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Originally Posted by Lillium  I have a 7 month old Purebred Yorkie Bitch who was originally purchased as a pet but has the potential to be much more. I was thinking of breeding with her further down the track, I've been reading up a lot on the subject but wanted to ask some opinions and hear what other people have to say on the topic.
I want to stress that if I do indeed go through with this, I have every single intention of doing everything the correct way - health screenings, not breeding until she's of an age where she's ready, not breeding until I'm ready, being as prepared as possible for the unexpected and everything else being a responsible breeder entails. I am also in close contact with my pup's breeder.
I'm not going to breed to make money, I'm not one of those people. My reason for wanting to breed is mainly due to the fact that I'd love another Yorkie at some point in the future, as would my Mum as she has fallen in love with Suzy. So I was thinking maybe I would have a litter with her as she's a gorgeous little thing with a beautiful personality and a great lineage. If she had show quality puppies, as she is a show quality dog (who attended her first show on Saturday), I would consider showing them. But I doubt I'd sell any of her litter and I doubt I'd have more than 1 litter with her. I don't even know at this stage, I'm just throwing ideas around at this stage and considering everything.
So what I wanted to pose for discussion, the pros and cons of breeding.
I want to hear positive stories, horror stories, opinions etc so that I can give this more thought. |
I've had litters where I wound up with healthy happy beautiful puppies and the bitch reveled in motherhood and I thoroughly enjoyed watching these whelps develop into bouncing playing puppies. I got so much satisfaction, pride and joy from them.
Then there are the unknown possibilities that I have personally experienced, such as eclampsia, c-section, sick or fading puppies. Then it's a nightmare. I've had a bitch that needed a c-section and all the puppies died. I had a bitch that lost more than half her puppies in 3 breedings. I had a bitch that conceived 1 large puppy that was born dead. I've had litters where 1 of 3 puppies died. I had a litter where the mother got to the umbilical cord before I could and she ripped it too roughly and exposed the puppies intestines. That puppy screamed in agony until I got him to the vet who euthanized him. I've had puppies that hung on for 3 weeks being cared for in an incubator and then died. The one thing that never happened to me is that I never lost a bitch, thank God. I had a puppy that had a liver shunt and it cost me a fortune to get it fixed. I had a puppy that had a PDA and that cost me another small fortune. However, seeing those puppies go on and live happy lives as pets, did give me satisfaction because I could never give up on a puppy as long as it had a chance. I had a puppy that lived for a little over a year with hydrocephalus and that was a challenge.
I'm sorry the bad was longer than the good and the truth is, there is a lot more of the first, good scenarios than the bad secenarios, but those things all happened to me. When I went into this I somehow felt that none of the bad things that people talked about would happen to me because I was going to take superior care of my dogs but my very first bitch got eclampsia and one of the puppies had an unrepairable heart condition and she had to be euthanized! But, I went on to breed plenty of litters after that and had plenty of successful, happy healthy litters.
So after all that is it worth it? I would say, yes although I never got used to losing puppies. It is painful to watch that little life ebb away despite everything you do and the tears and heartache make you wonder how you can ever do tis again but somehow, a breeder, brushes herself off and in time gets excited again about planning her next breeding. Some people just ARE breeders, I believe and it's a natural thing for them to do.
If you don't feel you really are a breeder, than it might NOT be a good idea for you to do because there are no guarantees and that's what you need to know. If you can go into it knowing that and still be hell bent on doing it, maybe you are a breeder.