​Here at Prancing Pony Farm we are Maremma Sheepdog Club of America Code of Ethics breeders. We breed exceptional quality Maremma Sheepdogs that are registered with the MSCA. We put a lot of work into our breeding program and provide our puppy buyers with a contract, which protects both the buyer and us as breeders. This contract is required by the Code of Ethics and is a legally binding document. No puppy leaves our farm without the buyer signing a puppy contract. Every buyer is afforded the opportunity to read the contract before they sign it, and they are given a copy before they take home their puppy.

If you have seen Maremma Sheepdog puppies advertised anywhere on the internet besides our website or social media accounts you should know that as of March 14th, 2023, there is no one but us who currently has or ever has had breeding rights on any Maremmas we've bred. Every single puppy we have ever sold to date has gone on Limited Registration, which means no litters can be registered and no litters should be produced, even unregistered litters.

We have a very carefully laid out Breeding Candidate program, designed to protect the breed as a whole and the individual dogs we have bred. This requires health testing (with passing hip scores and more) from the parents and several requirements that both the dogs and the owners must meet. Then and only then will we sign the “Revoke Limited Registration Status” form from the MSCA. To see our requirements to breed one of our puppies please visit the page below:

We do have a few clients who are in the process of completing their requirements and will receive the Full Registration (and breeding rights) on their dogs soon, but no litters already whelped and being advertised by anyone but us (as of 3/14/23) are legal litters. Anyone who advertises “Prancing Pony Farm ________” as a parent of their puppies, or admits that any of those dogs came from us, is in direct violation of the contract they signed. (And of course they are in violation even if they don't admit it.) Those puppies are ineligible for registration and will never be allowed to be registered.

In fact, we do know of certain individuals who have violated the puppy contracts they signed when they bought their dogs and have illegally bred those dogs. In some cases the dogs were not even old enough to be bred, which puts great risk on the dogs and the puppies. Some have illegally bred their dogs more than once. This is no one time, accidental breeding, but a premeditated plan to steal that which doesn't rightfully belong to them. None of the dogs have had their health testing done, so it's possible they could be producing puppies with health problems such as hip dysplasia. That's exactly what the contract and requirements are meant to protect against and exactly why we do not give Full Registration status to untested dogs.

Some of these individuals are so bold that they are advertising their puppies with our name attached to them, leading potential buyers to believe they had our permission to breed their dogs. They did not. This activity is illegal, unethical and a blatant violation of the contract they signed. No one may breed our dogs or advertise using our farm name unless they have received breeding rights.

The only way you will know that the person who is advertising pups from our lines is doing so legally is to ask to see the registration certificates of the parents. If they don't have a registration certificate they do not have permission to breed the dog. If they have a registration certificate but it says "Limited Registration" then that means they have illegally bred the dog, in violation of the contract they signed and the puppies may not be registered. If they have a registration certificate that says "Full Registration", then and only then do they have breeding rights on the dog we bred and then and only then are their puppies eligible for registration with the Maremma Sheepdog Club of America.

So if you see anyone other than us advertising Prancing Pony Farm puppies on Social media, on their own website, on the official MSCA website or Facebook page or anywhere else, and they can't produce proof of Full Registration status on their dogs (via an Official MSCA registration certificate showing Unlimited registration), then please understand that these puppies were illegally produced, and these people are in violation of their legally binding contract. Don't take their word for it. Ask for proof!

For that matter I suggest you ask for proof of registration status of the parent dogs no matter who the breeder is. Responsible, ethical breeders work very hard to protect the integrity of their breeding programs and the breed. People who illegally breed dogs harm ethical breeders and the breed. I would hope that you would not support anyone who is engaging in this unethical behavior.

But maybe you are considering buying a puppy from such a breeder anyway. Maybe you think it's "not your problem" and perhaps that you can get a puppy cheaper by buying a "black market" puppy. But you should ask yourself one very important question. If this unethical breeder is willing to violate the legally binding contract they signed and to illegally produce puppies, can you really trust them to act in an ethical manner with you, as a buyer? Probably not. Leopards don't change their spots.

I have had some comments on social media posts lately asking why my animals "live on dirt".  Some people may not realize it but farming doesn't look the same in Central California as it looks in Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, Guam (all places I have lived) or a lot of other places.

I live in the Central Valley of California. This is where most of the food in the country is grown, all watered by a huge irrigation system. Back when we first moved here (I'm from Tennessee and my husband is from Maryland) it used to rain only in the winter. We had two seasons. Dirt and Mud. But for about a decade we have been in a severe drought. We get almost no rain and very little snowfall. The snow is what our irrigation systems run on. We have been in such a severe drought for so long that wells are drying up, mature trees are dying and farms are closing. New housing developments are not even allowed to put in lawns in some areas. Only rock gardens and drought tolerant plants. Or fake grass. In some areas entire towns have dried up. On our farm alone we have lost 30-40 mature trees. They just died and fell down or had to be cut down. Almost all of my neighbors and friends have had to put in new wells, because their wells dried up. We are just waiting for it to be our turn.

So why do my animals "live on dirt"? Because there's no water to make grass grow. There's no rain and not enough water to irrigate such luxuries as grass. Even our small lawn struggles to make it. I buy every bite my horses and goats eat, in the form of alfalfa and other hay. This costs me over $2000 a month and it's getting harder and harder to even find hay, much less afford it. Farmers are growing other, more profitable crops instead.

I love grass, rain and trees. Unfortunately those are luxuries I can't have, at least not enough of. So why do I stay in such an ugly, brown dust bowl, you ask? My family. My husband served 40 years in the Navy. We had 6 kids during that career and we spent the last part of his tour here, in the dust bowl. And our children grew up, settled down, got married and had kids. We now have 12 grandkids and they all live in California. We did move back east for a time. Bought a farm in Virginia, where we had all the grass, rain and trees we wanted. But we left half of our family here, in the dust bowl. And with it we left our hearts. So we moved back here. We gave up our 12 acres of green grass in Virginia and willingly moved to the ugliest place on earth. Because though we love grass, trees and rain, we love our family more. And they make this ugly place the real "happiest place on earth".