Considering Breeding?

Breeding dogs is a wonderfully rewarding endeavor. To produce good specimens of a particular breed, in each generation aiming to strengthen the assets of your adults and to correct whatever shortcomings have existed in previous generations (and sometimes succeeding), welcoming the little warm bodies into your world, watching them develop in the first few weeks into small replicas of their parents but with their own physical and behavioral characteristics, helping them grow into emotionally and physically beautiful creatures, holding on to some of the finest puppies, finding homes for the others with people who will continue the nurturing you have begun--very rewarding, indeed.

All of this requires a dedication to the breed and to the individual animals involved in the breeding program, both parents and offspring, that not everyone possesses. Most serious breeders must work for a living to support their dog "habit," but all of their free time is spent in the pursuit of some dog activity or piece of dog-related knowledge.

Breeding your pet dog because it has a wonderful personality and is the cutest Golden Retriever or Pug or Heinz-57 anyone (in your family or circle of friends) has ever known is not reason enough to breed her. Even if you think your dog is a perfect representative of its breed, if you bought the dog from a pet store or from a person who is not actively involved in showing dogs, it most likely is a perfect representative of a pet quality dog of the breed--a wonderful dog but it definitely should not reproduce.

You should not breed your dog unless you have a thorough knowledge of the physical structure and characteristics which make your breed what it is, and know that your dog meets these criteria. Attending dog shows and seminars and associating with people in your breed club as well as reading every piece of information you can find on your breed--and dogs in general--are the best way to gain this knowledge and to discover how your dog fits into the scheme of things.

Your dog should not be bred unless you have a thorough knowledge of the diseases to which your dog's breed is prone AND unless your dog (and the proposed mate) has been tested and found not to be carrying these diseases (dogs don't necessarily show symptoms of some eye diseases, bleeding disorders, or hip dysplasia, to name only a few--but they still may have or carry these diseases in an asymptomatic state).

You should breed your dog only if you can meet the above criteria AND are financially capable of caring for the bitch during her pregnancy and delivery (just for "chuckles"--or gasps--check with your veterinarian about the cost and possible problems involved with a cesarean section), can handle the cost of time lost from work to help care for mother and babies; the expense of a series of at least two immunizations and two wormings that will be required for all the puppies before they leave your home, as well as incidentals like food, vitamins, and other veterinary costs.

You must also be prepared for the possibility of complications which may endanger your dog's life--puppybirth, like childbirth, has many dangers. Many puppies don't survive the birthing process or the first few weeks--are you emotionally prepared to bury baby puppies, or maybe even your favorite mother dog?

Raising puppies takes time. "Mom" cares for them pretty well the first three weeks or so, but from then on it is up to you to begin to socialize them and/or introduce them to many different stimuli (while protecting them from trauma and disease, of course). They all need individual attention by humans and should learn at this time to interact with humans to some extent. Once you begin to feed them, they require meals at least three times a day--and you cannot forget, or skip a meal because you're tired!! "Pickup" and other sanitation chores become more and more intense as the days go by, as the puppies grow in size and output.

And then there's the challenge of finding perfect homes for each and every puppy that you sell or give away. Screening prospective owners is time consuming and difficult for all of us, since we are often dealing with total strangers we have to make judgments about. And since you produced these dogs, it is your responsibility to be a "fall-back" home for them if your placements fail--for the life of the dog.

It really is "all right" to own a purebred dog that is not a "perfect" representative of its breed. Even among serious dog breeders (and by this I mean people who are totally involved in the dog show/breeding scene) there are no "perfect" representatives of the breed, but they are constantly striving toward this goal, constantly learning, constantly searching for dogs that more closely represent the breed or which might bring the proper mix of genes to improve their own lines, etc. These people spend a huge amount of time and money in the pursuit of the perfect dog. But breeding your pet dog (who really doesn't approach perfection, although he or she may be perfect to you) just adds more pet dogs to the legions of pet dogs that end up in shelters.

Breeding your pet dog because you "just want to breed nice pets" is not a good argument. See "legions of pet dogs that end up in shelters" in the paragraph above. Unfortunately, this world has a limited requirement for pet dogs. Only so many people--and so many, many dogs!!