This post is long overdue! I think I said I was going to discuss win photos in part two, but I’m going to do that in part three instead. Gaiting is the most important thing you do when you show dogs, so we might as well get right into it. These tips are specific to Siberians, but they apply to a lot of other breeds as well.

1. Choose the right collar and lead for your dog. Make sure the length of each is appropriate and comfortable. If the dog is new to showing or is a puppy, you will want a shorter collar to have more control over the dog. In that case, you should only see an inch or so of clearance if you pull the collar up above the dog’s head. You will want to make sure the collar is on correctly. You can make a P shape with the collar and slip it over the head. I prefer somewhere around a 40-inch lead with all my dogs, but if you are a beginner, you can use closer to 30 inches so that you are not having to roll up so much lead. A simple leather lead (not braided kangaroo) provides good durability and grip/comfort. Braided kangaroo is my favorite, but they are more expensive and don’t always last. Personally, I like to use choke chains on my dogs, especially puppies. You don’t actually choke the dogs with them — I find it easier to communicate with my dogs using a chain. I can use smaller corrections, and they will not continue to pull. Whereas with nylon, they will pull until they are actually choking themselves.
2. Be very stingy with how much lead you give a puppy or new show dog. Because of the extra length in the choke collar, you will want to hold the lead right at the connection of the collar to the lead. The shorter the lead, the more control you have over the dog. When you have a dog that is new to showing, they need to earn the right to have a longer lead. Otherwise, hold that lead as short as possible. Remember: when you control the head of the dog, you control his body too. Hold your hand close to the dog’s jaw. Keep a little bit of tension in the lead, and don’t let the dog’s head drop below their topline. Don’t put your hand ahead of the dog, and try not to move ahead of the dog either.
3. Teach the dog to move out in a circle using bait. Practice lots before you go in an actual show ring. I can teach my 2 month old puppies to start moving with me in a circle within a couple of sessions. I use my body to block them and keep them moving in a circle. When they are starting out, I make sure never to turn my head towards them, but I keep looking at them out the corner of my eye. The second they put their heads straight instead of looking at me, I shove bait in their mouth and praise them excitedly. When you treat them, make sure that your hand is leading them in the direction of the circle, so their head stays straight. If that’s too hard for you, you can also toss bait towards the inside of the circle. The #1 goal is to teach the dog to never look at you.
4. Take your time. When the judge tells you to go around, do not rush. Take your time, adjust the collar on the dog, and give the collar a few light tugs until the dog is paying attention and not pulling at the collar. If the dog keeps pulling, give a stronger correction and then start jogging very, very slowly. If they still pull, just try your best to keep your hand steady and keep constant pressure against their pull. It’s not ideal if they pull, but as long as they are gaiting properly and not fighting you too much, it’s ok. If your dog likes to look at you while moving, then it’s important that you never look at the dog until they break that habit. If your dog ignores you while gaiting, then you should look at them periodically to see what they are doing, especially if you can’t tell just by feel. The down and back is also a good time to look, as long as you are good at going in a straight line.
5. Take big steps. It can be hard as a newbie to take big steps while keeping your hand steady, so definitely prioritize the hand over the big steps. Once you have your hand steady, think big, lofty strides. The more air time you get, the better your dog will move out. They will try to match your strides. You want them to lengthen their strides, not move their legs faster. If you watch a professional gait a dog next to an owner-handler, the biggest difference is that the professional runs more naturally, bouncing up and down with each stride, while the owner-handler stays low to the ground and takes small, hurried steps. Some dogs cannot handle this extra energy from its handler, though. If you have a bouncy puppy, you will need to stay more still while moving. So this is a more advanced move, or something that you can do if your dog lacks energy while moving.
6. Move slower on the down and back. Again, take your time and make a big circle before starting the down and back. Try to position yourself so that your dog’s butt is right in front of the judge when you start. And always look at the corner before you start moving so that you can stay in a straight line. Take a few steps at a walk first and then think steady, slow jog. Keep checking on your dog to make sure they are moving in a straight line. If you can’t tell by looking, have someone watch and tell you so that you can learn when they are straight or not. Slow down well before you get to the corner and walk a few steps. Then turn around slowly. You can give the dog another tug on the collar here to get their attention. It’s my personal pet peeve when handlers put up their hands in a stop gesture, because I feel like it ruins the flow of the down and back. If you need to, just stop and pause for a bit, no need to gesture. Then look at the judge’s shoes and make a straight line back to them. Again, slow down well in advance so you have room to do a free stack without running the judge over. Only if your dog is very advanced with exceptional movement or if you are trying to hide a movement flaw, should you try to perform the down and back at the same speed as the go around.
7. Leave adequate distance between your dog and the dog in front of you. If the judge has you move your dog together with the group, and you are not first, make sure you leave a good distance. It’s better to leave too much distance than too little. Your dog will likely be more excited when moving as a group, so be prepared for them to break into a lope. When that happens, just slow them down a bit and keep going. Whatever you do, don’t run into the dog in front of you.
8. Try to keep your elbow bent at around 90 degrees, and keep your elbow at your side, not in front of your body. This is mostly an aesthetic tip and for more advanced teams. If your dog can’t handle that amount of lead, of course do what you need to do to keep your dog looking their best. Ultimately, your dog matters more than you!
9. Stand up straight, roll your shoulders back, and look confident. No matter what dog you are showing, show that dog like he just won a Best In Show the day before. Fake it until you make it, and do whatever you need to do so that you can feel more confident in your dog. Whether that is taking handling classes, grooming him to perfection, or investing in a custom kangaroo lead.
10. Laugh off any puppy or newbie antics and ignore grumpy judges. No matter how experienced you are, your puppy might start play bowing, spinning, and jumping in the ring. That is not a big deal at all. This is a conformation show, not an obedience trial. If you are the only one in your class, which puppies often are, just redo your go around. A happy, excited puppy is way better than one that is slinking around or refusing to go due to anxiety. Don’t be embarrassed if your puppy potties in the ring either. Much less embarrassing than if it were an adult dog, and that happens to professionals too. If you get a grumpy judge, don’t take it personally. Some of the grumpiest judges I’ve had ended up giving me the win, so it has nothing to do with whether they like your dog!

