Understand your dog’s breed before choosing stud dogs
One of the most important aspects of dog breeding is when it comes to choosing the perfect stud dog, or ‘sire’, for your litter of puppies.
Expert advice is always helpful for understanding your dog breed and an understanding of her strengths and weaknesses will ensure you have the knowledge necessary to make informed dog breeding decisions.
If it’s not possible to spend time with your bitch’s original breeder then it will be necessary to gather breed information and closely analyse your bitch’s positive and negative points. There are many experts in dog breeding and it is always a good idea to speak to your vet to see if they could suggest an expert breeder for a stud dog.
Look at the attributes of your breed. Typically, your bitch’s qualities requiring consideration will include her physical features such as her top line, rear angulations, coat texture, temperament, as well as many others.
A good knowledge of your bitch’s breed and her weak points is the only way to guarantee your dog breeding will provide quality puppies, thus perfecting the breed qualities of your bitch’s future generations and assuring the highest amount for the sale of the puppies.
Always focus on the areas where your bitch is weaker in aspects of her breed and locate stud dogs that are stronger in those areas to compensate.
Typically dog breeding follows two theories; like to like and line breeding.
Line breeding is similar to ‘like to like’ but rather than collecting physical similarities it means collecting the genes of a particular dog breed. Ideally, both approaches to dog breeding should be combined.
