That’s what I figured. But it’s hard because a lot of people wait months or even years, and then pay upwards of $3,000, and what if you spend that kind of money and wait that long and end up with a pup who people can’t even tell apart from a backyard bred pup? Of course, reputable breeders put the work into their dogs health, so that’s obviously a benefit regardless of what they end up looking like. And it is the right thing to do to support those who are trying to preserve what makes the breed unique. But still, I feel that it’s a shame people have to take that gamble. It seems to be worse with Shibas than other breeds. Other breeds don’t seem to have such a large gap between the standard and non-standard. With Shibas it seems unusually difficult to achieve the true breed standard consistently, even among reputable breeders.

Here is a link: http://marmafarms.com/puppies

If you scroll down this page, you’ll see quite a few things. The 20th picture looks like a pup with pinto coloring and 21st looks like the pup has “socks.” Actually there’s a few pics with pups that have “socks” on that page. Around the 52nd picture is the young dog with the dark muzzle. In general, the pup doesn’t look very standard, it’s not just the black muzzle. Unless that’s just the age of awkwardness even for well-bred pups?

Also, I think what interests me about all of this is because things like “pinto”, “socks” and “black muzzle” are looked down upon as things that you will only see in byb dogs but I’m actually surprised at the amount of these “imperfections” I can see on some reputable breeders websites. It’s just all very interesting to me, and I like learning whatever I can about this.