Newsletter

March 2024

*Standard Revision — On March 1st, 2024 The CMDR Colorado Mountain Dog Standard had its first revision and short coated dogs were added to the breed description. Previously, short coated dogs could be used in development in the low Gs but many breeders enjoyed the greater utility and ease of care. The CMDR polled breeders for a month and the breed community was virtually unanimous for allowing farms to have short coats if desired.

*The short coat of a CMD should still be double, and protect dogs in winter. The long coated dogs should have medium coat length over the body for ease of care. When properly bred there should be little difference in the care of short or long coats. This is the first revision to the standard since the CMDR Colorado Mountain Dog began.

*New addition to the Bylaws: Section 3. Client Business Practices
CMDR Clients are expected to maintain a high standard of ethics and good business practices. We expect sales to be made directly, farm to customer, not through brokers or pet stores. We reserve the right to discontinue registry services in these cases. We expect animals not to be surrendered to shelters until reasonable efforts at rehoming and alerting the breed community have been made. Further educational material and standards pertaining to business practices will be made available by the registry.

*New article added to the article section of the site — Good Business Practices

*Add your breeding dogs to our breeding dog gallery! It is $25 and listings are good till January 2025. This is a great way to list standing studs, and to show off our breed and farms to the general public. To add your dog to the gallery, click on our store link, purchase a classified listing, and send photo and ad copy to wendyjfrancisco@gmail.com.

New sheet for submitting a dog to the CMDR for consideration to be entered into the CMDR Colorado Mountain Dog breed.

New blog! “CMDR Breed Drama”, life at the CMDR Office.

February 2024

Changes to Stud page… the Standing Stud Page is now changed to “Breeding Dog Gallery”. Breeders may show off their breeding animals to the public!

Addition to the Article Page — a new article has been added, “Busting The Littermate Syndrome Myth”.

Renew your Farm Client Fee — Farm Client Fees expire at the end of the year. Updated fees enable your breeder pages in the database, enable you to register dogs and pups, and support your registry.

Reminder, breeders we encourage you to send off for your Wisdom or Embark premium DNA tests and test your breeding dogs. There are hundreds of genes tested for but in particular we want to be in the know about DM and CMR1, which are prevalent in LGD populations. A single carry dog will not be affected, but should be bred to a mate that is clear of the carried gene. In this way, we don’t lose our genetics, but we slowly improve the genetic profile of our programs and our breed.

Please spay or neuter dogs which are not intended for breeding. Many new dog owners are surprised by how tough it is to keep an intact dog from breeding. They want to breed! Fixing a dog lessens reproductive behaviors which can make some dogs harder to manage… wandering barking and aggression are greater in intact dogs. Raising dogs is a somewhat formal venture which needs facilities and a good business plan.

The Temperament of the CMDR Colorado Mountain Dog
Our dogs should come forward to the fence and greet people with great interest and with wagging tails. Caspian did this, although always checking people out too. Timidity in a dog should not be bred. Aggression or suspicion should not be bred.

When it comes to physical type, we can work with many more traits not being perfect, and take the slow road to physical type. This isn't the case with temperament. The temperament is what makes a CMDR CMD. Dogs born with shyness, timidity, aggression, etc, should be sold neutered as LGDs without papers. We are raising gentle, intelligent dogs. Be careful to socialize your pups and not to raise them "as traditional LGDs". CMDs need to be raised with herds, flocks, and people, so that their temperaments can be properly evaluated. This is the life they are being bred for.

Site News
In the last 30 days, our site had nearly 7000 page views. The top hit is “What is a Colorado Mountain Dog?” The growth in our breed is exciting.

January 2024

Things to do in January!
January is when Farm Fees and ad fees and breeder one page site fees come due. It is a great time to add a farm site to this website, or to post a stud for a year, or to renew farm fees. Visit our store to purchase or update.

New Trademark Protected Logo
We have a new permanent logo… (page top/center), use it on your pages and sites!

2024 CMDR Fest is coming up in July… follow this site for details.

DNA Testing — We’re educating our breeders to begin to do full profile DNA health testing for their breeding dogs. We want to take a very slow road to breeding around a few common genetic carried traits, without losing any of our diversity. If a great dog carries one copy for DM or CMR1, for instance, then breeding to a tested clear dog, and retaining clean offspring who display all the other desirable traits, to go forward is the way to do it. Eventually we clear the breed of carried traits this way.

December 2023

This december we have about 7 brand new foundation animals in various stages of testing for entrance into the CMDR. Although it is exciting to see some breeders reaching G5 levels, the width of the base of the genetic base always needs to be widened as well, to keep enough diversity in the genetics to ensure breed longevity.

Our goal is at least 500 (we are closing in on 300) unrelated foundation animals in the DB before we consider closing the studbooks. And even at that time, we will decide carefully, because the CMDR is doing something very special, selecting dogs with the desired traits from the huge population of landrace livestock guardian dogs in this country and beyond. I am not sure anything has been done like it!

We are all about the change in agriculture, choosing from working LGDs to develop a dog specifically suited to small acreage family run farm projects, where protection is still needed, but many of the traits of other livestock breeds make them unsuitable for such jobs.

Less barking, less wandering, and more ease with unknown people unless an actual threat is detected. These traits, along with the huge, tall, beautiful look of a dog bred to standard, are what make a well bred Colorado Mountain Dog so special.

*The CMDR is closed Saturdays and Sundays… our sites remain open and accessible. Holiday closure Dec 23 to Jan 2.

*The Colorado Mountain Dog website offers a new CMDR Farm Mini-Website area which is organized by state, and renews annually in January. The one page sites can be designed to static, or they can be updated any time during the year for $25. Farms list not just dogs, but all farm projects. These send dozens of unique visits to each page monthly, and the area is growing. Click here to visit and set up a CMDR Farm Mini-Site!

*In January all CMDR Farm Fees come due. By changing the way we renew, our office saves a ton of paper work. So we adopted the method so many registries have, of creating a January due date for all farm fee renewals. Visit the CMDR Registration Area linked above, to renew your CMDR Farm Fee.

*CMDR BYLAWS are published and linked in the Registration and Article Areas.

*The CMDR is excluding Ovcharka from new entering FDs. This is due to international breed bans and in some cases the personal protection traits that our breed wants to avoid. This doesn’t effect any of our current registered dogs, but is a direction for incoming genetics in the future.