# My male and female, to breed or not to breed?



## Ken Thompson (Jun 9, 2006)

If everything falls into place and in a couple of years I'm thinking about putting these two dogs together. Any Advice (to breed or not to breed that is the question)? :?

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/7/481058.html 

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/7/481055.html


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## Jerry Lyda (Apr 4, 2006)

*I WOULD IN A HEART BEAT. You female has some of the same lines that Bentley has. Both pedigrees look great.

*


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## Ken Thompson (Jun 9, 2006)

Does anyone know anything about any of the dogs in these pedigree?


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## Mike Schoonbrood (Mar 27, 2006)

Don't know about any of the dogs specifically but I recognize some quality kennel names that produce great dogs on both sides of the fence.


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## susan tuck (Mar 28, 2006)

Karthago, Korbelbach & the all time greatest bitch (IMHO) Esthra Tiekerhook. A lot of other great dogs. There is some really nice stuff there. I could never be a breeder, I don't know how to mix them up properly!


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## Woody Taylor (Mar 28, 2006)

Ken Thompson said:


> If everything falls into place and in a couple of years I'm thinking about putting these two dogs together. Any Advice (to breed or not to breed that is the question)? :?
> 
> http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/7/481058.html
> 
> http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/pedigree/7/481055.html


What's your goal(s) in breeding them?


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## Andres Martin (May 19, 2006)

Bear and Sabre.........von Thompson????????

aha!....yer pullin' our collective legs, right?

Did you breed Bear and Sabre?

Is the general asking the troops here?


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## Sarah Hall (Apr 12, 2006)

I agree with everyone in that this would be a good breeding.


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Excellent breeding on paper...HOWEVER! I've been involved with dogs since God made mud. That doesn't make ME a candidate as a dog breeder. I've had some excellent show and working terriers, yet I've only had one litter in all my involvement with any dogs.
Maybe someday, but for now it's just way more responsibility (if done correctly) then I care to handle.


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## Ken Thompson (Jun 9, 2006)

> Bear and Sabre.........von Thompson???????? I was told the Von meant "of the house of" so I named them Bear or Sabre of the house of Thompson. Remember I'm new to GSD. I know bird dogs but this is differrent and that's is why I'm on this forum, to learn. Please let me know If I make a fool of myself.
> 
> No, I haven't bred these two dogs. Sabre is only 5 months old. I was asking based on the pedigree. There is a lot of other things that would need to be right before I would breed them.
> 
> ...


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## Debbie High (Jul 2, 2006)

Ken, Here's the problem as I see it.....you have a litter of 6,8 10 puppies..... if you are lucky one or two have the right stuff for your needs, so you keep them..... if you are not a well known breeder/trainer etc......who gets the rest of the litter or worse yet what if you can't sell them or find homes for them? 

I love puppies!!! Would love to have a litter a year myself. Enjoy taking care of the pregnant bitch, staying up for two days birthin babies and then spending the next 8 weeks doing nothing but babies. It's like a little piece of heaven for me. However, working breeds are powerful dogs and the responsibility of getting the right puppy into the right hands is something to be taken seriously. This is why I am not a breeder. It is cheaper in the long run to buy a puppy from an upstanding knowledgeable breeder...... even then it's a crapshoot. 

These are just a few things to think about. Could go on and on.......

Debbie


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## Andres Martin (May 19, 2006)

> No, I haven't bred these two dogs. Sabre is only 5 months old. I was asking based on the pedigree. There is a lot of other things that would need to be right before I would breed them.


I don't mean, "Have you bred them already?"
I mean, "Are these dogs from YOUR litters?"
...because if they are...you picked good pedigrees and you're on the right track.
If you'll be dedicated to your endeavor...breed these two if they are REALLY, REALLY good. If they are not so good...don't bother. You'll just be producing like the masses: nothing special.


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## Ken Thompson (Jun 9, 2006)

When I raised and trained bird dogs, I would only select the best male and female to breed from. There are many things I would look at before breeding. I have had as many as twenty three at one time. Now that was a big mistake.  

If I decided to breed these two together and a small percent are up to standard then hopefully the rest will be socialable for familys or guard dogs use.

What do other do with pups that don't make the grade.  :?


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## Jeff Oehlsen (Apr 7, 2006)

Quote:What do other do with pups that don't make the grade. 

Answer: CULL


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## Woody Taylor (Mar 28, 2006)

Jeff Oehlsen said:


> Quote:What do other do with pups that don't make the grade.
> 
> Answer: CULL


Yeah, that's the right answer. Even "garbage" mutts out of your litter might be too much for people to handle. How would you kill them (seriously)?

