(EP:33) Breeding Dogs and Raising Puppies- Things We Learned Along The Way!

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Transcript

Tyce: 0:33

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Bird Dog Podcast. My name is Tyce. I'll be the host of the show today. And, uh, thanks for tuning in and listening and hopefully we can have some beneficial information for you. Uh, we just finished up the Western Hunting Expo and just wanted to say thank you for everyone that came by, uh, our booth and said hi and saw the dogs we had there. It was fun to visit with everyone and talk dogs. We had some really cool mounts there. Um, from custom bird taxidermy, Troy Garner. He's, uh, one of my taxidermists. If you want to check him out, he does phenomenal work. He makes the birds look like they are alive and that's what good taxidermy should good should look like. So that was fun having them. And yeah, I just want to say, thank you. We had a bunch of stickers there. We had some swag there. Thank you to those that came and got some hats. Um, we have some swag. We're going to probably be thrown up on our website. Bird dog training. Uh, if you guys want to check that out, um, or you can send us a DM, we got some cool hats. I kind of have, I went with like a snow camo hat, just like a white hat. And I got orange hats for. Upland hunters. We got camo hats for, you know, any type of hunting and, uh, just some cool hats, good styles. I think they look good. We got some new patch hats that are pretty sweet that we just came out with. So if you guys are interested in getting yourself a good deal on a hat, um, Or one of our cool shirts, uh, you can go ahead and check those out. Hopefully we'll have them up there here pretty soon. So, um, also if you're looking again for a sweet dog bed, check out Kuranda Dog Beds. K U R A N D A Um, I think it's corunda. com. We're going to have a link in the notes. Actually, if you follow that link and go and buy yourself a dog bed, it helps us out. So if you're going to get a dog bed anyways, uh, just go ahead and get one of those. They're more of a cot and then you can put a pad on them or something like that. So nice. Cause you can clean underneath them. Uh, or you can work on the place command with them in your house. Uh, the dog's not laying on a hard surface and you can wash them easy. And, um, I like the anodized aluminum and I believe. I should look this up, but I think I get the 20 by 37 if I'm shooting from the hip for my kind of standard, a good standard size for like retrieving type breeds or large breeds like a short hair or a lab or a golden or a wire or anything like that. But I think they have some, you can get whatever size you want. They have some real big ones, but I think that's the size we generally run. Uh, they're pretty dang bulletproof. Um, Nothing is completely indestructible, but they're the best that I've found on the market. So that helps us out. If you, uh, copy that link, paste it into your URL and go ahead and buy yourself a sweet bed. And, um, we do usually the, he heavy vinyl is the material. And I have the blue, the blue vinyl with the anodized aluminum and they look pretty dang good. And the dogs enjoy'em. And again, you can work on place, work with them and take'em camping or whatever you may. Um. Desire to do with them. So anyhow, um, If you're looking for a Gunner Kennel, you can hit us up on those too and get you a discount on them. Uh, they're a great crate. Um, there's some other good ones out there too, but they make a really solid crate. They have lots of cool add ons and stuff like that that you can do. And, um, you can get a nameplate for your dog and customize, customization work. That is pretty dang cool. Uh, but I think that's it, uh, for right now. Again, you can follow us also our training websites, the Utah bird dog training. Um, you can check us out on Instagram at Utah bird dog training. Our goal, our breeding website for golden retrievers is filled bread, golden retrievers. com and the same handle for Instagram. My wife, Rachel sees she's in charge of kind of making sure that's all up to date. She helps me out with some of the social media stuff. Cause I'm a busy guy training and running a business. And, and, uh, so I'm grateful for her help there. But today I wanted to, um, have a topic. I'm just going solo here. So this is going to be more of an information podcast. So hopefully this will help you guys out if you're interested, but I'm going to talk about, um, my good, uh, buddy, Jeff Christensen. Go ahead and say hi to Jeff there. He meant, she said, you got to do a podcast on. breeding dogs. So, um, so that's what this one's going to be about. So if you're looking to, if you thought about having a litter of puppies or have had litters in the past, hopefully some of these things I share with you, um, can help you out now. Is my way the perfect way? I don't know. It's probably not the perfect way. Nothing's perfect, right? So I'm just going to share with you guys what has worked for me. And I've been breeding dogs for heck dang near 30 years. So this is kind of my methods, the way things work. Uh, the, the way I believe it should be done, um, properly, and I'm sure there's some other better ways. So if you guys have any input or tips or anything like that, go ahead and share them because as many of you know, you start talking dogs with friends. It's like raising kids. Uh, everyone has their own philosophy. Everyone has their own style of doing things and everyone thinks they're, they're right, but I don't claim to be right. Again, I'm just sharing you guys my knowledge. And, uh, that I've learned and hopefully that can help you guys out. So, uh, made little topics here that we can kind of go through, but, uh, let's, uh, start off with just, let's say whatever dog you have, let's say you have a. A Labrador and you want to breed your dog and you've never had a litter of puppies before, how do you go about doing it? Well, one thing you want to do is you want to look at the characteristics of your dog. Is your dog a barker? Does your dog lack and retrieve desire? Is your dog strong in the water? Is your dog weak in the water? Does your dog have a good nose? Does your dog not have a good nose? Is your dog a good, is your dog bittable? Does he like to listen? Or is he more strong willed or more independent minded? Uh, is your dog have not much of an off switch? Does your dog have too much of an off switch and you want a little fire in that? So when you're looking at your dog, you want to just honestly look at your dog. None of them are perfect, but you want to look at its strengths. You want to look at its weaknesses. And then from there, you want to start searching for a stud that will, um, Make the breed better. So we want to make, if you could take your dog and make it better, what would you do? And so you're going to want to look at those weaknesses and try to make it stronger. And then when you reach out to a stud owner, you're going to say, okay, my dog, you don't necessarily say my dog is weak in this area, but you could maybe ask the owner some questions. Hey, tell