Our Breeding Goals
At Karma Kennels, our dog's need to meet a variety of requirements in order to be incorporated into our Breeding Program. These values are incredibly important to us.
The German Shepherd Dog Breed Standard
Every purebred dog breed has a Breed Standard which outlines the virtues, values, purpose, faults and disqualifications of the breed. This is our primary tool when it comes to our breeding program as we believe in adhering to what our breed was originally built for.
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To view the German Shepherd Dog Breed Standartd, please click here.
Pedigree
A pedigree serves as a blueprint for maintaining the desired physical attributes, temperament and behavior of the breed. Nowadays, it also serves as a tool to understand health and genetic traits within a lineage. It is very important to us to match not only breeding pairs appropriately, but also pedigree's that are truly going to compliment one another.
Health
Our breeding dogs are always tested via the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals for Hips, Elbows, Cardiac, Dentition and Thyroid. We also DM (degenerative myelopathy) test our dogs via GenSolDX or Embark.
Health testing is a critical component to any breeding program. There is never a guarantee in genetics however, doing these tests allows us to make the most informed and educated decisions possible.
Temperament
Our breeding dogs have the true temperament of the German Shepherd Dog. We prove this via conformation events, performance events and AKC/GSDCA Temperament Testing events. Our dogs and puppies make great show/performance dogs but they also make wonderful family companions.