The Fundamentals of Dog Breeding - By Eric Hartwell

The Goals of Dog Breeding:

Good temperament should be the first goal in breeding. Every breeder should be on the lookout for shyness, fear of strangers, refusal to leave a common environment, fear of unexpected changes and excessive activities in their dogs and decide if they want these characteristics to be passed onto the puppies. These signs can easily be inherited by the offspring and breeders should understand the effect of genetics on the puppies. However, good temperament is usually present in the ancestral genes and is believed to be dominant traits that can be passed on to puppies.

The Fallacies:

The commonest mistake that a breeder makes is to put a female dog and a male dog together in a room and leave them alone to let nature takes its course. This may not ensure a litter of puppies. It is important to know when the female dog will achieve sexual maturity first to ensure that she gets impregnated.

The first period of heat usually occurs anywhere after six months to 12 months of age but this period is not the best time to breed the female dog. She is not quite mature at this time. It is more advisable to wait for the second period of heat to ensure that the female dog is ready for pregnancy.

The Fundamentals:

Careful selection of parents is the first step to ascertaining that you breed good puppies. Make sure that both parents must be as free as possible from inherited or inborn faults. The breeder should fully recognize the shortcomings of his dogs as well as their merits and be fully informed about their ancestors.

In picking out the mother and the father of the brood, it is important to remember that like produces like but that characteristics don’t always blend to give the desired result. The mother should be free from any inherited shyness or savageness as these may be passed on to the puppies.

The father of the brood determines the sex of the puppies as he carried the sex-determining chromosomes. Although they have less reproductive difficulties than the females, these defects are harder to correct. Keep in mind that the father of the brood should have the appropriate amount of sperm to impregnate the female.

There is a further challenge that no hidden defects in the ancestry should crop up in a succeeding littler of puppies. It is important for the professional dog breeder to have a complete understanding of dominant, recessive and mixed characteristics of the dog first before embarking in breeding.

It is rewarding to develop puppies which are good both physically and mentally. It is especially more gratifying if the dogs grow up to be intelligent and good natured as well.

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