me about your dog. Does, or the owner of the stud, does, what's his water desire like? not like the water because if your dog doesn't like water that much and that dog doesn't like the water that much, you can have puppies that don't like the water that much. So again, you want to try to find that, that balance, right? So, um, there's, and there's some characteristics like my dog loves the water. Well, if you're, if you're trying to produce dogs that duck hunt, you want to breed to a dog that is strong in the water. Your dog is hopefully strong in the water. Um, and there's some things you can't really, you know, have too much of, you know, loving water. Um, I don't think there's any way you really need to balance that one out. You know, a strong retrieve desire, it's a retriever. So it should have a strong retrieve desire, no matter what. Um, so, but I would say things you definitely want to avoid. If you have a dog that has a lot of energy and it doesn't turn it off, don't try to breed it to that another dog that's similar, unless they're going to go into homes that that is a good fit. Maybe you're a field trialer and your dog, you like those fire breathing dragons. Sometimes they don't turn it off as much and you're All your buddies are field trialers, and you know they're going to go into field trial homes, and you're like, Hey, this is what we're breeding for. And people know how to handle a dog like that. That could be a good fit. But if you're trying to sell these dogs that you think are awesome, but then they go into homes. Where the people hunt them twice a year and, you know, 99 percent of the time they're just a family pet and they're driving everyone crazy because they got this energy they need to get rid of and stuff like that. You, you don't want to breed that, right? So you want to breed dogs more off switches and you want to. And when you sell those dogs, you're trying to get them into homes that you are trying to match them with. So anyhow, just kind of look, think of that, look at strengths, weaknesses, and try to balance it out again. And hopefully, you know, your dog and that dog coming together, create the ideal dog and those puppies have some. Uh, they're even better than the parents that were, that's what we're looking for. Kind of the same way with humans. Ideally, you want your kids to be better than you, maybe happier, stronger, better looking, whatever it may be. And so the same thing with dogs, really not much difference there. So let's say you find a, sorry, I'm clearing my throat here. Um, but let's say you find a stud that you're like, Hey, I think this can be a really good fit. Um, so I'm going to kind of go over just the standard protocols. So if you find a male, generally, the protocol that I've been comfortable with is usually the female is going to bring the female to the male. Okay, so if you're, the male is out of state, you're, you know, asking that person to breed to your dog, which is usually a female, you're asking. A stud, the owner of the stud, I want to breed to your dog. So, you know, what you want to do in advance first, let's backtrack a little bit. You're going to want to contact that owner, say, hey, this is my dog. Um, would you be interested in letting, you know, me breed my female to your male? And they may have different, um, uh, protocols that they have, but typically what they're going to look for is, uh, health clearances. If they're, you know, if they know what they're talking about, they're going to look for health clearances. Hey. Is your, again, they're trying to better the breeds or the hips done on your dog or the eyes done on the dog is the genetic panel. Is there any genetic issues, you know, hips, elbows, eyes down or any genetic tests that have been done. You know, some of your breeds have certain genetic tests that they are prone to. And so you want to get your dog tested. Um, so as we're kind of on that topic, we'll just go there. I personally use a place called paw print genetics and you can actually go onto their website. It's pawprintgenetics. com. You get on there, you can actually put in your breed, let's say Labrador retriever. You can type that in, you can put disease, inherit disease traits or there's some verbiage there, right along that. You click on that and it'll pull a whole panel up of the common genetic Issues that Labrador retrievers have are golden retrievers or German short hairs, those types of things. And you can go ahead and just order specific breed genetic tests that you want done for the breed. Or you can actually go ahead and order the whole panel. Um, usually if you order the whole panel, that's going to save you some money. And, uh, and, and then what happens is they will send you back a genetic testing kit. Usually what they'll do is they'll check the, the cells in the cheek. So they'll have a little swab. It looks like a Q tip, and you actually will take that Q tip, it's like on a wooden stick, has some cotton there, and you actually go up inside the cheeks, and you actually will roll that around, and sometimes you can push on the outside edge of the cheek, and you're doing a cheek swab, and the cheek swab is what they're doing, is collecting DNA. Cheek cells off the inside of the dog's mouth. And then you'll go ahead and once you've swabbed the inside of those gums, go ahead and put it back in a little paper bag and you're going to ship it back to, um, you know, Pawprint Genetics or some of these different universities that do it. You could do a Google search and find out. But anyways, I use Pawprint Genetics. Just use them for a long time. And then they will go ahead and send you back a report stating what the deal, what your dog's genetic traits are. And usually you're going to have. Um, clear, you're going to have a carrier or you're going to have infected. Okay, so, um, let's talk about one called ichthyosis. That's a kind of a skin disease that golden retrievers, um, have or can have. And if your dog is clear, it just means the genetic. Um, there's not any issues genetically with that dog with ichthyosis. If the dog's a carrier, it has, it carries the gene, but it's usually not, the symptoms don't show themselves. And then infected is where the dog is, you know, is, has it and, um, you don't want to breed an infected to an infected because that produces, Obviously dogs with the disease. And so, um, if you have a dog with, that's a carrier, that's okay. But you always want to breed a carrier back to a clear, or if you have a clear, you can breed to a carrier. That's not a problem, but it should always be carrier to clear or. You know, clear to carrier, obviously it's the same thing or clear to clear, but you don't want to breed carrier to carrier or carrier to infected because that could produce some pups that are infected that have that disease issue. Now, ichthyosis isn't usually a life doesn't usually kill the dog or anything like that. Um, in the back in the day, they used to just thought that the puppy had kind of dandruff when it was younger and kind of grows out of it. So there's some disease that diseases, that, you know, maybe not, Might