Breeding Standards

[AdrianneIsabel]

Originally Posted by Mr. Vega

Titles are just pieces of paper for yuppies to show off to their yuppy friends. A dog can be healthy and stronger than an ox and not have any papers, titles , ribbons, whatever. Dogs ought to have a good once over by the vet before their jeans get passed on. but all this hooey about titles is people promotin themseles.

DNA profile, don't even get me started. You could send a purebred toy poodle blood off and come back with labrador retriever shar pei mix

tell ya what i do do though for my clients -- I keep lots of semen for em. That's how to be successfull in a breeding. keepin lots and lots of semen to send to pepole for artiifical breeding

I can't stop laughing at jeans and the DNA profiling misunderstandings.

Rad.

[Flyinsbt]

Originally Posted by OwnedByBCs

Generally, I think a lot of people think I don't require enough from my dogs when I breed. Titles don't mean much to me, because I've been in the competition world (conformation, performance and working) to know that titles are mostly just incredibly expensive letters. I want to see work- that is what my breed is good for- but it doesn't matter to me if that was in a trial or at a farm. But... thats just me

I'm personally good with people choosing to breed a dog because it's good at real work. It's harder in a breed like mine, which really doesn't have real work anymore, so sport is the only way to see whether the dog is functional at all. Still, the first breeding I did, I chose to breed my bitch because she had really, really good structure. She had some titles, too, but those weren't much of a factor in my decision, except in that working towards them gave me a chance to see what a great worker she was. The biggest thing for me, though, was the structure. I saw how poor structure was on so many others of the breed, and decided my girl deserved to reproduce herself.

[Romy]

Originally Posted by Mr. Vega

Titles are just pieces of paper for yuppies to show off to their yuppy friends. A dog can be healthy and stronger than an ox and not have any papers, titles , ribbons, whatever. Dogs ought to have a good once over by the vet before their jeans get passed on. but all this hooey about titles is people promotin themseles.

DNA profile, don't even get me started. You could send a purebred toy poodle blood off and come back with labrador retriever shar pei mix

tell ya what i do do though for my clients -- I keep lots of semen for em. That's how to be successfull in a breeding. keepin lots and lots of semen to send to pepole for artiifical breeding

My borzois eat coyotes. That to me is a lot more meaningful than having a lure coursing title.

But, for all my puppy buyers or anyone else knows I could just make it up. Anyone could say their dog has killed X number of coyotes. How do you know if they're being honest?

Titles were made to be arbitrary proof of a dogs' athleticism/obedience ability, etc. It's really hard and costly to fake a title. It's not the same as a regular job, but it's something that can be proved if you're not able to see the dogs work with your own eyes and are considering using them in your lines or getting a puppy from those lines.

And DNA health testing =/= breed type testing. Yes breed typing by DNA is ridiculous and dumb. DNA health testing looks for very specific genes for specific diseases. For about $60 I can have my borzois tested to see if they carry the gene for degenerative myelopathy, a debilitating disease of the spinal cord that paralyzes the hind end. If my dog is a carrier, I can then test a potential mate and make sure my dog is bred to a non carrier so no affected puppies are produced. If my dog is clear, then they become more valuable as breeding stock for other people with affected or carrier dogs. Several tests exist for various genetic diseases.

How are you able to find people who want to use your dogs' semen if you aren't titling or health testing them? Frozen semen is really expensive to use. It cost us about $2000 just to get my girl pregnant. I wouldn't be willing to pay that for stuff from a dog with no proof of being able to work behind him and no indication of how healthy the puppies would be.

[Pops2]

Originally Posted by Flyinsbt

I really think 4 litters is enough. If you haven't produced what you need out of 4 litters, chances are that you aren't going to. Increasing genetic diversity would involve breeding more bitches, not the same bitch over and over.

dogs are generally over represented & bitches under represented in the genepool. if a dog is particularly prepotent he may be overused to the point of bottlenecking the breed, for example elhew in english pointers. it doesn't matter if it's show, PP or hunting a really good dog will almost always get overbred even on mediocre bitches. regardless of the words we say, more often than not, a stack of ribbons or litter after litter of SCH 3 or GR NT CH will win out over diversity. so a breeder that does care needs to be free to do the right thing w/o fear disciplinary action. and yeah for some breeds one litter is a big impact but for others 4 won't begin to protect genetic diversity.

[BlackPuppy]

DNA profiles are for proof of parentage. You can also do specific tests like the DM mentioned above.

[BlackPuppy]

IMO anybody who breeds a bitch more than 4 times is a BYB or a commercial breeder and not somebody interested in the health of a breed. Move on and keep a female puppy if you want to breed more. It doesn't matter to me if the litter is 2 puppies or 11.

[AdrianneIsabel]

I find numbers to be extremely limiting. I have a breeder in mind who used his bitch 3 time and I consider him leaning towards BYB, I also can't say that a 5th litter would be the worst thing in the world (assuming being a byb is) from a good bitch.

Then again I have never sought a breeder who's a member of a parent club, I doubt I ever will. I find them interesting but greatly limiting and unrealistic.

[Laurelin]

Here's a few random thoughts, I don't want to try to quote everyone.

I have thought about breeding and Beau was initially bought to breed. Currently the only breed I would feel comfortable breeding is papillons. I doubt I will actually ever breed dogs but sometimes feel like I should as there is a lot of room to improve in the breed and really no one is breeding papillons the way I'd like to see them. I feel like I could do a very nice job but I also have zero desire to deal with the politics. In papillons unless you keep yourself to a very few dogs you will end up having to make some difficult choices about health testing in particular. It's just not done as well as I like. I'm not sure I would be bold enough to deal with the BS. I also don't know if I could deal with showing conformation again but trying to get very far without showing would be very difficult.

Summer was bred prior to me buying her but unfortunately her two litters were not successful. The more papillons I meet the more I wish her litter had survived. She's one of the best papillons I've met. Not exactly the prettiest, but I have had a few handlers tell me she's finishable. Temperament and health wise she's been amazing.

Also, as far as age goes, I know several paps that have been bred at age 8 for their last litter and it's just fine. But these same dogs ended up living past 15 or 16 years old. I have no problem with that.

[AdrianneIsabel]

Physical stress on the body being an issue, bred at 8 or 9 for the last litter is a different story than for a first litter, from what I understand. I would be interested in alternative facts or musing though.

[SpringerLover]

Originally Posted by AdrianneIsabel

Then again I have never sought a breeder who's a member of a parent club, I doubt I ever will. I find them interesting but greatly limiting and unrealistic.

Can you elaborate on this?