What Decades of Breeding Chow Chows Have Taught Us
Thoughts and experiences from our journey at Attraction Cyprus
When we began, we thought we knew more
When we first became involved in breeding Chow Chows, we had enthusiasm, dreams and a great love for the breed.
We read, searched for information, spoke with other breeders and tried to learn as much as we could.
We believed knowledge would prepare us for everything we would encounter.
And indeed, knowledge is essential.
But it took many years for us to understand something no book could fully teach us:
Knowing what you should do is one thing. Recognising the right moment to do it is another.
Experience did not arrive overnight.
It was built through daily observations, successful decisions, mistakes, disappointments and moments that forced us to question what we thought we knew.
Today, after decades of living with Chow Chows, we feel we have learned a great deal.
But we also know how much more there is to learn.
Breeding is not simply the birth of puppies
In our early days, as often happens, we placed great importance on our dogs' appearance, pedigrees and show results.
All of those still have value.
Over time, however, we realised they form only part of the whole picture.
A beautiful dog is not necessarily a suitable breeding dog.
A champion is no guarantee of passing its best qualities to its offspring.
And two excellent dogs do not necessarily make an excellent pairing.
You need to know the bloodlines, study the qualities that emerge in later generations and assess not only appearance but health and temperament too.
Above all, you need to accept that a decision you made did not produce the results you expected.
Breeding is not about proving you were right. It is about making your next decision better.
You cannot see temperament in a photograph
One of the most important lessons we learned is that a Chow Chow's temperament cannot be judged by its appearance.
Two dogs may look strikingly alike and have entirely different personalities.
One may be calm and reserved.
The other more demonstrative, demanding or independent.
Both can be wonderful companions.
Provided we understand them.
Living with many generations of Chow Chows taught us to notice the little details.
A look.
A change in posture.
The way one dog approaches another.
The moment it chooses to walk away.
Things we might once have overlooked gradually became valuable information to us.
We also learned not to try to turn every Chow Chow into the same dog.
Our goal is not to erase its personality.
It is to help it develop its best qualities and learn to live harmoniously with people and other dogs.
Our dogs taught us more than we taught them
We often say that we train our dogs.
And we do teach them rules, habits and ways of living together.
But looking back, we can see that they trained us too.
They taught us patience.
Not to mistake independence for disobedience.
Not to confuse respect with fear.
To recognise when a dog needs guidance and when it simply needs space.
They also taught us to admit that we do not always have the answer.
There were times when the best decision was to wait, observe and better understand what was happening.
Experience does not mean you stop asking questions.
It means you learn to ask the right ones.
The real value of a pedigree becomes clear in later generations
In breeding, a pedigree is an important tool.
It tells us where a dog comes from, who its ancestors are and which bloodlines contributed to it.
But a pedigree alone cannot tell us everything we want to know.
Truly assessing a breeding decision takes time.
You need to see how the puppies develop.
How their temperaments evolve.
Which characteristics reappear in their offspring.
And, whenever possible, what happens in the next generation.
That is why we believe a breeder begins to understand the results of their decisions when they have had the chance to follow three generations.
It is not a number that magically grants a title.
It is a reminder that breeding takes time, and its results cannot be judged only at birth or in a show ring.
A pedigree tells you where a dog comes from. The generations that follow begin to show you what it truly passed on.
Trophies are beautiful. But they are not the ultimate goal.
Conformation shows have been an important part of our journey.
They gave us the opportunity to present our dogs, hear judges' assessments and compare our work with the breed standard.
We celebrated awards and championships.
We also felt disappointed when the results were not what we had hoped for.
Over the years, we learned to approach both with greater composure.
An award has value.
But it does not automatically make a dog suitable for breeding.
Nor does the absence of a title mean that a dog lacks valuable qualities.
Show evaluations are one useful part of the information available to us.
They must not replace our overall judgement.
In the end, trophies stay on the shelf.
The consequences of our breeding decisions live on for many years.
The hardest decisions are often the ones nobody sees
When someone looks at photographs from a kennel, they usually see beautiful dogs, puppies, shows and happy moments.
They do not see all the decisions that came before.
They do not see a mating we decided not to go ahead with.
A dog that, although we love it and it has many positive qualities, we decided should not be bred.
A period of waiting because we were not certain the conditions were right.
