patrice and Robert, how our life was back then: the one-bedroom we shared in a Brooklyn apartment building, my night shift for the Today Show leaving only one of us home at any given time, the fact that neither of us had ever owned a dog before, the challenge that we’d only been living together a few short months as boyfriend and girlfriend when we made the commitment to take this animal into our home for the full extent of its life before even committing to each other for life. Patrice and Robert listen and render judgment. Robert launches in first with a hearty no. Patrice throws on the brakes and shoots him a look.
“Well, you would be very low on the list,” Robert says.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Patrice says, hoping not to offend.
“Oh, I do,” Robert insists. “That’s where I would put you. And I work the list.”
Patrice disagrees, citing the fact that our lack of a backyard at that time meant that any dog we took home would have to get dedicated time walking with us and bonding with us. In some ways, she believes this can be preferable to an owner who simply opens the back door and lets the dog wander off without any time to socialize or develop a personal relationship with its humans. Either way, the two are split on whether I would have gone home empty-handed or become a newly minted dog owner with one of their pups.
When I explain to Patrice and Robert that Izzie came from a pet store, it’s like a light bulb goes off in their heads: of course that’s how I was able to get a wheaten terrier puppy, no questions asked. Although they don’t seem to judge the choice we made at the time, they are very quick to agree that they would never sell to a pet store or over the internet to a buyer they did not personally vet. In the few instances where they have sold one of their dogs to someone out of state, they have been sure to conduct meticulous phone interviews with the buyer and subject them to the same lengthy questionnaire as all their other prospective customers. They often go to the lengths of securing a reference from a local breeder in the buyer’s area who could not sell to them b
ecause they did not have a litter on deck. When the time has come to finalize the purchase, Robert or another family member has personally driven or flown the puppy to the buyer.
But it’s not just the lives of these dogs up until purchase that interests me. A major component of responsible breeding comes down to when and how the females are retired. In most breeding operations, the worst-case scenario is that they’re shot or otherwise put down. In other cases, they might be sent to a rescue like Theresa Strader’s to be adopted out, hopefully while they still have a few more good years left in them to enjoy. But that’s not how Patrice and Robert do things. Whenever a female is no longer able to produce a healthy litter—no matter her age—they retire her but never put her down, sell her, or adopt her out. She lives out the rest of her life in their home just as Gladys and Delaney are doing as we speak. As pets.
“They’re our family,” Patrice says, almost horrified by my question of whether they’d retire their dogs to another home when they can no longer produce new litters. “I mean, we can’t find anybody who would take as good of care of our dogs… You know what I mean. Because by then, we know their quirks. They like running down to the bedroom. They know who sleeps where every night. They know which kennel is theirs.”
However, it is worth noting that there is no government inspector looking over Patrice’s and Robert’s shoulders to ensure that they uphold their breeding operation to the levels they do. While they are certified as an AKC Breeder of Merit and could be subject to inspections from that group, they are not required to hold a USDA license, because they have fewer than four breeding females in their operation. They are also not required to be inspected by the state of Colorado, because they are considered backyard or hobby breeders, of too small a scale to mandate adherence to state regulations. Their commitment to the health and welfare of the breed is a personal mandate.
When I ask Patrice if she can recommend any of her colleagues who, unlike herself and Robert, do this kind of work full-time as a livelihood but manage to do so with excellence, she demurs.
“Sorry to say, I do not know of any colleagues who breed full-time for a living and do an excellent and responsible job of it,” Patrice tells me. “My sentiment is [that] once one makes decisions about one’s canines based on making a living, the decisions made are no longer focused on the best intent for the animal.”2
Robert adds, “We have seen breeders who have transitioned from responsible breeders to running a business, and their ethics and judgment [are] very much clouded by [money] and profits.”
As the evening begins to darken into dusk, Patrice and Robert take me to the back of the house to tour their kennels and an expansive dog run with children’s playground equipment arranged for agility exercises. A male dog is hanging out in his kennel, sitting in a dog bed. He rises when we enter. They tell me that they took him back from a buyer who had trouble with his prickly personality. They put him in his kennel when I arrived, because he’s not a big fan of strangers, and they didn’t want him to get aggressive with me. He doesn’t launch himself at his kennel door or bark as I would expect an aggressive dog to do. He just watches. When we walk around to the outdoor dog runs, he effortlessly glides through his doggie door into his own private, fenced area to keep an eye on us. When I was on the rescue run with Theresa’s organization, I saw kennels of a similar size shared by up to ten or more dogs—and they did not have the flexibility of indoor-outdoor access on demand. Needless to say, there’s not a single dog in a cage here. There’s not a single paw touching a wire mesh floor. Food and water are plentiful, and the temperature is kept even with the rest of the home. The conditions in the kennels here are better than many doggie day cares I’ve seen that charge top dollar to entertain and board local pups.
But even if Patrice and Robert are being excellent, responsible breeders, the question that many animal welfare groups and the Adopt Don’t Shop movement would ask remains: Why breed at all when there are so many dogs in shelters needing good homes?
When I ask them this question, Patrice and Robert smile knowingly first at each other and then at me, sitting there at seven months pregnant but probably looking even more.
