Dog Breeding
Breeding Border Collies or Golden Retrievers
Stud Dogs
Stud Dogs must prove their qualities before being used
Dog offered at stud usually have
to have shown outstanding characteristics in conformation, working ability
or have produced outstanding offspring, without these credentials there
is no reason for anyone to use your dog in preference to the many show
or working champions offered at stud. If your dog is used at stud it
could make him more sex oriented and more difficult to live with afterwards,
he may insist on "checking" whether every bitch he meets is
"ready", he may become more territorial towards other dogs
and he may become less settled and more prone to wandering in search
of bitches. Good breeders will be looking for the outstanding characteristics
mentioned above and will use know and reputable lines and sires, someone
wanting to use an untried dog from an obscure background with no credit
to his name will be either looking to produce cheap pups (puppy farmers
etc.) or be breeding from a bitch with health problems that informed
breeders will not allow to come to their stud dogs. A good stud dogs
will command a high fee but campaigning a dog to a show or working champion's
title is expensive in terms of show entry fees and travel costs and
hugely time consuming. A sound dog, Champion or not will have earned
his reputation through his many qualities and the quality of his offspring,
a bitch owner has the privilege of buying these qualities for her puppies
for the modest sum of a few hundred pounds stud fees. Good breeders
will have only three or four litters (often fewer) from even an outstanding
brood bitch so they are most unlikely to waste one of these precious
opportunities on a mediocre dog.
In other respects the responsibilities of the stud dog owner as just
as for the bitch owner, dogs must be appropriately health checked, their
background and bloodline scrutinised for possible defects, their registration
in order and their faults realistically analysed. Whilst the stud dog
owner does not have the direct responsibility for homing the puppies
few owners who care for their dog would want to see his sons and daughters,
homeless, unwanted and facing an early end as just another dog in rescue
with too many problems to be rehomed.