Articles

Making the Choice to Breed Your Dog

With so many dogs in the world and so many finding a tragic end by being killed on highways or at animal shelters each year, are there any good reasons you should allow your dog to breed? This is a very personal decision. Most people are well-advised to make plans to neuter or spay their dog as soon as it is old enough to safely have these procedures performed.

However, some owners decide to allow a female to have one litter before spaying. They argue that this is a natural event that all females deserve to experience at least once and they suggest that this will somehow add to the dog's even temperament as it ages. There is no evidence to support this idea; such thoughts are simply rationalization on the part of the owner who can't wait to play with baby puppies! And, fair enough. Baby puppies are a great joy! Just make sure if you plan to breed your dog, you're willing to take full responsibility for the outcome.

Will you promise to find proper homes for all the puppies? If the mom has more puppies than she can reasonably nurse herself, are you prepared to help by bottle-feeding and seeing her through the rearing process? While owning a dog is a big responsibility, bringing more puppies into the world is even more responsibility and should be done only with foresight and care.

Of course, if your dog is purebred, you'll want to mate it with another purebred dog. This may be one reason to breed your dog in the first place: to help continue the purity of the breed. By carefully selecting the mate for you dog, you can increase the gene pool while still maintain the strict standards of the breed. You may find that you wish to become an official breeder of this particular breed and, thus, the income from the breeding practice may be another reason to choose to breed.

Beware that breeding purebred dogs for profit is a very expensive activity. The practice of creating and maintaining dog breeds has led to a high incidence of health problems due to inbreeding and/or lack of management for certain deleterious traits. Therefore, to avoid problems, there are high medical expenses and puppy care equipment required to do the job right.

So, do your homework on this before making a commitment to become a dog breeder.