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Kayla sits down with Dr. Jessica Hekman of the Functional Dog Collaborative to talk about breeding dogs for behavioral and physical health. They talk about how the FDC aims to help breeders produce dogs with better health – behavioral and physical.
The FDC also helps both breeders and buyers work towards producing dogs that suit the jobs at hand – whether that’s warming a lap, being a long-lived healthy companion, or competing in sports (or all 3).
They talk about some of the following topics:
- The goals of the Functional Dog Collaborative
- Why behavioral goals are central to the Functional Dog Collaborative
- The challenges surrounding breeders with closed studbooks versus breeders who are working hard to produce healthy outcrosses.
- Some of the topics covered on the Functional Breeding podcast – just enough to give people a taste so they’ll go listen. My three favorite episodes so far have been on Where Good Dogs Come From, Dobermans, and Doodles.
Kayla founded Journey Dog Training in 2013 to provide high-quality and affordable dog behavior advice. She is a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant who’s worked with hundreds of private clients, thousands of shelter dogs, and dozens of working detection dogs. Kayla’s dog and cat behavior advice has been featured in NPR, the Chicago Tribune, and Pet MD. She’s an avid adventurer who is currently doing #vanlife on the Pan-American Highway with her two border collies and a cat. Aside from running Journey Dog Training, Kayla also runs the nonprofit K9 Conservationists, where she and the dogs work as conservation detection dog teams. You can get 1:1 advice with a Journey Dog Training team member here.
