ellz

Absolutely agree about using frozen semen to open up doors that would otherwise be closed due to geography. But I'm not a fan of using AI because it is convenient or because the dog refuses to breed or because the bitch has anatomical issues that prevent her from being mated naturally. I've been down that path, my second litter was AI because the stud dog was a cossetted family pet who used to get corrected (sharply) every time he attempted to mount something so he kind of lost the urge. Would I do it again. Not unless the dog was particularly special and it was a breeding that I HAD to do for the benefit of my breeding program and not necessarily just the showring (and yes, I do believe they are completely different things in many cases). In many cases I believe that if a dog and a bitch cannot accomplish what SHOULD come naturally, then there is something going on that we can't see. It's a pain in the behind, but I think I'd far rather have my precocious youngster who jumped his first bitch without being invited. Obviously not much wrong with his instincts! And likewise with Koda. Whilst I had heard on the grapevine that litter sisters had strictures and anatomical issues that made mating and whelping difficult....her actual mating was a breeze and I'm probably going to be giving her another shot at whelping down the track and hopefully she'll have a more "normally" sized litter of 4 - 6 instead of the 9 that she had this time when her uterus ended up like a jigsaw puzzle with puppies going every which way! And yes, c-sections ARE a necessity if something goes amiss. But I don't think it is "cricket" for breeders to go into a breeding with eyes wide open and PLANNING a c-section for convenience or just because the particular breed is "known" to require them. Again, what is wrong with selective breeding to breed for desired quality AND natural breeding properties?? Or is that too simplistic?

I was always told that the difference with the shorter gestation is due to the lack of "travelling time" for the egg to meet the sperm. When an AI is done, the sperm is introduced to the egg more quickly resulting in a more rapid implantation. Whether that is the case or not, I have no idea. I have only ever done one AI in 23 years and that was my second litter. And that was only because the stud dog was a spoiled, cossetted housepet who had spent most of his life being corrected for humping things so when push came to shove, he was too scared of being told off to breed the bitch. Lovely litter resulted though, 3 black dogs and my first Australian Champion Truyank Over The Limit.

After watching my bitch repeatedly accept a pup who was clearly brain damaged (very odd posture), was growing colder by the moment and was on the way out I don't really trust maternal instinct 100%. She kept trying to get this pup to feed when it clearly was too weak and within an hour of dying. IT seemed to know it was dying and kept crawling away from the warmth of the other pups and the heat lamp. But see that's the difference, the puppy knew something was wrong, and by observing the puppy, you in turn could see that something was amiss and for me, that would have been enough of a cue to act. If a puppy is clearly brain damaged, then it would get its wings. And again, that's Mother Nature talking. Mothers have been known to be wrong, or we wouldn't lose puppies that we had worked hard to save. But all things being equal, if there were enough signs from the puppy, then that too is enough to make a decision. I would never bother even attempting to tube feed a puppy such as you have mentioned. It is an exercise doomed for failure. But again, that would be "my line in the sand". In the case of my puppy, she was fighting hard. She was doing her best to suckle, assisted by her mother. She was warm. She was pretty much doing everything she should have been by way of behaviour for a very young whelp (growling, defacting and urinating etc etc) and for the first 3 weeks really didn't look much different to her littermate, just smaller. It was only at 3 weeks when I pulled the pin and gave her her wings that it was apparent that she had, as the vet said, hit the wall.

Yep, the old "line in the sand" is the biggie. I guess it also corresponds directly with the other topic I raised. So...what is your particular "line in the sand"? Mine is when the mother loses interest. I go by the old saying "Mother Knows Best". The minute a pup is ignored, or for that matter I have to KEEP rescuing it from under mum, or littermates, or it keeps having bedding or newspaper placed on top of it then that is my "line in the sand time" and I have to make the choice of whether to allow the puppy to die "naturally" or with a little help from the vet. I confess that I've never yet been able to let one just slip away, unless it has happened in the middle of the night, or when my back was turned, every time I've made a judgement call, I've had the puppy euthanased. I'm happy to top up a large litter and was fully expecting to have to do so with my current litter of 9, (considering that mum only has 8.5 teats and of those 8.5, only 7 are functional), but artful plugging in and rotating puppies was successful this time. A couple of other litters I've had in the past it wouldn't have worked on because the bitches have been very puppy-proud and if you plug them into one teat and isn't the RIGHT teat, they will fuss and carry on until THEY have put it right again. I've really enjoyed the cruisey, easy-going nature of this particular first-time mum. She has made the litter a delight. It still amazes me that I could have such an easy run with this litter of 9, yet such a nightmare with the Yank litter. Just goes to show, Mother Nature can be a contrary old bird!

