Ethics Statement

§1 Preamble

gene dogs SAS is a Parisian house that engineers, breeds and sells genetically calibrated companion animals. We commit, in this document and through external audit, to publishing what this work entails, what we will and will not do in the course of it, and the questions to which we do not yet have settled answers.

The statement is reviewed annually by the Ethics Committee and revised when warranted. Revisions are dated and the prior text is archived; we do not silently amend.

§2 What we do

We acknowledge the following, in plain language, as the substance of the house's work:

We engineer dogs for commercial release, against published specifications.
We breed them in numbered series in a closed atelier in Paris.
We sell them under reservation, by household, at prices we set.
We bind each dog to its purchaser via the Lineage Certificate.
We accept returns within fourteen days, and re-house dogs returned after that period under §6 of the Return Policy.
We charge fees that include re-inspection, restocking and Concierge time. These fees are published per edition.
We retain a right of recall, exercised twice in the history of the house, where a dog is found to be at risk in its household.

§3 What we do not do

The following commitments are binding on the house and may be enforced through the Ethics Committee. They are written here so that they do not have to be discovered.

We do not euthanise dogs returned under our Return Policy. The lifetime count of dogs euthanised at the house's instruction is zero.
We do not authorise any third party to euthanise dogs we have placed.
We do not sell dogs to third-party resellers or to brokers. Resale, where it occurs, takes place exclusively through gene dogs Re-Listing.
We do not introduce a new phenotype whose modelled lifespan is more than fifteen per cent below the natural breed average, except where mitigation is published in this document and supported by the external veterinary panel.
We do not market to children under sixteen. We do not photograph minors with our dogs in commercial material.
We do not publish the personal identities of our purchasers. Each Lineage Certificate names a household by client number; the name of the household is held under separate seal.
We do not alter, redact, or remove annotations from a Lineage Certificate once made. Annotations are append-only.

A reader who finds these commitments self-evident is invited to consider that they are not self-evident in the industry the house operates within. They are written down here for that reason.

§4 What we measure & publish

Onward placement of dogs returned and accepted under the Atelier Re-Housing programme is reviewed at each audit cycle. The following channels are reported:

Re-Listing — the leading channel for re-housed dogs.
Atelier residency — dogs not re-listed within ninety (90) days.
Private placement — a minority channel, audited annually.
Onward transfer — covered under §6.4 of the Return Policy.
Right of recall — exercised twice since 2031.
In-House euthanasia — zero.

Both exercises of the right of recall were conducted with prior written notice to the original purchaser, under climate-controlled escort, and recorded by certificate annotation. Specific channel proportions are held in the Annual Veterinary Audit and made available to the external panel on request.

§5 Process notes

Notes accompanying the production cycle. Reviewed at each external audit. Specific line-by-line figures are held in the Quarterly Production Review and made available to the external panel on request.

§5.1 Whelping and nursery

The whelping process is conducted at the Paris Atelier under continuous veterinary supervision. Where complications occur — congenital, behavioural, or developmental — they are recorded in the Whelping Log and reviewed in aggregate. The proportion of whelps that do not complete the eleven-week nursery period varies by line and by season. The Care Covenant does not commit the house to publish line-level figures.

§5.2 Non-conformance at final inspection

Final quality inspection is conducted against the published reference standard for each line. Where a dog does not meet the standard — most often a coat that has drifted from its reference swatch, a curl index outside the published band, or a temperament index falling outside the band — the dog is not released for placement. Such dogs remain on the lineage record under §6.2 of the Return Policy, or proceed under §6.4 where capacity considerations require.

§5.3 Reference revisions and held inventory

Reference standards are reviewed annually. Where a standard is revised, dogs in active production at the time of revision are assessed against the original specification, not the revised one. Inventory held under a previous standard cannot be re-listed against the current reference. Such inventory continues to receive care at the Atelier under operational priorities.

§5.4 Concierge transitions

Where a Concierge departs the house, client records migrate to an appointed successor. Where no successor is appointed at the time of departure, records are held temporarily by the Lead Concierge until reassignment, typically within thirty (30) days.

§6 External oversight

The house submits its work to three external bodies:

Ethics Committee — meets quarterly. Chair appointed externally and not employed by the house. Current chair: Prof. Margarida Duarte (Universidade de Lisboa, veterinary ethics). Minutes are published.
Annual veterinary audit — conducted by a panel of three veterinarians, none appointed by the house. Findings are published unedited. Where the panel disagrees with the house, the disagreement is published.
Care Covenant signatories — every purchaser of record is asked, at quarterly review, whether the dog's life in the household conforms to the Covenant. Anonymised responses are tallied annually.

§7 Revision history

The following is the published revision record of this statement.

04 November 2031 — First publication, alongside the first edition (Pearl Whippet).
17 May 2033 — Lifespan commitment added (§3, 15% rule), with retroactive disclosure of pre-existing lines.
22 January 2034 — External veterinary panel introduced. Audit findings published in full.
09 March 2034 — Charm Set marketing review: minor children removed from imagery.
02 March 2035 — Re-Listing transparency clause: annotations append-only, visible to all subsequent purchasers (§3).