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Originally Posted by QuickSilver  I'm not arguing right and wrong here, just trying to understand. It would seem to me that the female incurs more costs and risks for pregnancy. That she owns the pups she produces would just make her more valuable.
Here is what I am missing: I would think that since the male's effort is close to zero, that most owners of males would be willing to undercut each other's prices, because maintaining the non-pregnant dog is not a lot of work. While the male contributes 50% of the genes, the female's health is more important since her body will be housing the puppies. From that logic, the female's genetics would be more important, and you could make do with a decent stud. Or even hedge your bets, since a dam's litter can have multiple fathers, correct?
Since this isn't the way it works in the real world, I can see that my reasoning is not the same as breeders'... it just sounds right to me!  |
The trading and/or purchasing of genetic material is what determines the cost. If the male's ability to produce a great puppy is well known, he has the market cornered on his genetic material...his price is high. The breeding value of the particular dog takes some time to determine and the value does not translate to another dog with the same parents. Even a littermate that would apparently be the genetic equal will not have the ability to produce the same quality puppy. The majic only happens when someone with knowledge and experience properly matches two parents together. It's kind of like singing on American Idol. Lot's of people think they can do it, but until you put your ability in front of someone who actually knows....you might not be going to Hollywood.
A female can only produce a certain amount of puppies, the male can produce many thousands. For this reason there is really no reason to use an inferior male. If you want the right male you should be prepared to pay more for the stud service than you paid to PURCHASE your female in many cases. When you hold back from the breeding and place the puppies you still have what you wanted at a lower cost.
You would then want to never forget the birthday of the person who made this advancement in your program possible.
Most of us will keep our males to ourselves because we are working on our vision of the perfect puppy and we don't want to give away one of the building blocks. I am pefectly willing to trade with someone who has a great male that will help me along but I have very little interest in studding out unless I am just doing a nice thing to help a friend....improve a program...not make vacation money.
The value is not in the number of puppies produced...it's in the quality.