Just to play devil's advocate, Ken...you're new to these types of dogs, though I recognize your experience with hunting dogs. You said you want to be a great trainer...what's that have to do with having a litter of pups?

Just wondering if your goal is to be a great trainer why you'd not focus on learning and titling dogs in the sport/work areas of your likings, get a feel for the lifestyle and commitment (particularly in a house with working pups), getting ethically comfortable with the notion of culling for trait purity, having numbskulls take dogs off your hands if you're not comfortable with that, enabling people to view you as a service provider for vet, health, diet, training, behavioral issues etc...and if you do happen to do someone "wrong" (in their perception), just surf around the chatrooms (other than this one 8) )...you'll get your name in lights, highlighted, with "CALL ME BEFORE YOU BUY FROM THIS BREEDER!" in caps. My teeth hurt just thinking about it. 

The group of people from whom I'd ever consider buying a pup now is WAY smaller than what it was when I began. In all honesty, it would never include a newb breeder (that's not a knock on you). 

I don't know, just strikes me as a PITA of the highest degree when you will ALWAYS have the chance to get a better dog (and cheaper dog in terms of real money and opportunity cost) from professional breeders and will ALWAYS have a learning curve for training from which raising puppies can only detract. It's not like there's a deficit of breeders out there claiming to raise working dogs from top lines. It's a very small group of people in the US who actually can separate wheat from chaff and select a quality dog.

JMN(newb)O. Having a litter for me is up there with why I don't ski and why I don't golf: too much pain, time, and money for too little payoff. It's easy to get caught up in the glory of pedigrees...I get kind of jazzed about Annie's and it's a rush when people tell me that I should breed her...but at the end of the day nothing she throws, short of a freak genetic twist, will match anything that some of the people here and elsewhere have in terms of real GSDs, Mals, and Dutchies.

I genuinely struggle 95% of the rationale people use to breed. I mean, whatever raises up your freak flag is your deal, but subjectively, my thought is that you can accomplish the goal you've posted (i.e., training) without having to put up with afterbirth splattered around your mud room. And snapping necks on puppies who just a few hours ago had the neighborhood kids cooing all over them...


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

=D> I'm standing up for this one Woody. Well said! =D>


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## Jerry Lyda (Apr 4, 2006)

Qustion for anyone. At what age do you snap the necks on the pups that YOU think won't be good for nothing. I must say that some of this I don't agree with. If the pup is now a year old and it's not going to make the grade as a working dog, is it time to SNAP the neck? Please explain.


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## Kristen Cabe (Mar 27, 2006)

I third what Woody said.

To comment on the culling, though, culling doesn't always _HAVE_ to mean killing. Culling can be spaying/neutering and placing in a pet home, or on a nearby farm where it can learn to herd sheep or cows, or with a local SAR or drug detection team, etc. Speutering is also considered to be culling, though it typically means killing. For you to be able to tell if a puppy is going to 'make the cut,' so to speak, it's going to be more than just a few hours old. It's going to be several months old, and then you're going to have to either have it speutered and try to place it in an appropriate home, or explain to the vet exactly why you're wanting to euthanize this happy, healthy, beautiful puppy. And being so new to the world of working dogs, are you really going to be able to pick the ones that should be culled and the ones that shouldn't? 

Just another newbie opinion.


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## Jerry Lyda (Apr 4, 2006)

Culling does typically means KILLING. I know what you're saying Kristen and I see it the same way.BUT to newbies they understand culling as killing. We should be careful how we say things for the newbies that are on this and other lists. I don't want any of them to think that I'd SNAP the neck of a pup just because I thought it wouldn't make the grade as a working dog. I believe in limited registeration and in speutering. Not the outright killing of dogs and pups. There is places for people that do this. To me that's as bad as fighting dogs. Nuff said.


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## Woody Taylor (Mar 28, 2006)

Jerry Lyda said:


> Culling does typically means KILLING. I know what you're saying Kristen and I see it the same way.BUT to newbies they understand culling as killing. We should be careful how we say things for the newbies that are on this and other lists. I don't want any of them to think that I'd SNAP the neck of a pup just because I thought it wouldn't make the grade as a working dog. I believe in limited registeration and in speutering. Not the outright killing of dogs and pups. There is places for people that do this. To me that's as bad as fighting dogs. Nuff said.