not actually, you know, have long term serious effects on the dog, but there's also some that are a lot of eye issues like, um, the genetic eye issues won't jump into those, but there's eye issues that can actually affect the dog or cause the dog to become blind or there's actually like NCL stands for, I can't, I should know it off the top of my head, neurological something, which actually a lot of times will kill the dogs by the time I think it's four years of age. Okay. So you can go down all these different rabbit holes and study those different genes. But what you're looking for is your dog ideally should be clear or carrier in these genetic panels. And then when you do the OFA certification for the hips, elbows, and eyes, that the hips and elbows need to be done at two years of age. The OFA will not recognize them until that dog is reached in their book full maturity at two years of age. Once your dog reaches 24 months of age, you can go to. Most of your local vets, what they'll do is they'll x ray the hips and they'll turn the dog on its back. They'll usually sedate it. They'll shoot, um, an x ray of the hips. They'll send that into the OFA. The OFA will then send you back a report stating your dog is, is, uh, good. Um, as it usually goes from top down, excellent, good, um, dysplastic or. Mild dysplasia and I think severe dysplasia. But anyways, anything below, um, okay. I'm sorry. Excellent. Good. Fair. Mild hip dysplasia. I think severe dysplasia. Um, anything that says hip that you have hip dysplasia is not good. You don't want that. So if you have a dog that has fair hips, that means it's kind of on the border there. And they'll say, according to the OFA rules, if your dog has fair hips, um, if you breed your dog to, um, to another dog that has excellent, excellent hips, and your dog comes from generations of good and excellent hips, um, that that dog is still a good breeding candidate. If I'm being, um, Fourth right with you most. I don't like to see fair hips when it comes to breeding. I'm looking for at least good or excellent. Um, good as the standard, I would say excellent is you definitely can get excellent, but the dog, they don't seem like it. You see him all the time out there. Um, but as long as your dog comes back with good or excellent hips, um, that's showing that it's hips have a good confirmation. The femoral head succeed good in the pockets and the hip joints. And we're, again, trying to produce healthy animals that are going to live a long life. And dogs really don't live that long anyways. The more we can help that animal live a good life, the better. And then when we do the elbows, we're looking for. Elbows that are going to come back as a normal reading. Normal just means they look normal. So otherwise they can come back with, um, uh, grade one dysplasia. Gosh, I should have it in front of me, but they can come back with other issues. But if it's outside of that normal, then there's an L an issue at the elbow. So if your dog has dysplastic hips or bad elbows. You don't want to breed that dog because possibly those puppies or offspring from that can have those issues. And so now your dog can come from good lines and still have these issues. Diet can affect the thing, can affect things. Injuries can affect things. Um, you know, the dog being overweight when it's younger can affect things. You want to keep that dog as you are raising it. You want to keep it lean and, um, and, and not heavy. No, you know, not heavy. So it's going to put a lot of wear and tear on those joints as it's growing and developing. So keep them on that. Just nice. Um, I talked to vets most of the time, they'll say just barely see that little rib bone at the end, just a good little hourglass shape, barely see that last rib, not, you don't want to see multiple ribs, but just that last one. So, um, okay, so let's go, let's talk about anything about health care. Okay, let's say your dog checks out, you got the hips done, they come back good or excellent, you got the elbows done, they come back normal. You're going to need to get your eyes certified, and that's going to go. You have to go to a dog ophthalmologist that they're going to go ahead and dilate the eyes, go into a dark room. They're going to shine the light in the dog's eye. And then they're going to go ahead and look at the eyes and check them as normal or possibly other eye issues. There's things like cataracts, there's where the eyelids can actually grow in, the eyelashes can grow in onto the eyelid. There's a name for it, can't remember off the top of my head, but you're trying to, again, look, look for dogs, but just, hey, their eyes look clear. There's no issues. We're not going to hopefully pass those cataracts or a genetic disease down to its offspring. So, uh, so we got our hips done. We got our elbows done. We got our eyes done. We've set in our genetic panel and everything is coming back good. And the dog looks like a good candidate for breeding. Uh, if the dog has a good personality and you're like, Hey, this is a nice dog. He hunts well, I got all his genetic, you know, testing done. Everything's looking good. Then at that point, then you would want to reach out and look for a stud. Now, if you contact a stud owner and you know, it's, he has, he's done the same thing with his dog, which the expectation should be there's like, um, you know, they've done their health clearances and testing and everything looks good there. Then you want to, uh, Then maybe line up that breeding. So when you call them up, you're going to sound more educated. If you're like, Hey, I got all these things done. Um, I got this really good dog. The breeder might say, okay, can you send me a pedigree of the dog or tell me about the dog, the guy that owns the stud fee or owns the stud dog. And then you just kind of want to bounce questions back and forth, you know, like. Hey, my dog's really good at this too. I, you know, tell me about your dog and then if, if they line up and again, it looks like the breed you're going to be able to better the breed then, and the stud owner says, yeah, I'd be interested in, you know, having you breed your female to my dog, then a lots of times we kind of put that on the radar and be like, okay, um, you know, my female is going to come in heat hopefully, you know, this spring and then I'll plan to breed her. You know, to your dog, but I just want to get on the radar if you're cool. And, you know, just have that conversation, that relationship. If the guy's cool with it, you know, guy, gal, then you'll just be like, Hey, I'll reach out to you as soon as she comes into heat. Now let's talk about, um. In, you know, a live breeding and maybe an artificial breeding. So got a couple options. If the dog is, you know, close by or a neighboring state or wherever it may be, and you want to drive there, obviously when your female comes in heat, you're going to have to get. your female to the male to do the breeding again. It's usually the female is going to bring it to the male. Um, if the person has the facility, they may let you keep the dog at their place, um, and breed the dog for