In the future.

I'd like to breed Ein. Ofcourse he's too young now, I was just wondering how I'd go about doing that. Would I just find a breeder in my area and offer to let them use him if i could get a puppy??? idk that seems kinda weird lol.

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Permalink Reply by John Wolff on February 12, 2009 at 3:15pm

I would put a LOT of thought into this and really do a LOT of research. Breeding is not something to be undertaken lightly. My conclusion based on my limited experience with breeders is that this is something best left to experts.

One thing I like about the people we got our dogs from is that they seem extremely serious about what they're doing, trying to breed champion dogs, and succeeding, and couldn't possibly be in it for money. I was surprised by the level of detailed scrutiny she gave Al's litter: she'd had difficulty picking which pup to show, and considered Al -- asked to see him at 6 months before neutering -- at which time she spotted some disqualifying minor fault that I wouldn't have noticed in a million years. Her dogs seem to have just wonderful personalities.

Another thing I've learned recently: biotechnology is revolutionizing animal breeding. Affymetrix has a chip array for the entire canine genome! So they can map a lot of the probloem genes. You can get a FREE test for the DM (degenerative Myleopathy) gene same thing as Lou Gehrig's Disease in humans, de rigeur IMHO, it's a recessive that may be higher than 5% in the general population and now with the test this horrible disease can be bred out entirely. There may be others for things like hip dysplasia for all I know. There's even a test for the Fluffy gene.

One other thing that impressed me about our breeders: they'll take their dogs back anytime, no questions asked. We had to jump through a number of hoops to get a pup from them.

Bottom line: my limited experience leads me to conclude that dog breeding is a pretty serious undertaking.

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Permalink Reply by Ross on February 12, 2009 at 6:26pm

Thoroughly agreed. One of our dogs is from a breeder, and the other is from a shelter. I have no problem with people who really really want a certain breed of dog and going to a breeder, but also consider the enormous amount of unwanted animals out there before contributing to the pet population.
Similar to you, my girlfriend and I really shopped before choosing a breeder, Atlas's breeder had a clause in her contract that made us realize she was the person we wanted to get our dog from:"if, for whatever reason, you find yourself unable to care for your dog in the future, please return him/her to me, I don't want any of my dogs ever ending up in a shelter."