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Originally Posted by delicatepuzzle  It's ok. I will have a mentor when I finally decide to breed. I'm working on a mentor relationship right now. But when I do decide to breed. The health will be the foremost important thing for me. I will be spending as much as needed to run tests on my potential breeders to find any detectable health issues. But to have an increased chance of healthy breeders I'm doing my research now and am looking out for who I will get my breeding pups from. |
To find a good mentor you may want to find a good show breeder who will really teach you the breed standard and can tell you all about the dogs going way back in their pedigrees including other lines they have brought into their line.
Health testing one you might particularly purchase won't tell you a lot. Why? Because there are genetic issues that a dog or bitch can be a carrier meaning that with a certain mating, a genetic issue can occur in the pups. The dog or bitch at this time until a genetic marker is discovered, will test out fine and you think you are safe. You may not be as the sire and dam are not exhibiting anything but have the potential to have the genes that with the right combination could throw a problem pup or litter.
Whatever you do, when you do find the right breeder and eventually they sell you something, buy one only and start there to learn about the breed and show it with your mentors help.
Buying a few dogs from here and there to breed is a big mistake as you won't really know how they will 'click' in a breeding.
I bought my first bitch about 15 years ago. Unfortunately she didn't really turn out to be show quality but wasn't that bad. I won the trust of a good show breeder mento and used her studs over time and steadily improved what I had. I never purchased another Yorkie until 2005. ANd then i knew what line I wanted and what type I was looking for and bought from long time established show breeder.