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Originally Posted by Ples  To be honest, I would seriously rethink breeding them at all. I recently bred my 2 Yorkies, both pure bred and had a litter of 3. My male was 2 years and my female a year and a half. I knew nothing other than we wanted another baby. Joy had a great pregnancy although you could see it was hard on her at the end to carry the weight of the puppies. She weighed 6 pounds. The delivery went well, but was a very traumatic experience for both my husband and myself. It is hard on these dogs to deliver. While for the most part they know exactly what to do, it is still an emotional experience. Like human beings, the contractions HURT the mom. While we have our human babies in hospitals with doctors and nurses to assist, you are on your own with only the information available on line and from your vet. We were trying to watch and make sure all was well while constantly checking our papers to see what to expect next. We had had an x-ray to know for sure how many puppies, but the process was slow. Our puppies came approximately an hour and a half to 2 hours apart so it is a LONG process. Forget about sleep that night, and it will probably be at night. The bottom line also is that it is a VERY messy business. We had a whelping box, lots of pads, etc and knew about the mess, but it is still not a fun process to clean up. Then after all that emotion, remember, the mom usually eats the afterbirth and it has to go somewhere, so be prepared the next day for vomiting it all back up or diahreah. Then, the heart break really started. Our 3 puppies were born with a rare genetic disease called hypotrichosis. We now have 5 dogs, and it will be impossible for us to keep them all. We are in the process of deciding what we can do. In my opinion, for what it is worth, breeding should be left in the hands of the truly knowlegable and experienced. I wish you good luck if you do decide to go ahead. |
What you have described are the hardships of breeding that ALL breeders have to face. Some can handle it emotionally, some cannot.
In regards to just having internet and vet guidance, I have to strongly disagree with you there. I would NEVER recommend anyone attempt to bring a litter into this world with that information alone to serve as their guide. Personally speaking, our vet was a great help in regards to advising regarding the related medical issues, but that is where her guidance stopped. Aside from that, I studied up on the breed in general and worked for a few years getting advice, information and first hand experience on breeding and whelping litters with a few well seasoned breeders—this type of preparation is not even remotely comparable to anything read on the internet. And learning from more experienced breeders is something I continue to do still.