Or the need to change our plans when reality showed us something different from what we had expected.
These decisions rarely earn congratulations.
They do not bring trophies or make for impressive announcements.
Yet they are among the most important decisions a responsible breeder makes.
Sometimes the greatest proof of experience is not what you decide to do. It is what you have the strength not to do.
Loss changes a person
There is one side of life with dogs that nobody can avoid.
Saying goodbye.
When you live with a dog for many years, it is not simply an animal you look after.
It becomes part of your daily life.
You learn its habits, reactions and little quirks.
You know when it is happy, when it wants to be left alone and when something is wrong.
And when the moment comes to say goodbye, you do not simply lose a dog.
You lose a part of your life.
We have lived through painful losses.
Some came after years together.
Others came far more suddenly than we could ever have imagined.
There were moments when we had to make decisions that nobody who loves their animals ever wants to make.
And yet, even then, our responsibility towards them does not end.
Sometimes love means fighting for them as long as there is hope.
At other times, it means accepting that prolonging suffering is no longer in the animal's best interests.
These experiences do not make you less sensitive.
They make you understand more deeply how precious the time you share really is.
Responsibility does not end when a puppy leaves
One belief we have never changed is that a breeder's relationship with a puppy does not end when it is handed over to its new family.
By the time a puppy leaves us, it has already become part of our lives.
We have watched it being born.
We have spent sleepless nights beside it.
We have watched it open its eyes, take its first steps and develop its own personality.
We cannot suddenly stop caring about what happens to it.
That is why we stay in touch with families and try to be available whenever they need our help.
And if circumstances change and a dog needs to return, we do not believe responsibility belongs solely to the people who adopted it.
We experienced this with Bibi, who came back to us when he was already four years old.
His return was not the end of his story.
It was the beginning of a new chapter, with patience, care and the effort to help him regain his balance.
For us, this is one of the most meaningful aspects of breeding.
A dog may change homes. But it never ceases to be part of our responsibility.
No breeder succeeds alone
When we talk about our journey, we always speak in the plural.
And there is a reason for that.
The story of Attraction Cyprus is the shared story of two people.
Two people who shared the excitement of the early days, the joy of births, the anxiety of difficult moments and the sadness of farewells.
We did not always agree on everything.
We did not approach every situation in the same way.
But we learned to listen to one another, discuss things and make decisions together.
Breeding is not an activity that can be confined to a few hours of the day.
It affects how you organise your life, your travels, your time and even your sleep.
And when two people choose to follow this path together, they must share not only their love for dogs but also the responsibility.
Everything we achieved, learned and endured is the result of that shared journey.
The biggest change happened within us
If we could meet our younger selves at the start of this journey, we would probably recognise the same enthusiasm.
The same love for the breed.
The same desire to create something good.
But we would also see two people who still had much to learn.
At first, we were mainly trying to understand how to become better breeders.
Today, we realise that breeding also helped us become different people.
More patient.
More observant.
Less certain that we know everything.
More willing to watch before deciding.
And more aware of the weight of every choice we make.
We do not believe we have reached a point where there is nothing left for us to learn.
Quite the opposite.
Perhaps the most important lesson of all these decades is that experience does not give you the right to stop learning. It gives you the responsibility to continue.
What does it really mean to be a breeder?
If someone asked us today what the word 'breeder' means to us, we would not answer with a number of litters, championships or years of experience.
We would talk about responsibility.
Responsibility towards the breed you love.
Towards the dogs who live with you.
Towards the puppies you bring into the world.
And towards the families who trust you to help them choose a companion for many years.
We would tell them that breeding requires knowledge, but also humility.
Determination, but also patience.
Love, but also the strength to make difficult decisions.
Above all, we would tell them that breeding is not something that ends when a litter has been born.
The birth of puppies is biology. Breeding begins long before they are born—and continues long after they leave your home.
That is what we believed we wanted to do when we began.
That is what we still try to do today.
And for as long as we can continue on this journey, we will keep learning from our dogs.
Because in the end, they have always been our best teachers.
Charis and Katerina — Attraction Cyprus
This journey—with its joys, disappointments, losses and small everyday moments—inspired our book, “With Eyes Like Velvet” («Με μάτια σαν βελούδο»). In it, we tell the real stories behind what living with Chow Chows has taught us.