Culling is killing a portion of an animal population for the purposes of breed management. That's the only context I have ever heard it used. Newb to working dogs, not newb to animals. I think it's inexact to call what Kristen and you are describing as "culling." Culling is a very explicit word with a very specific meaning.

And what you are describing is "ethical" breeding, IMO. But it's another PITA. Let's say you're a breeder with one good pup out of six. But you don't cull. So now you have the additional five pups you must feed, raise, vaccinate, place in GOOD homes, become a lifeline for Fluffy questions, make sure they're spayed/neutered...and are you morally responsible if one of those pups, in four years, ends up at a shelter and is put down because you had lousy buyers? That scenario is a lot more offensive to me than culling a pup.

Again, my overall point is that all of these concerns--plus the fact that there are better dogs out there by people who have done this professionally for decades--make me wonder why you'd ever want your own litter.


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## Guest (Sep 14, 2006)

Don't know why I'm jumping in here, but....another aspect of culling would be to NOT provide "help" during nursing, etc. to pups who aren't making it on their own. In nature, it's fairly common for not all pups to survive. There is a reason for this. To take a true "only the strong survive" or "survival of the fittest," you shouldn't remove a big, strong pup from the nipple and attach a scrawny, weak pup who hasn't found it on its own. This would not happen in nature unless the bitch did it herself. By ensuring that these weaklings survive, we go against nature, and bring weaker dogs into the world. 

Then, these weaker animals go to some suburban home where they are coddled and loved so much that they're bred to the Jones' (not you, Maren :wink: ) dog, just so everyone can experience the miracle of birth...and so on. I think you get my drift. I'd much rather NOT play God in the beginning then decide weeks into the endeavor that "this" puppy isn't good enough, and actually have to snap necks. 

For the record, I must state that I'm not entirely sure I could stand by and watch a pup starve to death, either  . I'm just pointing out another facet of the issue...


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## Jerry Lyda (Apr 4, 2006)

Woody I see what you are saying, BUT are there any guarantees that the dog that was sold as a working dog and is very good at it, will stay with that owner forever. No, we have no clue. As dog lovers we need to place the dogs in places we feel will be good for the dog. The decissions we make in any part of our lives we hope are the correct ones. They are not.If we do our best then we have been responsible. What happens after that we can not control.

You said- are you morally responsible if one of those pups, in four years, ends up at a shelter and is put down because you had lousy buyers? 

No you are not. You did the right thing to find it a good home. You're not responsible for that pup any longer just like you're not responsible for selling that working dog that don't get worked and for some reason it ends up in a shelter. 

If I would be classified as an " ethical" breeder that's OK with me. If you say it's another PITA then you can but I disagree with that statement.

You said- Again, my overall point is that all of these concerns--plus the fact that there are better dogs out there by people who have done this professionally for decades--make me wonder why you'd ever want your own litter.

My answer is because I or anyone has the right to do this. If I'm or anyone is not resposible with their breeding then they should loose that right.

You're still up there with my favorite people Woody.


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## Woody Taylor (Mar 28, 2006)

Jerry Lyda said:


> My answer is because I or anyone has the right to do this. If I'm or anyone is not resposible with their breeding then they should loose that right.
> 
> You're still up there with my favorite people Woody.


Oh, we're cool. 8) It's not a matter of a right you do have...that's not what I'm questioning...it's the amount of effort involved in exercising that right and the obligations you have to ALL of the offspring, especially the ones you don't want. I am lucky if I remember to brush my teeth in the morning, let alone facilitate rehoming of unwanted pups. If Ken's primary goal is to become the best possible trainer, I don't see the alignment with a need to breed his animals. If his primary goal was to be the best possible breeder, it would make more sense to me.


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## Greg Long (Mar 27, 2006)

I start to twitch uncontrollably when anyone mentions dogs and "rights" in the same sentence..but thats another topic altogether.

Everyone here loves dogs but if you really care about the breeds,then you will cull.But first you must work the parents and know where they came from and then hold back the entire first litter and work them to ensure they are suitable or not and yes it may mean culling dogs that are 6 months to a year old.
Even if you are true to this process it can take decades to get the things you want in a litter.

So I say dont breed!!!


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## Jerry Lyda (Apr 4, 2006)

Ken,I say breed them if you want. They are yours and no one but you is taking care of them. I know you and I know you are responsible. You are ethical and have great desires to be the best trainer you can be. The lines that you have deserve to be bred together. They are some of the best working lines. I know you will ("cull") find places for the ones that you don't keep for yourself. 

Ken if I didn't know you, I most likely would say don't breed as some of the others have said.

