The most important question to ask yourself
is why do you want to breed her? I have lost a
bitch in a c-section -- it broke my heart. Others have
lost them to infection after normal deliveries, or
had entire litters that die within days due to
bacterial or viral infections. For all the joys, there
can be tremendous heartbreak involved, and it's
outrageously expensive.
Obviously you love her, so you need to weigh
the desire to breed her with the risks. Do you
want a dog just like her? Half of the pups' DNA
is going to be from Dad, who you probably don't
even know yet
If you want another dog just
like her, your best bet is to go back to her breeder
and get a close relation.
It's great that you won't consider breeding her
without the proper health screening, but do you know
the health testing results of her parents and grandparents,
or at least where they are now and how long others in
her line have lived and what they died from? Do you
know what their temperaments were like? If she has
one grandparent with a nasty disposition, and you
breed her to a dog with one or two parents with bad
dispositions, you could end up with some very
troubled pups, no matter what a sweetheart she is or
the stud dog appears to be. Likewise, if the grandparents or
aunts and uncles have hip dysplasia or heart disease,
this may point to problems she could pass on to her
puppies even though she shows no signs herself
of these problems. You will need to find out this
information about any dog you consider breeding
to as well.
Making good breeding decisions is really complicated
if you do it right -- though many just breed to whoever
the number one dog is at any given time, you really do
want to make sure that that dog will not double up
negative qualities that she carries.
You want people who take her puppies to be as happy
with them as you are with her, and you owe those
puppies the longest, healthiest lives possible. Unless you
have the information to make an educated guess as
to what she will produce (based on the dogs she comes
down from) you can't make the decision in an informed manner.
Most important of all, you need to be willing to take
every single puppy back at any time for the rest of its
life. . You can be convinced the dog is living in paradise and then
both its owners are killed in a car wreck and their relatives
want no part of a 9 year old. Your life may be very different
9 years from now but you will be obligated to step up and
take responsibility.
I have a friend who hasn't had a "return" in 10 years, and
within three months she got an 8 and a 9 year old back.