“Why have a child? There are orphans all over the world: underfed, undernourished, undereducated,” Robert begins.3
“Even in this country,” Patrice adds.
“Absolutely. So why would you have a child? It’s the same thing. It’s something personal, very personal. Obviously, it’s your offspring. Our dog’s puppies are not our offspring, but nevertheless, we’ve watched them grow, watched them develop,” Robert explains.
“Your baby’s going to look like you and your husband,” Patrice says before describing the high level of prenatal care that marks the earliest stages of bonding with one’s own child, equating it to the type of work she does with her dogs and why it’s enriching and valuable to her. “There are a lot of sad cases, and I say definitely go work in a shelter and help them out… So yes, I feel bad that there are dogs in shelters. I feel bad that there are orphans too.”
“Right, but do I begrudge you for having your child and having a family?” Robert asks. “No.”
It’s an argument I’ve heard before from other breeders, and I can certainly understand their point of view. But hearing Patrice’s own perspective on it adds new weight.
“I’m glad you’re able to make a choice. I made a choice not to have children,” Patrice says. “Because that’s who I am. And I’m not insulted by the question. I think it’s honest.”
As I get into my car to leave Heirloom Wheatens, Patrice waves and closes a gate behind me with a street sign reading WHEATEN COURT on it. In just a few short weeks, I’ll be visiting the facility where Izzie was born: Simler’s Kennel in the northeast corner of Missouri. While I don’t know for sure what I’ll find there, I’m quite certain it won’t be anything like this, based on the USDA inspection reports my FOIA request turned up.
No. I no longer have any delusions that this sprawling campus is anything like Izzie’s birthplace—although this is always what I’d hoped and wished her breeder had been like. I watch as Gladys and Delaney freely chase each other, enjoying their retirement in the tall grass and the setting sun, full bellies and a good night’s sleep at the foot of a bed awaiting them both.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Dog Is My Copilot
I’m about two hours from the nearest major highway when I arrive at Simler Trail. It’s a hot and hazy August afternoon in northeast Missouri, and my windshield is coated in the carcasses of late-summer beetles grown fat on months of plenty. I pass a small cemetery just before the crossroads. A man is mowing the lawn on the side of the road. He waves at me in my rental car as if he’s been expecting me. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I’ve imagined this moment for a very long time. For years, I’ve stared at the name and address of the breeder listed on Izzie’s purchase papers and tried to picture where she came from. Her entire story was contained in just a few short lines.
Sire: Simler’s Rich
Dam: Simler’s Cindee Marla
DOB: 11–13–2010
Breeder: Mrs. Keith Simler
The information also included Mrs. Keith Simler’s USDA number and her address on Simler Trail. This information was all typed out on an American Pet Registry Inc. (APRI) form with a Jesus fish stamped at the bottom. APRI is an off-brand version of the American Kennel Club. Needless to say, we never filled it out, and we never mailed in our twenty-dollar fee to make Izzie’s dubious pedigree official with the registry.
Even though this information is much more than other buyers often get with their purchase, it is sparse to say the least. It was easy to overanalyze the little I had. To me, a lifelong city dweller, there was something distinctly intimidating about the fact that Izzie’s breeders share the same name as the road where they live and work. It spoke of a family that had long roots in a place, long enough that their rural road was distinguishable from others in
that it was theirs. These were people who were tied to the land in a way I’d never been. It frightened me, thinking that to even set foot on the road was to intrude on their family history.
Now that I’m here, I feel a pang of excitement and fear to see the Simler Trail sign. As much as I’ve thought about it, some part of me is amazed that the road even has a sign to note its existence. Like so many things that live for years in our imaginations, it can feel as if we, ourselves, made them up. To see that it’s real and that I’m actually here is somehow a shock.
I pause at the crossroads, trying to spot the kennel up ahead. After miles of rolling country roads through sun-flooded open fields and hills, Simler Trail is a sudden and dark diversion into the woods. The trail itself is just one narrow, unpaved lane of sharp, gray gravel, and the trees and dense forest crowd in like a tunnel with no light visible on the other side. There are no signs to mark that this is a private road or that I’m turning onto someone’s driveway, so with plausible deniability in my back pocket, I proceed.
Within about one hundred meters of turning onto the trail, the day is sunken into damp, green darkness. I go slow, trying to peer through the trees on either side. My GPS tells me now that I’ve passed Simler’s Kennel before giving up entirely and conking out. How can that be? There is truly nothing here, not even a turnoff to access the property. The forest reveals no clues, and the road gives me no choice but to continue straight ahead. I plough forward, as there’s no space to make a U-turn here anyway. If a car were to come speeding toward me from the opposite direction, we’d both be stuck unless one of us would concede to reversing until we reached the main road.
After about half a mile, the trees peel away, and the road slopes into open, sun-drenched countryside. It’s almost beautiful if not somewhat forlorn for its isolation. On my left, marring the idyllic landscape, is an ancient, rotted-out barn at least two stories tall. It has shed its warped planks around its base like a giant, wilting tulip. You can see straight through the yawning gaps to the field gone to seed behind it. Rusted and twisted farm equipment lies abandoned nearby, seemingly forgotten for decades.