A bit about us
I am a Flat-coat enthusiast and breeder who, like all others in my shoes, has suffered premature losses of dogs I’ve owned and bred. As I type this, my 9, 10 and 13 year old Flatcoats have retreated to the protection of their desk cave to escape the antics of my 3 and 6 year olds. Statistically speaking, they’ll all be dead within the year - Minnow has defied the breed’s average lifespan for long enough that I am overdue the tragic loss of a young dog or two.
It’s a tragedy I’m unfortunately familiar with. After two decades shared with Flatcoats, Minnow is my first to live a normal lifespan. She remains vibrant, sassy and joyous, but now reveals a thoughtful and contemplative side beyond the reach of her exuberant youth. Her breath peels paint off the walls, her hearing (selectively?) intermittent and her body mapped with lumps and bumps, but she is sound and continues to find and share abundant joy in each day.
My bookshelf holds tribute to my dogs of yesteryear – Flatcoats who died at 10, 9, 7, 10, 6, 5 and 9 respectively. I have bred many more lucky, unlucky, and statistically average dogs. I wish they all lived longer, but the loss of a young dog is distinctly tragic, robbing us not only of a dog before its time, but of possibilities, golden years, and the extraordinary pleasure of sharing life with a grand old dog (spoiler alert: they’re all grand when they get there).
Outside my window I watch my 7-year-old Anatolian Shepherd, Sultan, complete his second perimeter patrol of the morning. Despite his 150 pounds, I can expect Sultan to work another few years before phasing into a 3- to 4-year retirement. My 2-year-old English Shepherd, BroDude, will live approximately forever. OK, not really, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him into his mid-teens. (His resident ranch dog predecessor — an Aussie of questionable purity — celebrated his sweet 16, then lived another year before indicating he’d had enough).
Reliably sound health and longevity is attainable, and this project strives to demonstrate that for Flat-Coated Retrievers. Together with a handful of other like-minded breed enthusiasts, I’ve spent countless hours assessing the breed’s health and genetic profile, reviewing research, and collaborating with veterinarians, geneticists, statisticians, breeders, and biologists. This journey brought both grim realities of an unsustainable status quo and hopeful possibilities of a path towards healthy and long-lived dogs. I have learned that Flat-Coat health and longevity are inseparable from a more existential crisis — breed survival.
A few years ago, I bred what became my last registered Flat-Coat litter. I kept a pup, Trout, who, despite a wild puppyhood, quickly grew to become an all-time favorite. She is sound, athletic and possesses a magical blend of confidence, resilience, focus and livability — my kind of dog, and everything I hope to carry forward. I confronted the sad realization that after years spent cultivating my dream dog, I couldn’t perpetuate from her unless I found a way forward that honors the responsibility I feel towards the dogs I breed, and the owners who love them. But I’m not yet ready to give up on Trout, not ready to give up on the beloved dogs in her pedigree, and not ready to give up on the breed I love, so I’m sticking my neck out to break with a status quo that fails to serve the best interest of dogs and their people.
The Flatcoat Conservation Project has developed a genetic rescue plan to improve Flat-Coat health, increase lifespans, and chart a path towards preserving this extraordinary breed. This plan implements science-based back-crossing, borrowed from dog breeding tradition and the genetic rescue programs developed by species conservation experts. Genetic rescue requires collaboration to find long-term and lasting success across the population. We’re committed to completing a “proof of concept” to demonstrate that reliable type can be achieved in genetically healthy dogs, and we invite any Flatcoat breeder, owner, or enthusiast to join us in walking this path to a future where all Flatcoat lovers can reasonably hope to know a grand old dog.
Onward!
Xan Latta
Flyway Farm Retrievers
Since August of 1996, I have shared my life with at least one Flat-Coated Retriever. We participated in conformation, obedience, field, and rally competitions, and also trained for tracking and foundational agility. I always trained and handled my own dogs. More important than training or competition pursuits—our dogs are family. They are confidants, hiking partners, and the faces we are eager to see after a long day at work. I place those roles above any accolade.
At the end of 2015, I left the Flat-Coated Retriever Society of America, the Flat-Coated Retriever Society of Canada, and the Upper Midwest Flat-Coated Retriever Club. By then, I had come to accept that the only sustainable way forward for FCRs was to embark on an outcross project. My priorities no longer aligned with the clubs I held memberships in, and I had lost faith that the institutions governing registered dogs would provide a viable framework for outcrossing. I felt a sense of urgency to change how FCRs are bred, and decided to position myself to do so outside of the AKC and the FCRSA. This was a choice made after many years of internal deliberation, and it did not come without feeling a loss of community.
Two important changes happened for me in the last decade: I challenged myself to think differently about how dogs are ethically bred, and I began to immerse myself in landrace breeds. I will be forever grateful to the landrace breeders I have met, and how they helped me dismantle the false comfort zones I had built around dog breeding.
Professionally, I have been a Cytologist since 2004. I hold board certifications from the American Society for Clinical Pathology in Cytology and Molecular Biology, and one of the most meaningful times in my career was redeployment to the University of Minnesota’s SARS-Cov-2 Laboratory early in the pandemic. Unfortunately, I have not only diagnosed my own FCRs with cancer, I have also given many second opinions to owners of FCRs who are facing a cancer diagnosis. I am not afraid to dream of a day when our dogs no longer die young—of Histiocytic Sarcoma specifically—and I am thankful to have found allies willing to invest in building the Flatcoat Conservation Project.
Jess Sedivy Gunderson
Yahtaris Flat-Coated Retrievers
(Founded 2001)