Our Breeding Standards
and Testing Requirements
We are passionate about breeding well-tested, healthy dogs. We adhere to a set of strict standards and criteria (including vet certification) to ensure the best for our dogs and puppies.
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We are passionate about our breeding standards so you can have a healthy happy family member.
Our main focus here is to breed flat backed, well tested, healthy, trainable, family dogs that are not sloped in the hind end. We do NOT breed the sloped (deformed) hind end that many shepherd’s are bred to. Especially through a registered breeder who are producing showing dogs as that is part of the breed standard they are required to breed to in order to show German Shepherds competitively.
Our dogs are wonderful kind, healthy all around family dogs that life a long life as a valued family member. All of the testing we do enables our pups to go into a range of homes, excel there and live a long health life as a valued family member. To achieve this we do a huge amount of medical testing and we also have other criteria our dogs have to meet beyond our medical testing required by our vets to certify them.
DNA TESTING
We DNA test our dogs through Massey University. We also colour test all of our dogs through Massey as well, which tells us the colour of our dogs and what colours they may carry and produce.
HIP AND ELBOW SCORING
We hip and elbow score all of our dogs. This is done by a specialist in Australia in conjunction with our vets.
CERTIFICATIONS
Once our dogs are tested all clear our dogs are then certified to be bred from by our vets in writing to us.
OUR ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
Our dogs must have a flat back, exceptional trainability, be willing, kind and have excellent listening skills.
They need to be able to go into a range of homes and do well there.
We do a lot of work each day with our dogs on our 100 acre farm. So we get a really good sense of what the dogs nature is like. We look for good recall, willingness to do what you ask, ability to listen even when distracted, isn't interested in chasing stock and will all come back when called (even if they spot a juicy rabbit). These are just a few of the traits we look for.
Being good with kids, cats, other animals, stock etc, is also something we look for. We like to see good guarding instincts, and a good bark that will tell you when someone is at your home but be great around family and other animals.
IN SUMMARY...
We do a significant amount of testing, but we also look hard at nature, trainability and willingness, and have spent many years focusing on this to produce the wonderful dogs we have up to now.
Sabella Farms German Shepherds are:
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DNA TESTED
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HIP AND ELBOW SCORED
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VET CERTIFIED
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FLAT BACKED
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BEAUTIFULLY NATURED
Our Testing
We focus more on testing than most breeders do, which gives our fur baby families confidence they are buying a pup that has parents well-tested and vet certified.
We carefully select, DNA test and hip and elbow score all of our German Shepherds. Our Hip and Elbow scoring is done by a specialist in Australia and our DNA testing is comprehensive to cover a range of possible issues that are ruled out with our testing. This testing is done by our vets and our dogs are then approved to be bred from by them via certification.
We also look for flat backs in our dogs, temperament, trainability and ensure our focus is on breeding healthy, happy, family dogs that will be a part of your family for a long time.
We stand behind our dogs and stay in touch with people for as long as they have their dogs (and in some cases many years after). We are not like most breeders who you don't hear from again. We are here anytime you need us for the entire life of your pup for anything you may need.
We have created a beautiful family community on our Facebook page and have a wonderful group of people who grow our babies into such gorgeous dogs. We also get such fantastic and amazing homes for our pups and that shows on our Facebook page with all of the posts and updates on our pups that I get every day and share.
Showing the progress of our pups from babies through to adults you get a very good feel about the sort of pups that we make, what they look like, nature and more as we share almost daily updates on our pups on our Facebook page, our Instagram account, and our TikTok page.
So while we do focus on the testing done through our vets, we also heavily focus on breeding dogs that will fit into a number of different types of homes.
Quite a few of our dogs are being used as service dogs, doing work in rest homes and hospitals, and a number of our dogs have gone to police and military homes.
The quality of our dogs and their amazing nature really comes through with our focus not only on the testing through the vets but in nature as well as being there to support our family with their babies for their entire life.
Some snap shots of our life here in King Country