Maybe in the case of those breeds which do require a high level of intervention, the breeders should be looking at ways to make their dogs healthier so that they CAN have normal bodily function? If a breed HAS to be micro-managed then surely there is a question mark about the validity overall? Yes, very simplistic. And yes, will no doubt p!ss more than a few people off. But if you're going to simply things so that it is "survival of the fittest" then those breeds which don't fit, essentially don't belong.

Google it. There has been a large push away from what once seemed to be an ideal solution to the overpopulation of dogs. In some breeds early desexing has done more harm to the dogs than good. I personally was considering it, but having read up on it, I won't do it. I'd rather wait until after sexual maturity. If all you are worried about is the dog cocking its leg, then you need to be reading about housetraining methods as well as juvenile desexing I would suggest.

No. But is it not possible to work with the lines you like AND the free whelping ones to attempt to create the best of both worlds?

I don't have ready access to prog testing or quick results so I've never bothered with it. As far as c-sections are concerned.....I did mention to my vet that Koda's litter would be her last due to her having to have a c-section. His comment was that in her case, he wouldn't be so quick to throw in the towel. Given that she had 9 puppies and the way her uterine horns were twisted in, around and under themselves he feels it was very unlikely that she would have been able to give birth naturally and this also was the reason that the counting xray wasn't successful....they couldn't visualise the bits of uterus under the top layer of the jigsaw puzzle. She also had a puppy collision happening in the mouth of the uterus which slowed things down a bit too. Probably providentially now I reflect....it gave me good time to get her to the vet safely before the whole thing became an emergency. As it was, we were able to go in at our leisure with proper anaesthetic and pain relief set up and a couple of extra hands on deck to manage the puppies. No fuss, no rush. So under his guidance, maybe in 18 months or so, we MIGHT try again with her but given the merest hint of difficulty, or if she has to have another section then she will be speyed at the same time. In the case of the daughters from this litter....there is only going to be one on Main Register and I am keeping that so I will be able to monitor future generations. The rest are going on Limit with desexing agreements. There was however NO problem whatsoever with the matings and she took first attempt from natural breedings and 20 minute ties on two consecutive days. AND she read the textbooks about temp drops etc. and had started to dilate but the collision halted proceedings. This is only my second c-section in Staffords. The other was my old girl Dolly who had a puppy tear her uterus on the way out. Had I not taken her to the vet, I would have lost her and the puppies. As it was, she went through a LOT of blood and the vet at one stage asked if I wanted to save the bitch or the pups. No contest....save my girl. Thankfully we saved Dolly and only lost 1 puppy...the one that got stuck and tore her on the way out. In American Cockers I've had 2 c-sections...the first on a bitch which had one puppy and refused to dilate. She was never bred from again. And the other was a secondary inertia. She is now speyed and in a pet home. I've been really lucky, but then I've never been one for heroics and a lot of intervention. And now that I think more about it, I'll leave technology to others and admire their successes and commiserate with them their failures.

Doesn't she look SOOOOOOOO happy with herself and her bubbas!

Norskgra, your girl has made me think even harder, but please don't take this as being aimed SPECIFICALLY at you ok? I've been wondering for some time if we as breeders are our animals own worst enemies when it comes to reproduction? Do we insist upon so much micro-management when it comes to breeding, that we are actually causing problems inadvertently? If something doesn't go to plan, or fit within certain guidelines, or come into season when it should, or whelp when we feel that it needs to....we intervene. Sometimes we make the right call. Sometimes we don't. But...I don't recall anywhere near as many whelping and gestational issues when I first started breeding 23 years ago as we seem to be seeing now. Why is that? Is it unhealthy society and what we are putting into our dogs? Is it that we have become very reliant upon medical technology to assist us with pregnancies that would probably never have happened before prog testing, sperm counts, AI and many other procedures became commonplace? Is it that years ago, natural selection would have seen us weed out the problem breeders and therefore reduce the potential that they themselves would go on to produce more problem breeders? What is it? Has science and technology REALLY been good for the purebred dog industry or are we just kidding ourselves?? Enquiring minds wanna know but please don't shoot the messenger, am interested in all perspectives on this one.

Maybe this is Tyra's way of saying "back off mum, I know what I'm doing without you having to stress on my behalf!" But seriously, so glad it is all going swimmingly for you. I know how worried you were.

I hear you! I'm getting all manner of emails and phone calls at the moment about my babies. Which is great, except that I don't have a crystal ball. I will NOT committ to selling any particular individual at this stage. They are NOT going on Main Registration no matter how much money I am offered, how much begging is done or how may threats are made. And I'll raise my puppies my way, thank you!