you or, you know, with you, they may say, Hey, I don't have a place to keep it. You may just go to their house, you do the breeding, and then you wait a day, do another breeding, wait a day, and do another breeding. So it can be a little bit of a process. Um, and that's what you're kind of, uh, you're going to have to prepare yourself for that. So when the female, um, I know we're kind of going back and forth just covering a bunch of this here, but your female about from when you first noTyce blood to about day eight is usually when that female is going to is the earliest generally they're going to start ovulating. And when they start, those eggs start basically ripening, um, to be. Um, you know, for the sperm to work their magic and have puppies, it's about a day eight to day 16, right in that realm. So roughly a week after you noTyce blood, that's about going to be when you want to going to get that, female to the male. So, um, some stud owners, they're going to require a deposit. That's really standard. They might say like, Hey, I need a 500. Uh, deposit to do this breeding and, and that's going to cover just kind of their time. Cause if they're keeping your dog and boarding it for a certain amount of time, sometimes just standing out there and waiting for the dog to do its thing that can take an hour or more. And you're just maybe putting them together twice a day. It can actually be more time consuming than you think. And then once the dog gets a tie, they call it, um, The dogs can be tied for 20 to 30 minutes, and sometimes you got to hold, you know, the male or the female by the collar so the other one doesn't run around and hurt the other dog. And so it can be a process. Now, so if they could take a deposit, or they ask for a deposit, that's just kind of normal. And then usually that deposit is deducted, you know, from your stud fee. Let's say your stud fee is, the guy says, hey, my stud fee is 2, 000 for my dog. They could take a 500 deposit. When the puppies are born and then the puppies before they go home, they need to register the litter of puppies. And before the owner sign or the owner of the stud signs off to the AKC, the American Kennel Club, if you register those puppies through the AKC, which you should, if they have papers, um, in order to say, Hey, yeah, this breeding happened. The female bred to my male and he clicks on the email, which is usually sent to you. Um, you're going to need to pay that stud fee up front and in full to the owner. Sometimes in the contract, they'll say as soon as the puppies are born and you have healthy puppies, um, I need the rest of the stud fee at that point. But usually it's before you give full registration or breeding rights. Um, to the, or you before you register those puppies in the stud gives you, stud owner gives you, um, the rights to do that, that that needs to be paid in full, but you can work out the contract with the stud owner, however that looks. So, um, since we're on the topic of live breeding, um, a lot of stud owners, they're going to look for. They're going to want your female to have a brucellosis test, which is covenant STD that can cause the male or female to, um, become infertile or the female to abort pups or can make, make the male sterile. And so when you're breeding that female to Maybe a male that's had thousands and thousands of hours of training and had titles, you know, maybe junior, senior, master, hunter, field trial champion, whatever the titles may be, regardless, if that's a stud, they need to keep their investments safe. So they're going to probably ask you to do a brucellosis test on your female to make sure she's not bringing any inherent diseases to the male and some vets, they can do that. In house if it's a kind of a fertility center, a fertility vet, they can sometimes do them in house other times it can take two or three days, maybe a little longer to get that test back because it's some blood work. I believe it's blood work they have to withdraw or draw, then they send it off to a lab to get the test done that takes some time then back to you. So, you know, I'd say as you're getting close to having. your female bread or her heat cycle. You don't want to get a Bruce Lois's test done. So, um, if you're doing a live breeding, if it's a live or natural breeding, you're going to have, you should have that done. If it's now an AI, an artificial insemination in the males collected in a neighboring state, and his sample is sent from there to your. that clinic in your state, you don't need one of those because the male and female never touch. Right. So, um, Bruce Losis tests can be negated on that. Um, at, um, at that level. Um, uh, so anyhow, um, usually what I like to do is also something that's going to save you time and headache is getting a progesterone test done. So progesterone test is going to tell you when those levels of progesterone are rising and when that female is going to start ovulating or those eggs are ripening, and then that's going to give you a two or three day window that, Hey, I need to get. My female to the male and the time is going to be well spent the male is going to be the female is going to be ready when you put her with the male. If you don't do a progesterone test, you're just kind of reading the male, um, hoping mother nature kind of does its thing. But if you do a progesterone test, which is a blood draw that they actually take, they spin it down and pull the plasma test. The white blood cells are plasma. They're going to test and put into a machine. And then that gives them a kickback and says the level of progesterone, um, that's going to tell you when that female is ovulating. So if you need to drive out of state and you know, you're thinking, I think she should be about day eight or I think she should be ready. You know, that's going to save you a lot of time. If you get those progesterone tests done and you know, okay, this dog is ovulating the next two to three days, I need to drive to a neighboring state to get her with this male. And then if the male isn't doing his part, then, you know, it could be something possibly wrong with him if he's a young male and he's never done a live breeding and you're like. You've done these progesterone tests. Like I know she's ovulating right now. I know this is happening. It should be good then. And the male is not doing his part. Maybe he's trying, but he isn't can't get the job done. Sometimes that happens. You may need to do a side by side AI where you actually collect the male and artificially breed the female, you know, next to him, collect him and put it in her. So, um, So again, there's, it's not just, I mean, you can just kind of put dogs together and hope it happens. But again, it's a little, it can be a little more involved than, um, what some people think. Um, so I do my own progesterone testing on my dogs, my females. So I have a machine that actually I, I take, you know, take the blood from the dog's forearm and then I spin it down. I would draw it. Um, I have to, it's called the canine P4 is the brand. They have a progesterone machine that is, that I've purchased and you