When Numbers Start Calling the Shots: The Economics Turning Breeding Into a Production Model (Part II)

by | Jan 15, 2026

When Breeding Decisions Turn Into Business Strategies

At the point where breeding—as the data on Balihara Ranch show—reaches extreme volumes, decisions stop being a matter of taste or philosophy. They become managerial choices.
Repeat, or hold off?
Change the pairing, or stick with what works?
Risk variability, or maintain a stable output?
In a high throughput production model, the answers are obvious.

Why the System Tolerates This Model

The most important question isn’t: Is it legal?
It’s: Why is nothing stopping it?

In practice, the breeding system:

  • doesn’t track the number of litters at the kennel level,
  • doesn’t monitor cumulative strain on dams,
  • doesn’t address repeated use of identical pairings,
  • and doesn’t treat extreme volume as a risk factor.

The result? A kennel producing dozens of litters a year and thousands of puppies operates—on paper—under the same regime as a small family breeder with one litter every two years. Not in reality. And the data from Balihara Ranch show that such a model can be sustained over the long term.

Why This Isn’t an “Attack on One Kennel”

This analysis isn’t personal. It tracks patterns, not names.

It’s important to be clear: Balihara Ranch isn’t the cause of the problem—its data illustrate how far a system can go when it:

  • has no brakes,
  • has no feedback loops,
  • and lacks any mechanism to say “enough.”

These data don’t assign blame. They expose a scale and intensity that can no longer be ignored.

When Ethics Stop Deciding and Math Takes Over

If the same pairings produce dozens of puppies,
if dams are bred repeatedly without real recovery,
if breeding behaves like an optimized process,
then this isn’t about isolated missteps. It’s a model.

A model in which:

  • genetics gives way to efficiency,
  • welfare gives way to volume,
  • and the dog becomes an input variable in the equation.

Conclusion: Numbers Don’t Lie. The System Just Ignores Them.

The most unsettling part of this story isn’t emotion. It’s the numbers.
They’re precise. They’re verifiable. And they speak plainly.
Not about a single operation, but about a system design that allows breeding to morph into manufacturing—and pretend it’s perfectly normal.

And until the system’s settings change, this kind of breeding will continue to replicate itself.
Quietly. Efficiently. And with ever larger numbers.

Send a comment

* name and email address are optional, you can send the comment anonymously

CONTINUE READING

When Numbers Start Calling the Shots: The Economics Turning Breeding Into a Production Model (Part I)

When breeding is driven by numbers, its underlying logic shifts. Available data on Balihara Ranch indicate repeated use of the same sire–dam combinations, yielding dozens of puppies from the same pair. This article examines where responsible breeding selection ends and a production model begins—and why, without firm guardrails, the system naturally steers breeders toward volume over thoughtful selection.

read more

A New Year’s Wish – If Dogs Could Speak

As we enter the New Year, our wish is not for more, but for less. Fewer litters and fewer dogs where breeding has become an industry. Less silence around large commercial breeding operations. Because not everything that is legal is also right—and dogs have no way to say so out loud.

read more

The Cost of a Career Built on Dogs

When dog breeding becomes the primary source of income and identity, stepping back without losses becomes impossible. A large commercial breeding operation like Balihara Ranch requires constant escalation, the concealment of reality, and the defense of a system that can no longer be acknowledged as problematic. This is not an individual failure, but the logical outcome of a career built exclusively on dogs.

read more

The Qaiser van’t Stokerybos Case: Paper Exports as an Illusion of Oversight Part II: How a System Can Appear Lawful While Being Circumvented in Practice

The Qaiser van’t Stokerybos case shows how easily exports in dog breeding can be used not for cooperation between breeders, but to bypass the rules. A dog may be officially registered abroad while being physically used to breed females elsewhere—without the system addressing that contradiction.

read more

When the Same Pairings Are Repeated to Exhaustion: What the Numbers Reveal About Breeding at Balihara Ranch

Publicly available records through 2023 show that at Balihara Ranch, identical parental combinations were repeated as many as four, six, or even eight times, producing dozens of puppies from a single pairing. Such a degree of repetition is not standard in conventional breeding practice and raises questions about where selective breeding ends and systematic multiplication begins.

read more