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Breeding Your Dog, Part 1

© Pat Williams

So, you want to breed your dog. Well, this is where we separate the pros from the puppy mills and backyard breeders.

In most of my articles you will find I'm fairly laid back, but when it comes to breeding, the gloves come off. This is one topic I am adamant about.

The majority of animals who end up in shelters come from puppy mills, backyard breeders and pet stores. For this reason, I give no quarter when it comes to breeding.






So, lets talk about how the pros do it. By definition, a professional breeder is someone who breeds to improve his bloodline, breeds out any faults and breeds a healthy line of pups that preserve the standards set forth by the breed club. He has studied his breed and has a working knowledge of animal husbandry and they never, ever mix breeds. Mixing breeds to create designer dogs is strictly a selling ploy. No one can guarantee the outcome (type, size, look, coat or temperament) of any mix. I cannot stress this point strongly enough. When you buy a designer dog (Ship-poo, Cavapoo, Pekapoo, Golden-Lab, etc.) you are buying a mutt, a mixed breed, a pig in a poke. Just because you breed a Poodle to a Pekinese does not mean you have a new breed or so-called Pekapoo. You have a mixed breed litter, period.

I have nothing against mixed breed dogs, accidents happen, but why would anyone spend five, six or seven hundred dollars for a mutt when any claim to guarantee pedigree, health, temperament, size, or type are completely false.

Now, don't get me wrong, we all started out somewhere. How you go about it is what makes the difference between a good breeder and a poor one.

Professional breeders do a lot of research before they actually put two dogs together.

Breeding basics: To make this as easy as possible we'll use Labradors for this example and we will assume all traits are exactly the same except for color. In other words they are all the same type, size and temperament.

Since Labs come in three different colors, yellow, black and chocolate, we have three possible color combinations. Keep in mind that all traits react the same way as the color gene does, so if we were to include the other traits we would multiply our results several times.

Every gene that a dog carries is either dominant or recessive. This means that if you breed two black dogs together who both carry dominant black genes, your litter will most likely be all black. Now here is where it gets complicated.

Puppies

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