buy these little tests kits. They're about. Test pieces are about 10 bucks a piece, but it's kind of a process. It takes about 45 minutes or so to kind of let the, the blood settle. Then you got to spin it and then you got to take it, take it, you know, withdraw the sample and then you got to mix it and then you got to put it in the machine and then you got to wait 15 minutes for the test result to get back. So. Um, but it is nice to have instead of having to run all the way up to a vet. If you're, if you're a breeder and you do quite a bit of breeding, um, you know, that is worth the investment. The machines aren't cheap, but it is worth the investment instead of having to run up to a vet's office, you know, one day do a progesterone test and then run up two or three days later, depending, you know, how far you got to travel. For me, it was about 45 minutes, and then I'd have to go back two or three days and, you know, just traveling almost two hours each way. And then at the vet's office and office an hour, it just took a lot of time. So I learned how to do it. Uh, myself and it saved. to know when that window is and when the female is ready for the male. So, um, so that being said, let's talk about doing an AI. So shipping the males, uh, sample they call a TCI. It's called like trans cervical dissemination. I believe it stands for, but basically that would be, you do your progesterone test with your, uh, fertility vet doctor. The doctor says, okay, we're ready. Then you contact the stud owner. He takes the dog, his vet, they collect him. They take the sample. They basically put an extender in it or something that makes the semen live longer. And then they put that on ice and they ship it to your. Vet overnight, uh, usually via FedEx or something like that. They ship it overnight, they open the sample, they check out the motility and the mobility, make sure everything is good. And now your female has had a progesterone test level, she's ovulating, her eggs are ripe, and then they go ahead and, and uh, basically put a little straw all the way up in there, put it right in there close, they'll use a camera a lot, and then they'll put the sample right in on the eggs or right at the, I think the base of the fallopian tube and the sperm go up there and you have a breeding. So that's one way to save yourself some time is to do a TCI, have the male collected. But you have to have vets on both sides that know what they're doing. They have to be able to collect and, and ship the sample the correct way. And your vet has to obviously be there to receive it. Um, it can be challenging sometimes whether or. the package getting lost or, um, getting too hot. But generally, if it's overnight, you're not going to have any issues. But we've had samples that get lost because of inclement weather or it's two days later and now the sample is not good. There is some inherent risk to that, just obviously shipping something. which can affect your female. And now, now you're female. The sample's not there in time. Your, your window is shortening on your female. So it never hurts to also have a backup stud that might be nearby if you really want a breeder, um, that you could either have him collected or you can do, um, a natural breeding or be prepared to jump in your car and drive all night to get to the male or something like that. So have a backup because if you do, you know. Um, a TCI and ship that through the mail that can, um, generally it works out pretty good and I've had pretty high success rates with my vet, but there is some inherent risks to that. Um, the next thing you can do is a frozen AI. So, um, that's where they, you know, if someone has a stud that. Might be dead. The dog might have died years ago. They collected the mail while he was still alive. The sample is frozen and then essentially they're going to send that sample. It's going to be in a, a Creole lab. I think that's what they call it. They just. Have the sample frozen there. They're going to go ahead and you say, okay, I want to breed a Joey that died 10 years ago, or, you know, he's still alive, but they have collected him. And, um, and you can actually have that sample, uh, sent to your vet's office. Basically like in a freezer box kind of stays frozen, right? That can be a little expensive because you got to send that package that keeps the sample frozen to your vet. You don't want it to unthaw. And so that's going to go to your vet. And then when the female is prime, you have to do the progesterone testing and and all that and make sure she is prime and then the actual little surgical AI or so they'll cut open the, um, The dog's Adam abdomen and then take the sample and put it right in on the eggs and um, and then hopefully you get pups. So Uh, the best results I have found is doing a TCI. So natural or a natural breeding is going to be your best. Fresh chilled like a TCI is going to be your second best. And then frozen is going to be your third best with success rates. So if you're doing a natural breeding, it's obviously nice. And you've done your progesterone testing. You know, the female is ready and the male hopefully is. Um, a seasoned male, he's going to go ahead and breed your female. And then what I usually do is I wait 24 hours, put them back together, hopefully get another tie, and then from there you wait another 24 hours and then get another tie after that. So, and you're just basically, that male is covering that female as those eggs are ripening, and that's really going to increase your odds of getting puppies. Now, a female I'm not sure how many eggs they produce, but if you're going off puppies, I would say a standard, um, uh, number of puppies for a larger breed, say, uh, you know, your standard hunting dogs, you're going to have anywhere from six to 12 puppies in that realm. You know, I'd say average is six to eight, six to nine, something around there. So those eggs ovulating a male will usually have about a healthy male will be in that 700 to a billion. Um, sperm in, in a sample. So that's a lot of, you know, your chances are pretty high that, that those eggs are going to get fertilized. And especially if that male is covering that female through that ovulation window until those eggs are past ripening and the female closes up, then, uh, you know, if you get hit those windows, you're probably most likely going to have puppies. Um, from there, you're going to. Want to keep an eye on the female within about 30 days. Generally, you can kind of start seeing the female start to sag a little bit, some transformation or body, maybe start looking a little thicker. And then hopefully puppies are on the way. Um, let's backtrack a little bit and talk about just signs of the female ovulating. So if you don't have a progesterone kit, you're not really sure what's going on. You're not really, you're just trying to gauge it off what you're seeing. Um, when that blood and when the female starts, um, having her heat cycle, the blood's going to be usually pretty dark red. Um, but when that female starts hitting where she starts ovulating, it usually turns to like a light pink, starting to