First time breeding

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sonjafoers

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I have recently been back in contact with the breeder of my 6 year old male rottie, and to keep a long story short, it has put the idea into my head of breeding from my boy.

If I decided to do this I would do it with the help of his breeder who has obviously done this many times and would help me find the right bitch, and advise me on how things work.

However my boy is my pet, my baby, and I am wondering whether he would change if I mated him. At the moment he doesn't even know he is a full male and has spent quite a bit of time with a JRT in season and didn't even notice! Assuming of course he did manage to do the deed would this change his personality in any way?

I have been told that once mated they should do so regularly but I don't know the reasoning behind this, and it isn't something I would want to do.

Is there anything else I should be aware of, either health wise or personality wise if I did proceed with this?

Thank you
 
The first question is, why? You sound a bit reluctant about it - he is your dog, if you don't want to breed him, don't.
Six isn't ancient, but it would be a strange thing for me to breed from a dog of six for the first time.

Personally speaking I would not buy a puppy from breeding animals, sire AND dam, without health tests (in my breed, and for other large herding/pastoral breeds, that would include hips and elbow scoring through the BVA, which can be expensive) and dogs that have been proven as a good examples of the breed, IE having won in the conformation ring or have a working title, or at least have proven themselves on the working field.

There are millions of lovely dogs with lovely characters out there, it doesn't mean they have to be bred from, just look at how many dogs are in shelters, I bet their parents were 'lovely' dogs with 'lovely' characters.

That's balls about them being mated regularly too, all our bitches were mated once (one bitch twice, under breeding terms, to a male we didn't like). The last male we had was mated twice.

My current dogs will not be mating, because while they are lovely pets, they are not good enough to breed from.
 
I am not reluctant as such, just not 100% sure as it's something I know nothing about.

I have given thought to the moral issues but I hadn't given enough thought to the technical side of it like the health testing etc, so thank you CaveCanem for bringing that up. I'm sure it's something his breeder would have talked to me about in due course, but we aren't anywhere near that stage yet. Also I hadn't realised that his age was an important factor so that's interesting too.

As you can tell I haven't a clue about this which is why I posted. His sire was a proven dog but has died and mine is possibly the only full male left of reasonable age.

Even from the info contained in your one post CaveCanem I can see it's probably not the right thing to do as I hadn't given enough thought to what was involved.
 
To me, reading between the lines, it looks as if the breeder wants to preserve/restart her line and that is understandable, but in fairness, she shouldn't be asking a pet owner to provide their dog to do that for her - if she wanted to keep the line open she would have kept a male or female herself.
And if it's the end of the line, it's the end of the line. Some people on here and people I know in RL have had to end lines which have been unbroken for decades, heartbreaking as it was, through death of a dog or health problems which a responsible breeder would not pass on, irrespective of all the dog's other traits.

My two's sire died at the young age of seven. I did tell his breeder that I was neutering B but I told him, I did not ask, there are much better males of his on the ground than him to carry on the line, and some females too.

As a for instance, hips and elbows (s-xrays and sending them for scoring) can cost £2-300 per dog and then in our breed there is a haem test for males, eye tests, etc, swabbing the bitch, scans etc, if you do it right (and in this day and age, with all the hereditary conditions plaguing certain breeds, we should all be doing it right) it works out expensive, and even then, like us, you can do all the right things and lose a whole litter :(
Don't mean to be a doom monger but these are all things to take into consideration.

ETA - Re age, seven is the age in the UK when it is accepted good practise to stop breeding from females at least, so you see where I am coming from when I say it is a bit late to start using him at stud.
 
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IMO I wouldn't worry about his age, I've got 2 numbers in my head - we used a dog and he was either 9 or 11 and it was his first time. He was fit and healthy, had the required checks. What he would be a bit old for is hip scoring as in his case it wouldn't be an accurate score because of the wear and tear on his joints. It's not the same strain for a dog to get his leg over as it is for a bitch to carry and whelp.

We've asked pet owners of our puppies if we can use their dogs at stud (obviously as adults!) it's not practical to keep loads of dogs to use at stud - I don't mean as in them living together but space wise, i.e you can keep a male or female from a litter and want to take it back to a male or female from an unrelated litter at a later date, you'd have a house full.

It's rubbish about needing to mate him regularly, lots of stud dogs are one hit wonders so to speak :p

Is his breeder a serious breeder or just dabbling at it? If it's serious then presumably they're reputable and can discuss everything with you.

At the end of the day he's yours it's your decision no one else's :D
 
Im also not understanding why anyone would jsut breed from a pet dog, aswell as the fab info you have on this post by CC you also have to take heed of any conscience you have and think about "Where" the puppies will end up, once they are not so cute, of course they will sell, all puppies sell and look cute but rotties are not the easiest of breeds, esp so for the in experienced, and they are indeed up there with the staffies in the numbers of breeds now awaitng death row in the pounds, our rescue alone has had hundreds of rotties through, I have one myself from our rescue.

What im saying is how would you feel if the off spring of your dog was banging its head of a pound wall until it execution date, because they are not the easiest of dogs when full grown for a breeder to offer to take back esp when 2 or 3 are needing to be returned!, and esp if they have not been socialised.

I have a beautiful long coated japanese akita and have been approached a stupid amount of times for me to breed from her, I have her papers and she was bred well and her parents where health tested, and working in a vets I could have had her health tests done for pennies, she is neutered and I will not be bringing more of her into the world to end up a very expensive rescue "like she did" even though I could have made £1000 per puppy, my concscience tells me N0! she is my pet, I dont need to make money from her, I have a job for that, and I will not risk her in any way.
 
Well I wouldn't if he was mine. Apart from the health checks he would need, the fact that he has not shown interest in bitches could mean he may not even know what to do, and more to the point if he does find out what it is all about there is a chance he would become bitch obsessed in the future. I have on occasions had owners of males I have sold asking for advice about using the dog at stud and have always advised against it. The dogs KC reg papers were endorsed anyway so couldn't have offspring registered without my permission, but I suppose they could have used them on pet bitches, but as far as I am aware they have taken my advice. Also unless he has been shown successfully it is unlikely that people would bring top quality bitches to him, and that is what a stud dog owner should be aiming for.
As said, in the end is your decision, but if you are happy with your lad as he is now I wouldn't risk doing anything to change things.
 
echodomino said:
IMO I wouldn't worry about his age, I've got 2 numbers in my head - we used a dog and he was either 9 or 11 and it was his first time. He was fit and healthy, had the required checks. What he would be a bit old for is hip scoring as in his case it wouldn't be an accurate score because of the wear and tear on his joints. It's not the same strain for a dog to get his leg over as it is for a bitch to carry and whelp.
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Yes but hip scoring is to help avoid breeding from animals with bad hips/high scores and passing it down the generations, nothing to do with whether the dog can get his leg over or not.
 
CaveCanem said:
Yes but hip scoring is to help avoid breeding from animals with bad hips/high scores and passing it down the generations, nothing to do with whether the dog can get his leg over or not.
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Ok then in "theory" he's not too old for breeding BUT as he is not going to have an accurate hip score at 6yrs of age then it's not a good idea too :p I've been on lates all week am shattered and not making sense of what I'm thinking lol.

Just been browsing the KC website, doesn't appear to be an age limit on stud dogs as there is with brood bitches.
 
Thanks everyone, as stated I had considered the moral implications and it was the health/psychological issues I was asking for advice about as I have no experience at all of breeding.

After reading CaveCanems initial response to my post I had virtually decided against it but I've had a few days to mull it over and decided definately not to pursue the idea any further - I will leave it to the experts!
 
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