Those are the important things. Some other things you can play around with are the ideal speed at which to move your dog. That is dependent on the dog and the breed. In Siberians, we are supposed to move them at a moderate speed and on a loose lead, but “moderate” can mean 8 mph when your dog can gait easily at 16 mph! Generally, judges will want to see them at near-maximum reach and drive, which for a ground-covering dog, means you have to move them decently fast. Remember, your goal is for the dog to take the biggest steps they can, not necessarily move as fast as they can. A loose lead is nice in theory, but if you have it completely loose, you are unable to communicate with the dog. The lead is your only means of communication when gaiting. When it’s too loose, you can’t pick up the dog’s head if they sniff grass, can’t slow them down if they start galloping, etc.

Let me know in the comments if I missed anything or if you have questions about anything!

Happy Holidays to all of our extended Songbird family! It’s been a while since I updated, as always. I’m going to make it one of my New Year’s Resolutions to be more active on the website and social media in 2026. Our two-year-old is finally starting to be a bit more independent, thank god!

There is much to update this year in terms of all that has happened, but I will leave the bragging out of this post. You can find our accomplishments in the show ring on our Facebook page (from winning our first working group to our first placements at the National), but that’s not really the purpose of this post. This was another really challenging year for me as a dog breeder, as a mom, and as a human. We had our first litter since Josie was born and, while everything turned out fine, the whole thing was stressful and I was unable to enjoy it. As I briefly touched on in 2024, balancing motherhood with dog breeding has been a rollercoaster of emotions. Many times during the lows, I questioned myself whether this difficult, expensive, and heartbreaking passion was worth it. Not just worth it for myself, but worth it for my family. I asked myself over and over again: is this the right thing for us? Because it wasn’t just about me anymore — I had to think about my daughter. For an entire year, my answer kept flip flopping back and forth. Dan was of no help, since he changed his mind just as often as I did.

A curious and sad thing was happening in the background at the same time. Siberian breeders were just falling off the face of the earth. Not literally, but they pretty much vanished from social media. They stopped posting, they didn’t interact with others’ posts anymore, etc. Yes, some of it may have been just people taking a healthy break from Facebook. But the vast majority of it was breeders retiring or semi-retiring. When I noticed this trend, I initially panicked. Living where we do, we’re pretty far from other Siberian breeders and already feel pretty isolated. The pictures, bragging, and discussions online were how I felt connected with other breeders in a lifestyle that is, by nature, lonely. Now everyone I had cared about was leaving in droves. And there were no more stud dogs I could use to strengthen my breeding program.

So I started panicking. What was the point of it all, of investing my whole life into this breed and this sport, if it was just going to die off in my lifetime? Now, I realize that entries and registrations have been dwindling for a long time now, since the 90s. But I felt that things had kind of stabilized pre-COVID and there was still a critical mass that was able to sustain enough genetic diversity and quality in the breed that I wasn’t terribly worried about its future. Then COVID hit. I think the economic reality post-COVID has prevented a lot of new breeders from joining the sport or becoming more involved in it. Now, I feel like the breed is truly “endangered” and there aren’t enough breeders to support its future.