lose that color, kind of a translucent light pink. And that's a good sign or, um, window time that, um, she's ovulating and then you can. Put her with the male and the male obviously, especially if he's experienced, is going to let you know, um, he's going to try to breed the female. Um, some males, they'll try even if it's early, um, if the female is not ovulating, but she's in heat, they're just going to get excited and they're going to try to breed her a little early and that may happen. But those eggs are actually not ripe. Um, some males, they just know they'll smell the female. They're not going to do anything. And then boom. And she, those eggs are ripe. They can smell and they can tell that she's right. She's ready. And they're going to breed her. So, um, so just because the male. try doesn't mean, you know, it's not going to happen, but again, it kind of goes down to, if you're doing your progesterone testing, it's going to give you that peace of mind, like, okay, she is ready. This needs to happen, or it's not going to happen, you know, over the next few days. So, um, anyhow, that's kind of just, uh, Kind of the breeding process. So usually after about 60 to 62 days, those pups are going to come and then, uh, you know, you're going to go from there. So I think we can kind of move on from, you know, health clearances, um, setting up that relationship with a stud owner. Um, and then, you know, why you want to breed your dog. You want to look at the, why, why do I want to breed this dog? Is it because I want to make some extra money or do I have, Or do I really have a good dog and my friends, um, you know, I'll be able to get these dogs into good homes. Maybe my friends want puppies. That would be the ideal thing. There's a lot of breeders out there that breed and do a really good job and know what they're doing and can produce some really nice dogs. A lot of dogs, I think that don't end up as quite a good of homes as they, people haven't done their health clearances. They haven't done their homework. And then in, in, and in return, those puppies are not worth as much because you're like, I don't know if this dog's parents had health clearances done. Well, then this dog could be a liability. I might, it might have hip dysplasia. It could have eye issues. It could just puts, um, it just doesn't give you that peace of mind as much. So you want to, again, you know, do your health clearances first. Again, you don't want dogs that are coming back, you know, the people buy puppies from you and they come back with all these health issues. It does not, that is not fun. And one, it's obviously the animals aren't going to be. Happy, they're going to be sick or they're going to die earlier, going to live a miserable life. So just do your research and getting doing it the right way. And then you can have peace of mind or confidence like, Hey, I've done this. The chances are these dogs can be really healthy. They're going to be really good dogs and you're going to have a good experience when it comes to breeding. So. Um, next let's say you've, you've done a breeding, um, you want to market those pups as soon as the breeding happens, you're going to want to, um, you know, start marketing them like, Hey, we've done this breeding. We should be having pups. We're taking deposits. You want to get all those puppies sold ideally before they hit the ground. Um, it's not fun raising puppies, especially if you don't have the space, you're doing them in your front living room, you're doing them in your garage and all of a sudden you have, eight or nine puppies that are six, seven, eight, nine weeks old. And they are a mess. They're going to poop everywhere. They're going to make a mess and you're not going to have fun with it. Um, you want those dogs into their homes, you know, at whatever age you decide, usually around eight weeks is a pretty common time to let dogs go. You want to make sure they're completely weaned off the mother. And that's kind of a, whole nother, you know, podcast almost just right there. But, um, yeah, you're gonna want it. Let's talk about, well, let's jump into this. We're talking about breeding and puppies and, and, uh, I guess we still got some stuff to cover. So about day. I don't know about four or five days, maybe a week before that dog is due to have her puppies, you're going to want to get your dog into an environment where those puppies are going to stay safe. When those puppies are born, their body, they don't produce enough heat by themselves to stay alive. So they need to be with the mom and they need to be. Um, in a warm enough environment. I like the, the, those puppies to be around 80 degrees. So pretty warm for those first few days is there, you know, being cleaned off and they're the mom, they're wet when they're born. Right. And the mom's going to go ahead and clean those puppies off and. Um, a lot of people use a heat pad or heat lamp. You just want them nice and cozy and warm because they can't retain their own body temperature. And then after about a week or so, you can kind of bring that heat down, you know, maybe a mid seventies or somewhere around there. You kind of want to fill the puppies, make sure they're just staying warm is the key when they get cold and their body temperature drops, they will die. So you got to keep them. Um, you don't want to just leave them out in their dog run or wherever it may be. Bring them inside, bring them into your garage somewhere. You can have a heat lamp on them. You can keep them warm and those puppies are going to survive. Um, very commonly when you have large litters, you're going to lose a puppy or two. Um, sometimes the puppies just are not developed all the way. Um, and they'll just come out stillborn. And usually if a puppy doesn't make it, it's going to pass away usually within the first, you know, 48 to 72 hours. And so be prepared for a little heartbreak possibly that you may it is mother nature. Some of them just aren't developed all the way and sometimes you can have issues with puppies just not making it. So most of the time after three or four days, if the puppies are all similar in size and Things are progressing along. Most of those puppies should make it. Usually don't lose many puppies before that timeframe. So, um, if your puppies are, are all doing good and moving forward, keep an eye out for runs, there can be a health issue there, but also if you have a large litter, the other pups will start pushing one out of the way. He's physically just not strong enough, the dog's not strong enough to compete with the other puppies or there's not enough nipples to get the milk and then that dog. Um, slowly just gets behind the other ones cause they grow so fast and, and then eventually that can turn into a run or it might be born more of a run. And so you may have to take the mom away from those puppies and individually feed that puppy. Or you might even have to, bottle feed that puppy, until it gets up to size with the other puppies. And that can be, that can look like every three hours of a day. you know, feeding that run or feeding those puppies, um, until that dog