# Breeder Info in MN



## Josiebear (Oct 16, 2006)

Any one heard of Kozie's Shepherds in Mankato MN?. I am doing a breeder research and i can't come up with more info about this guy. I read his testimonials on his site but that's not good enough for me ( yes i'm picky) LOL i've googled his name and only found one person that had something negative to say but that was back in 2007. 

Anyone else ever heard about this guy?. 

Seems like he breeds working dogs though, i want more of "sports" dog ( agility, herding etc).


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## Castlemaid (Jun 29, 2006)

Testimonials are iffy, because of course they can just post the good stuff (NOT to say that there is bad stuff!). For example, I have seen pages of pages of glowing testimonials on the website of a British Columbia American show-line breeder about what wonderful pets his dogs make, when in reality most of the dogs produced are dangerously fearful and unpredictably aggressive. We see them come through the OB classes that my trainer gives, and they are all the same. I know of one of these dogs that started training the same time that I took Keeta to classes. The owners did everything right in terms of socializing, training, and getting professional help, but the dog ended up getting put down due to temperament issues before he was 2 years old. 

So, I wouldn't put much stock in testimonials, but do as you are doing, asking for independent outside opinions. 

On the surface, from the website, doesn't look like a bad breeder - sticks to a certain type of shepherd, has extensive involvement in training. But there are a number of red flags that got my attention. 

For one, he does not seem to title his breeding dogs. I get the impression that breeding dogs and selling them is more of a priority than finding out what mettle his dogs have by going through a training and titling process.

He has a log of breeding dogs on site. He has two litters coming up in February, and a third in April. Just had a litter in November. That is a lot of dogs to raise and socialize properly. Four litters in four months . . . makes me uncomfortable, like they are churning out a product because there is a demand for it, as opposed to carefully breeding dogs in order to meet a personal ideal of what a dog should be. 

Ask any breeder: one litter is a HUGE amount of work, two would be insane. He seems to breed male/female for convenience, because the dogs are there. Reputable, responsible breeders usually own a female or two, and spend huge amounts of time finding a stud that would be a good match for a mating. Using a dog because he is there is . . . lazy (unless, of course, the breeder can tell you in excruciating detail just why this mating was chosen, the pros and cons and goals). 

There new bitch, Oni, is expecting a litter in February. This means that she was bred at 20 months, with only OFA prelims. 

I'm not too crazy about the warrenty though. The timeframe for the new owners to act on a problem is so narrow, that it almost guarantees that his warrenty will be void. Also, at the bottom of the page, and in his warrenty, he seems to openly support people buying dogs from him for breeding purposes. Reputable breeders will go to great lenghts to avoid putting their pups into situations where they will be bred without due diligence of prior training, titling, OFA. Sounds like if I wanted to get a female from him, and breed her at one year of age, and sell the pups in the newspaper for 300$, that would be okay by him. 

This is just the impression I got from the details I picked up from going through his website. Others may have direct experience and first-hand knowledge about his breeding operation. If it was me, I'd keep looking!


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## Josiebear (Oct 16, 2006)

Thanks for the info. Gives me something to think about


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## BlackGSD (Jan 4, 2005)

Just the name "Kozies" is enough to send me running and screaming. (I just think it sounds stupid.)


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## Elaine (Sep 10, 2006)

If you are wanting a good performance dog, you are going to have to look out of state. There are several very nice breeders in IL and that's where I had to go. MN is sort of a black hole as far as finding a good workingline breeder.


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## TonyR (May 4, 2008)

Kozies is the trainer for our dogs.Very good trainer and his dogs are the most sound dogs i have ever met.Mark is very old school and doesnt believe in titles and so forth.I do know that alot of his pups have gone into law enforcement andmore are involved in sports (mainly PSA).I didnt get my dogs from him so i dont know about all the other stuff,but i have met all of his dogs and was very impressed.


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## BlackGSD (Jan 4, 2005)

> Originally Posted By: apacheMark is very old school and doesnt believe in titles and so forth.


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## Josiebear (Oct 16, 2006)

Here's an update, My husband still wants to feel this guy out. We're not making any decisions, we are actually taking our time on it. We had written all the questions we had on paper regarding, health, blood line, temperment, etc. Before hubby could even ask any question the guy pretty much covered everything. He says he's not a breeder, he's a trainer. He has had and loves GSDs since he was a teenager ( he is in is 50's now). He says the reason why he's breeding is because he wants to preserve the breed, he hated how people just over breed a beautiful dog like this.... Is what he's saying too good to be true? maybe...

We will be going to visit his dogs this Thursday and he says he's going to have his dogs perform for us and of course let us get to know the dogs. He even said "it should be a red flag if breeders won't let you see the dogs and the puppies"..... He won't release them to homes until they are 9 weeks, and does have some of his puppies who have gone into police force, herding, tracking etc.

Is there ANYTHING i should look out for feel free to let me know, we are just going there just to feel it out, if we don't like it he says he won't waste our time and we can just leave.

BlackGSDS the name Kozie is part of the guy's last name







but i get what you mean though!....


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## sarahbdanks (Feb 22, 2012)

I wish I'd been part of this forum when I was researching Kozies -- and had come across Castlemaid's comment...I didn't know enough about European-line breeders to know whether titling was important or not.

I love my Zada but we've had quite the journey together. Child aggression/domination issues, luxating patellas, chronic shoulder problems, very bad teeth and now hip dysplasia (I'm the one with the extremely bad review/blog post from 2007).

Long story short: do your research diligently!


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## Ace952 (Aug 5, 2010)

This thread was from 2009


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## GSD Fan (Sep 20, 2010)

Here's a breeder in Iowa you might want to check out if you decide to look around:

Holtgrew's German Shepherds


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