The Breeding Philosophy of Del Mar:

Alaskan Klee Kai are still a very young and very rare breed.

As a dog lover, we believe each and every AKK are special to us, but as breeders with a hard eye, our dogs are examined carefully. We recognize things that can be improved on and look for mates that will eliminate or balance those flaws.

We, as breeders, only breed if we are convinced that our knowledge, experience, and devotion to the Alaskan Klee Kai breed will result in a mating that will produce an exceptional litter of puppies, with qualities that are as near as possible to the ideal for our breed. We breed to preserve and to enhance the characteristics that make this breed unique. In short, we breed to improve. Our ultimate goal is to produce healthy, structurally sound, tempermentally stable dogs. 

Every dog is the best dog in the world to its owner. Good breeders, however, know to avoid "kennel blindness" -- in other words, they take a step back and honestly evaluate the good and bad points of their own dogs before making the decision to breed them. The goal of breeding, after all, is to produce a better dog.

Kennel blindness is one of the worst things to happen to any breed. Every judge will tell you that every generation in a breed should be better than the last, and that is the very essence of our philosophy.

We breed to improve type, health, movement, temperament, conformation, and intelligence - all while staying within the written breed standard.

One of the best ways to get an objective opinion on a dog is to test it against others. We enter dog shows to determine how our dogs measure up against other specimens of this breed. Right now since there are so few AKK showing, this tool of evaluating conformation has much room for improvement. However, the more popular this breed becomes, the more AKK start showing, the more accurate this tool of conformation evaluation will become. Another way we try to understand type is by meeting as many AKK as we can.

We have always advocated protecting the puppy buyer which has made us not very popular in the breeder groups.  It costs money to health screen breeding stock, and breeders should adhere to state laws regarding their contracts. We have always strongly advocated that we do not believe females should be bred young, nor constantly back to back.  These views have made some breeders group against us.

 We believe that if one is to take the responsibility of bringing life into this world, they need to also take the responsibility of following up on that pups health and with the people they place their pups with. Many breeders do not like the fact we have placed the lemon law, a puppy check list, and health links and resources on our site. They do not like the fact we advocate breeder expectations from puppy buyers.  So take everything you hear with a grain of salt from the AKK community.  There are a lot of old school breeders clashing with modern breeder management theories.

 There are some very nice folks out there, so keep your eyes and ears open. And if you hear someone talking down on someone, remember to always consider the source and motivation.

Have fun and love your dogs & family. The DOGS are what matter, not the political agendas. You will need to keep this in mind if you ever enter the show world :) We only have 2-3 litters per year. This is our hobby we are not dog "producers", we do not make our living selling dogs,  nor do we breed to meet demand. Every breeding we set up has a small list of people waiting in advance. We are trying to create a healthy sound line and hope to retain as many puppies in competition homes as possible. We require every puppy that leaves here to be health screened prior to breeding. We also require that they are returned to us if they need to be placed. They are NOT for re-sale or re-homing, they are all microchip'd and not one will EVER end up in a pound.

 ~Klee Kai of Del Mar