gets up to size. Um, eventually the puppies are going to start, nibbling on dry food and they're going to start eating that a little bit and start transitioning, around that four to five week mark. And then by about six weeks, they should be pretty much on dry food or wet dry food. And then, and then you can start weaning them off the mother. Um, around that realm, weaning off the mother, usually what I do, you don't want to go cold turkey, just pull the female off for a few hours at a time and it gradually extend that distance out, put her into pups, put them into pups. One thing you do want to make sure is those pups are eating, uh, dry food and they're eating. They're drinking and eating, right? So when they go to their owners, there's no issue. They're not still used to mom's milk, but they're actually, they've been at least a week or so or more on dry food and they're eating and drinking. And so when they transitioned to the owners, everything is all good. So, um, let's talk about, uh, Let's talk about do clause. We can go ahead and kind of rewind here. So do clause is a kind of an appendage on the upper. Usually it's on the front legs and the inside. There's a lot of, uh, differencing, different, uh, different opinions on that. Um, when it comes to dewclaws, I'd say it's transitioning now to kind of keep the dewclaws on compared to most, if it was like a well bred dog and people know that where they were doing, those dewclaws are generally removed. Um, so if you kind of saw dewclaws in the past, it was kind of like, oh, that breeder didn't know what he was doing or that, their mutts or whatever in those dewclaws are still on. If it was a well bred dog, those were generally removed. And the idea behind that is, you know, if the dewclaw is there, they can snag on brush. They can snag on weeds, get caught on stuff, and they can actually tear that back or, or break it or bend it and, and cause pain to the dog. I'll be honest. I personally, if I've seen dogs with it, I've personally never seen a dog. Um, with an injured dewclaw myself, not saying it can't happen, but I just haven't ever personally seen one. Now, if you have a dewclaw that's really, um, extends out a lot and can catch on stuff, then you might want to have that removed. Now, if you're going to remove the dewclaws, it's really easy to do, you know, and those puppies are, you know, within that first week or so. Of, uh, after being born, you can go ahead and just take, um, some really sharp scissors and just basically get, make sure you go deep enough to get the nail follicle and you're just going to go ahead and clip that do cloth real quick. Um, some people will kind of put corn starch on it or something like that just to kind of help stop the blood. Um, they usually don't really, they'll bleed a little bit and the mom will kind of clean it off. But when they're young, if you go ahead and just snip those off, just make sure it gets a little deep enough that. The nail doesn't grow back. Um, you can go ahead and remove those dewclaws. Occasionally you'll see a dewclaw on a back leg. I'd say that's really uncommon, but it sometimes can show itself. Um, the idea behind keeping dewclaws on, um, and there's pretty cool video. I've actually seen, um, someone that made it is if your dog falls through ice, it can actually take those. It's paws and kind of turn them in and actually use those dewclaws as kind of a hook to actually hook into the ice and have traction and be able to pull the animal up onto the ice. So I think, um, it's kind of changing a little bit like, Hey, there's, there's more benefits to actually leave them on. So most of the time with our breeding, especially our golden retrievers, we actually leave our dewclaws on and keep them natural and just kind of the way God created them and they can use that as an appendage to grab ice and pull themselves up. If they're. If they are hunting around ice and happen to fall through and the owner can't get to them, then they can get that leverage to pull themselves out. So, you know, I've the same video that had some dogs that didn't have to have do claws removed and they were just kind of slipping on the ice. They can't get a hook and they're trying to actually hook themselves on those do claws, but because they're removed, um, they can't pull themselves out. So there's kind of some pros and cons catching on the brush falling through ice. Um, I guess you just got to decide if you remove them or leave them. leave them on at this point. Um, but if genetically your dog has really big dew claws or something like that, you might want to remove them if they're not really that big and you don't think they're going to really catch on anything. You can keep them on and then they have those little ice picks. So that's kind of my opinion on dewclaws. Uh, I don't really have a hard and fast opinion, but, um, the trend is kind of moving towards leaving them on what I've seen. When you register, after you have the pups, you're going to want to go ahead and register your litter. Now, if you're a legend, your dog is an AKC purebred dog and American kennel club dog. Um, Hopefully you're going to breed it to another purebred dog. If you're breeding labs, you want to breed it to a lab if you obviously want lab puppies. And so what you're going to do is you can go on to the AKC website. I think it's akc. org, uh, American Kennel Club. There's going to be a place that says register your litter. And what you're going to need when it comes to that is you're going to need the dog's AKC number. It's usually going to be an SS, whatever, SR. And then there's an identification number that you should have gotten a litter registration number or your dog should be registered. Already with the AKC and you did this with your dog. And so basically when you acquire your dog, you, the dog you've now bred, but when he was a puppy, the, the breeder should have given you AKC papers and those papers are going to be like the title of the dog. And then you're in those papers. You're going to say we bred. Joe to Sally, they had seven puppies and then here's a registration certificate for each puppy with an AKC number. And then as the new, as the new owner, you're going to go ahead and write your information in there, send it back to the AKC. They're going to say, okay, you're the new owner of this puppy. You're going to have a registered name, which can be like a registered name is you get a name, your dog, however you want. A lot of them is like. Joe of the Midnight Sun. That would be like the registered name. You can have, you know, I just made that up obviously, but you can have this registered name, which is kind of long. And then, um, you're going to have the call name, which is like Joe, my dog's name is Joe. That's what I call him by it. But this is his registered name. So you can go ahead and put a registered name in there. Again, you're going to register the dog with the AKC. They're going to send you back an AKC certificate stating, yes, your dog is registered. You're going to need. Your dog to be registered to breed to another registered dog to have registered puppies. And