Exactly. And THAT'S why we keep going back for more!

Bad Alice says "hi everybody, I'm 9 weeks old tomorrow!" My human mummy says it is time I started to learn how to become a lady. I don't know if I want to do that, it doesn't sound like very much fun!

Realistically it's not all bad. Bad luck usually comes in cycles, unless it happens ALL the time and then as a breeder, you would seriously need to question your abilities, aims and objectives. The December thread isn't the only "sad" thread, October and November had their fair share of horror stories as do other months. It just tends to make it seem worse when a lot of breeders congregate in one place and share stories. I'm sure that if you averaged out the bad news over ALL dog breeders everywhere, and not just the ones who post here, it wouldn't look anywhere near as daunting. For my part, from the two litters that I had in 2009, I had one disaster and one that COULD have been a disaster had I not been alert to the possibilities. All ended well and that's what matters in the long run. I've got 10 healthy puppies from the two litters and of those 10 puppies, at least 5 will make somebody else's families complete (I hope).

Cat of the dog world? Isn't that the Basenji? Equal pegging IMO

hehe...and now the real work begins. Remember that once you start assisting the "input", most bitches are less willing to help deal with the "output".

Yep, my 5 week olds have only been lapping with some semblance of coordination for the past week or so, prior to that, they mostly just sucked at everything and gummed it all to death! Bad Alice the Yank puppy (9 weeks tomorrow) was a bit slow about feeding, probably due to not having any competition at the food bowl. She's now one of the "gang" and is eating well and drinking well. They're so cute when they drink water now....they're obviously working out the difference between hunger and thirst.

Don't bother with mushed up solids to begin with. Just try them with a teensy bit of fresh mince on your finger. And don't bother with weetbix, farex or anything else that is grain based. No sensible dog would eat that stuff! Once they are accepting the mince, and most will take it very quickly indeed, even the littlest, go for the pink slushies......just good quality meat made into a pink thickshake. They'll spend more time sucking the juice out at first than they actually will eating the meat but they're still getting the goodness of the meat and learning about different tastes and sensations and textures at the same time. And the BEST meals are the ones they stand in!

Am I allowed to say "I TOLD YOU SO!!!!" *running*

At 3 weeks there is no earthly reason why you cannot begin supplementing them with solid food. Instead of topping them up with Biolac (essentially expensive and really not that necessary at this age), offer them some solids. Start with some very fine mince and put it on your fingertip and offer it to them. If they take it without question, move onto pink slushies and you'll find that they will be happier and so will your bitch. 3 weeks is such a rapid growth period that even if you don't want to, often you HAVE TO start introducing solids, if only for the sake of your peace and sanity and that of the dam as well. I'm not saying that I'm right, but my Stafford puppies are 5 weeks old now and have been eating solids since 3 weeks, albeit between good long mummy drinks. Now, that they are largely "independent" and spending more time playing and outdoors in the puppy pen there, they still get drinks from mum a few times per day (at my insistence not hers) and she sleeps with them at night so they can drink ad lib, but they're also just as likely to be found slurping at fresh water and whinging at me to give them "real" food.

They might also be like many other first time breeders and be besotted by their puppies or doing their best to do the right thing by them and the dam. With regards to learning to accept advice.....put yourself in the shoes of the newbie and try to remember back to when YOU were a newbie and you thought you were doing the right thing. I don't know about you, but it took me quite a few years and probably just as many litters to learn that not everybody is going to be nice to you and just because YOU think your dogs and puppies are doG's answer to dogdom, not everybody else will. And I have to say that back when I started, people didn't actually start to be direct straight away either!!

This is their first litter. Perhaps they thought they were doing a good thing? Perhaps the clamshell is clean but old? Who knows what the situation is if you aren't actually there. But yes, a PM (whether they accept it as advice or not) is far better than belittling somebody to make a point, whether justified or not. But unfortunately, it wouldn't be DOL if somebody wasn't being "direct" would it? As my grandmother used to say, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

Welcome!

No. A bitch that I bred was sent to a home in Western Australia, where she has been bred from. One of her sons has produced blue. I have little interest in finding out the quality of those blues because I simply don't like the colour and don't believe that (until the standard is changed at least) any "serious" breeder should be concentrating on them to the detriment of other colours which ARE accepted by the standard. That said, the kennel which own her are not a "blue" kennel, nor do they concentrate on them. I have no knowledge about whether they planned the litter to get blue or not, but I rather suspect not. Editing to add: And having said that. Now that they seem to have worked out that they do have blue in their lines, they do seem to be planning and breeding more blue. Disappointing, but as I sold the bitch, I have little say in what her owners do with her.