rubymoon is right ON TARGET!!! Spay her. The repetative wear and tear and bombardment on the females system/body/uterus, that occurs when a heat cycle is experienced by an unbred female, from the hormones released by the un-impregnated female, causes all those health problems experienced by un-spayed AND unbred females, including the dreaded mammary and uterine cancers This is why, CONTRARY to popular belief, breeders that have actually researched and studied canine reproduction understand this is why it is best to breed your females EVERY cycle, in succession, and not skip cycles. You keep your ladies in prime tip-top, shape, and you breed them, with NO skipping between cycles....allowing them to be bred only once a year is not what is best for an unspayed breeding female. You do NOT want the bombardment of her uterus/reproductive organs by specific hormones released by an un impregnated female. These dogs are not being "abused" and "overworked" by breeding them every cycle....this actually protects their system from the damage caused by the release of the hormones. You are actually shortening the length of your lady's breeding timeline, perhaps even her life, by only breeding them once a year. The "overworked", "overbred", "abused" issue arises when you breed these girls and do not provide the required all encompassing nutritional support/medical safeguards required by these girls. These breeding ladies are just like atheletes and must be KEPT in tip top shape or they will break down and burn out. It is a continual effort to be sure they get not only the correct nutritional support dictated by the stage of their breeding cycle, but also the correct exercise and even down to the correct amount of light/sunlight. When you retire a breeding female, you spay her so you prevent the very bombardment by those "treacherous" hormones, which her being pregnant protects her from. Spay her. Sorry for the ramble, but I saw the opportunity to teach, and educate and show why breeding dogs is NOT something we take lightly...there is really an enormous amount of time and effort that goes into doing this and doing it corrrectly, so you dont abuse your ladies or create underdeveloped, genetically damaged, malformed babies. Every week that a female is pregnant, those little puppy embryo systems are doing a particular developmental something...you keep records of the pregnancy, so that if you have a litter and there are puppies that have some malformation or medical issue, you can pin point exactly what week in the development of the embryo that affected system was being "formed", and you then go back to your records and see if anything unusual happened during THAT week of the pregnancy. THIS is just touching the tip of the iceberg called "responsible breeding", breeding with ethics, integrity, and a GENUINE concern for producing healthy babies from healthy mommas. THIS is what all these show breeders/responsible breeders are quietly doing, not talking about it, just DOING it....which is why we go NUTS and get all frustrated and disturbed when we see people doing this, and they dont even know if their female was bred, by whom, or specific days she may have been bred on! We know there was no pre natal care given to the female to support the pregnancy, we know there was no support given to the stud, we know there was no concern for knowledge about health or genetic issues in either of the breeding pair....so we take a deep breath, shake our head, and walk away. |