MurphysMinder
Well-Known Member
Do you lot never sleep!
Re the neighbour with the dogues, the bitch had 10 pups. I think about half sold for £1000 then she had to reduce the price to shift the last few. However it was obviously successful enough for her to keep a bitch from the litter which she also plans to breed from.
Cayla's point re breeders keeping pups till 6 months, apart from the space issue there is the matter of socialisation. I do try and take my pups out for little drives in the car, and maybe a visit to the local school, being carried of course, before they go at 8 weeks. But with a breed like a GSD it would not be easy to keep doing this until 6 months, so anyone having a pup at 6 months would have a less than perfectly socialised pup. I always put an endorsement on my litters that they can't be bred from, and if people did wish to breed from them they would have to carry out necessary tests, and the dog would of course have to be of good enough quality.
When I was very young my mum did have about 20 GSDs, of those I suppose around half a dozen were of breeding age, then there were a couple of stud dogs, the oldies, and the youngsters. However she soon reduced down to far few numbers as she felt she wasn't getting the same pleasure out of the dogs. As to having more than one litter at the same time, the closest I have ever been to that was one litter in October and one in January. This was because the first bitch was mated and the second bitch came into season for the first time at 3 years old, and the vet said to mate her as her pattern was so erratic (or non existent). I kept some of the first litter until after Christmas so they had only just gone when no 2 whelped, so I had 16 weeks of pups. Okay it was great fun, but totally exhausting, and I would never do it again!
Re the neighbour with the dogues, the bitch had 10 pups. I think about half sold for £1000 then she had to reduce the price to shift the last few. However it was obviously successful enough for her to keep a bitch from the litter which she also plans to breed from.
Cayla's point re breeders keeping pups till 6 months, apart from the space issue there is the matter of socialisation. I do try and take my pups out for little drives in the car, and maybe a visit to the local school, being carried of course, before they go at 8 weeks. But with a breed like a GSD it would not be easy to keep doing this until 6 months, so anyone having a pup at 6 months would have a less than perfectly socialised pup. I always put an endorsement on my litters that they can't be bred from, and if people did wish to breed from them they would have to carry out necessary tests, and the dog would of course have to be of good enough quality.
When I was very young my mum did have about 20 GSDs, of those I suppose around half a dozen were of breeding age, then there were a couple of stud dogs, the oldies, and the youngsters. However she soon reduced down to far few numbers as she felt she wasn't getting the same pleasure out of the dogs. As to having more than one litter at the same time, the closest I have ever been to that was one litter in October and one in January. This was because the first bitch was mated and the second bitch came into season for the first time at 3 years old, and the vet said to mate her as her pattern was so erratic (or non existent). I kept some of the first litter until after Christmas so they had only just gone when no 2 whelped, so I had 16 weeks of pups. Okay it was great fun, but totally exhausting, and I would never do it again!