I have had to change, edit and even delete just so those two words didn't end up in a sentence.


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## Ken Thompson (Jun 9, 2006)

I realize Jerry is the only one that knows me and I also realize the concerns. I do not take any of this personally. I believe most people do not want to see anyone make mistakes with these dogs. 

When I trained bird dog and even racing pigeons, I found in order to be the best you have to have the best. Even as a newby it was hard to find these dogs that I have now. When starting out you don't know anyone so you try to get all the info you can before buying a dog. I feel like I have made good choices so far.

When it comes to culling, you have to be careful how you use this word. In my bird dog days, I would take a hammer to the pups that needed to be culled. If they were older, I would shoot them in the head.   

To cull a bird you ring their necks or just pull their heads off. My friend built a chamber and shot ether until the bird was dead. That didn't seem as bad.

Now that I am older and a Christian I look at things a lot different than I use to.

The bottom line, I love raising puppies and I love training dog. These dogs are so much smarter and powerful than a bird dog and much more of a companion.

I will always do the best that I can for the dogs that I raise.


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## Andres Martin (May 19, 2006)




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## Woody Taylor (Mar 28, 2006)

Ken Thompson said:


> I realize Jerry is the only one that knows me and I also realize the concerns. I do not take any of this personally.


Good! None of it was intended to be taken personally...I think it's a good discussion to have, even if you know your stuff, for people reading and thinking about the same things to see the concerns. That's what I like about the forum...I don't think we hardly ever post stuff that's new to experience people, I think it's important that everyone share their perspectives because I think everyone will, over time, pick up on things helpful to them.



> When it comes to culling, you have to be careful how you use this word. In my bird dog days, I would take a hammer to the pups that needed to be culled. If they were older, I would shoot them in the head.


Thanks for sharing this, btw, we should have a few threads on culling methods and pros and cons, regardless of people's personal feelings about it.


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## Sarah Hall (Apr 12, 2006)

I agree, Woody. Culling is important if your goal is to make working dogs. Too many breeders here in the US sell halfass dogs just because they don't want to have to make the decision to cull a pup or a whole litter that don't match up to what the breed needs. I remember my breeder, as good intentioned as she is, getting VERY angry at me for suggesting culling 2 pups from Carbon's birth litter. One died at 4 weeks old (Carbon's twin sister), and the other now is displaying terrible behavioral and structural problems. Yes, Carbon is the only WORKING dog out of his litter so far, but another (nicknamed ToBo because he resembled his oldest brother Toby in color, and his dad Bo in structure at birth-8wks) has shown potential recently for doing border work with his owner in TX.


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## Woody Taylor (Mar 28, 2006)

So I already got a very thoughtful PM around culling as a side-topic...basically saying that might not be the best thing to post as a separate thread under real names, etc. I'll not initiate one, leave it to the admin to decide if s/he's game for it if someone should want to do so. Still think it's interesting to discuss, objectively, but recognize and understand that a public forum might not be the best place to do it. I just basically like things articulated maturely, regardless of how they might flame people up. And I definitely think culling is a notion that anyone in the dog world should understand as it's been a historical practice that has got us the breeds we have today...kind of like buying hamburger in a supermarket, it's a bit dishonest to not understand where that package of red meat comes from.

I will not post pictures of my ether box.:lol:


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## Ken Thompson (Jun 9, 2006)

Woody, is there any way to PM a moderator and then have the moderator post all the comments without names? Then the culling issue could be talked about.


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## Woody Taylor (Mar 28, 2006)

Ken Thompson said:


> Woody, is there any way to PM a moderator and then have the moderator post all the comments without names? Then the culling issue could be talked about.


I live in a voting precinct in Mpls that is 95% Democratic, like towards the communist end of the spectrum. (which is fine by me, if the truth be told, because they think I'm the scary right winger even though I'm pretty much a bleeding heart.) If I post 'em, may need you all to bring up the dogs to patrol my yard. And protect my tropical fish and stuff from being captured and re-released into the Northwoods or whatever.


Let the admin decide. It's a volatile subject and if it's not presented clinically and rationally it's gonna go haywire, and people do surf this site who can and will take things out of context. Like my wife. :lol:


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Woody Taylor said:


> ........people do surf this site who can and will take things out of context.....


Woody's right.


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## Mike Schoonbrood (Mar 27, 2006)

No.


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## Woody Taylor (Mar 28, 2006)

Mike Schoonbrood said:


> No.


Understood. Table training, anyone? :lol:


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