Although I was initially depressed, I started to feel that I still wanted to keep supporting the breed and the fancy, even if I just slowly watch it die out in my lifetime. I still want to do my best to “save” the breed. I don’t think that’s an arrogant goal — when it comes to a breed facing a bottleneck, every single breeder matters, every single breeding counts, every single dog kept in the breeding pool matters, and frozen semen from a single sire can be critical. Of course, one person or a few people can’t keep a breed going forever, but the hope is that we can buy enough time for things to turn around in the future. And yes, there are a lot of breeders overseas, but many have been affected by war and the economy as well, and both the quality and ethics can be quite inconsistent. In the future, I definitely plan on flying overseas to personally visit the pockets where breeders seem to be breeding to standard and upholding good ethics.

In 2026 and beyond, the words preservation breeder ring truer than ever for our breed. I hope to continue to do my part: breeding to the standard, preserving genetics for the future, and educating the public on responsible breeding.

I haven’t blogged in a very long time, and I’m always saying that, and I feel badly about it! I had planned to do a series of posts on handling tips, which I will get back to at some point. This past year has been a huge challenge for me personally, since we welcomed a baby girl in the fall of 2023, and our lives changed dramatically afterwards. I became a stay-at-home mom, and the days were long and draining. I hope I don’t offend anyone by saying this, but I much prefer having puppies to a newborn baby! In many ways, babies are much less self-sufficient and fragile than puppies. I had to worry about things that I never had to worry about with the puppies. And any concern I had would last for months, instead of going away within days. We have had some litters get very sick, and we have lost puppies in devastating ways, so having litters can also be very hard. But when things went well, I found the process of raising puppies really enjoyable. They grew so much and changed so much from day to day. I remember waking up every morning excited to see them! That was not how I experienced being a stay-at-home mom lol.

Now that the baby has officially become a toddler, things are still hard. Now in the throes of teething and picking up cold after cold during flu season, the toddler is Needy with a capital N. I specifically picked Siberians as my breed because they are not clingy. They can be very affectionate, and I do really like that, but they are not a velcro dog. I knew I would struggle a lot with a dog that needed my attention all the time, and if I had more than one like that, I would feel so guilty about not being able to give all the dogs the one-on-one attention they required. I already feel guilty about spending significantly less time with the dogs after our daughter was born! But most of them don’t seem to care, because they’re still getting plenty of attention from their other favorite people, Dan and Bianca (our amazing kennel manager). On the other hand, my human child won’t let me go to the bathroom or eat a meal in peace. She gets bored of everything within five minutes and wants me to carry her somewhere else more entertaining.

Anyway, I feel that this year was a big turning point for us not only because we welcomed a human child but also because this fall marked seven years that we’ve been showing dogs. Our first dog Juno turned eight this fall, and we started showing him around his first birthday. He is doing great and has mellowed in his older age, but is still the same spunky, playful dog. We neutered him this past year, and now he can finally relax through our girls’ heat cycles. He was an excellent stud dog and would tell us exactly when the girls ovulated and when their eggs were ripe for fertilization. That part was quite annoying, since he would refuse to be crated during that time, but it was nice to know exactly what was going on! Since he was neutered, now it’s hard to know where exactly the girls are in their heat cycles and whether it’s safe to reintroduce them to the intact boys.

Seven years is not a long time to be showing and breeding dogs, in the grand scheme of things. Some people who have been in the breed seven years may have just finished their first show dog or just bred their first litter. It all depends on how much time and energy you’ve committed during that period, and also a fair amount of luck. Many people have to restart from the beginning multiple times due to show prospects not turning out or litters not turning out. We were both very committed and very lucky (overall) so far in our dog journey, so we were able to accomplish a lot in the past seven years. Simply sticking with it for seven years is a big accomplishment in of itself. There’s a reason why most new dog fanciers quit within the first seven years. After the novelty and excitement of the first few years wears off, you start to experience the really low lows. I really don’t want to discourage newbies, so I won’t elaborate more, but by seven years in, you’ve probably experienced some really trying times. At the very least, you’ve questioned yourself and your lifestyle and whether this is what you want for the future. It requires deep sacrifice on the part of a breeder, in every area of their life, to continue breeding dogs.

In the past seven years that we’ve been showing, we’ve seen many people come and go. And a lot of people retired or quit. I think it’s more important than ever for those who are left to join hands, practice good sportsmanship, and support each other. I’ve seen that go a long ways in other breeds, and the entries in many of those breeds are going up instead of down. If nobody wants to become a Siberian fancier, we only have ourselves to blame! We need to be more welcoming and more open to mentoring, especially in an online format. These days, people do not have the time or finances to travel states away for the opportunity of mentorship. Please, if you are interested in showing Siberians, simply reach out to us and we will help you as much as we can.

I apologize for the stream of consciousness that is this blog post, which I’ve written in-between feeding and entertaining the toddler. My point in writing all of this is to say that I’m proud of us for making it through seven years, especially this past year. In this sport, we often don’t give each other, ourselves, or our dogs enough credit. After seven years, if you are still passionate about the breed, about showing/mushing with your dog, about breeding responsibly, then you are honestly killing it! Kudos to you.