so essentially you're going to start that process over again. So you have had your litter of puppies. You're going to get on there, sign in to AKC. Okay, here's my dog's AKC number. Boom, boom, boom. You're going to go ahead and put all your information in. You're going to put the mom and dad's. birthday of your dog in, and you're going to go ahead and it kind of walks you through it. We had five females, four males, whatever that looks like. You're going to put the sires AKC number in so they can link that to the, in the system, your dam and the sire together. They have these puppies and then that's going to go ahead and be registered in the system from there. That will then go to the stud. Owner studs owner, and they're going to send them an email and say, Hey, did this breeding occur? Are you okay? That it occurred. And then at that point, the stud owner has to click on it and say, yes, this did occur. And then they will register that batch of puppies. They KC will then send you back and. Um, uh, I think they're called litters, uh, puppy registration forms. There's basically going to be a paper, the paperwork for each puppy in that litter with a unique AKC number. And then when the puppies go home, you're going to go ahead and hand one of those to the new owner, and then they will register that puppy to themselves. So essentially that's the title of the dog. So whoever owns that legally has ownership of the puppy. Or the dogs. You want to keep track of that. You don't want to lose it. And you want to retain ownership of that. Um, a good breeder should have a health guarantee of some sort that could look like, Hey, I guarantee these dogs against against health issues, genetic health issues, like hip dysplasia or eye issues. And if at any point something comes up between, you know, 24 months of age, when you get them tested to 36 months or 28 months of age, if there is an issue, reach out to us, we'll either refund your money. Or we'll give you another dog out of another breeding. Um, so they want to get, you want to guarantee that when you pay a lot of money for that dog, that you're going to have a health guarantee that hopefully, hopefully number one, your dog, because they've done the research and the homework, your dog's not going to have any health issues. But again, sometimes things can happen. And so a health guarantee, it never hurts to have. Now, when your dog, your puppies are about six weeks of age. Um, you can go as, as young as five weeks of age. You're going to want to get their first set of vaccines done. Um, so, uh, you can take them to your vet. They're going to go ahead and do a puppy check. I'm going to check the eyes and the ears and listen to the heart, the lungs. They're going to look at the skeletal structure and then they're going to go ahead and vaccinate those puppies. Um, once those puppies are vaccinated, that's going to give them a leg up on hopefully picking up a disease. You can also want to have them dewormed. Usually you want to deworm at least twice before they go home. So maybe when they're six weeks and then just before they go home at eight weeks, cause that dewormer is going to go ahead and kill those. larva that the puppies have picked up and then maybe those eggs that didn't get killed, those eggs are going to hatch inside the animal. That next worming is going to come through and, and, and knock those parasites out. And so it never hurts to do it two or three times before they go home just to clean the dogs out. Puppies are notorious for just getting, you know, stuff in their mouth. And so they're going to eat. Poop, they're going to lick everything, whatever. So it's very, it's not, I wouldn't say it's very common, but it is common that they can pick up stuff or get stuff from mom. So it is important to, um, again, we're trying to make these dogs healthy, clean them out of parasites, get their vaccines done. So you don't have any health issues. Okay. Let's talk about one, uh, disease that's really hard on dogs. And most of you have probably heard it if you've been around dogs, but the parvo virus parvo is extremely, Deadly and harmful to puppies. And so you want to take it serious. Um, and if your puppies all of a sudden start throwing up and have chronic diarrhea and stuff like that, you want to be careful on where you take those puppies. You want to be careful, um, because parvo is extremely contagious and so you don't want to get other dogs sick. Um, parvo can be tracked around, get on people's feet, can be tracked into your. Your area where your puppies are at. And so you want to just be, be, uh, um, aware of that as it can kill your whole litter of puppies. And it's not fun to have to deal with puppies that are dying and you feel like you can't do anything about it. So a good pracTyce to do is just if people come in and see your puppies and they've had dogs, um, maybe ask them, Hey, have you ever had a dog with Parvo? You know, if you're coming into your whelping, whelping area and make sure that they're like, you know, everything is all. They're coming hopefully from a healthy place. You could put booties on their feet, or you could take like a bleach solution and just be safe. Just kind of some bleach water mixture, you know, spray the bottom of their shoes just to kill off any, you know, possible parvo or stuff that they could track in. Um, this bleach tends to kill a lot of stuff. Just don't spray it all over their clothes. They bleach their clothes, you know, or something. But again, you're just trying to keep those. Puppies in a clean, healthy environment where they're not going to get sick once they've been vaccinated and that first vaccine set, your doctor is going to give them is going to have the parvo vaccine as part of that, and that's going to give them a step towards the right direction. Now, could they get parvo? Possibly, um, being vaccinated only once generally, you know, wait. I usually wait about four weeks later, they're going to get a next booster, which is going to have the Parvo virus again. That's going to, now they're going to be inoculated twice. And then generally after that, you can take that puppy pretty much wherever, if there was a dog that happened to have Parvo, that dog encountered it. Um, it's most likely going to be immune to the situation. Obviously, if your dog, you don't want to take your dog around any sick dog. If you're aware it's sick, um, to spreads to possibly get your dog sick. Um, so just avoid, just like if you're a healthy human, there's a sick person. You don't want to go over and just hang out with that person and get sick. So same thing with animals, but make sure you get that. That first set of vaccines done. Um, I know some people that have had parvo, unfortunately get into their litters and they're going to go ahead and usually get their puppies vaccinated as early as like five weeks of age, just to get that into the dog system and get them a vac and vaccinated a little bit earlier. So the dog is not. Picking up parvo or other diseases. So the parvo is usually the main one to hear about, which is really hard on puppies and well, one can kill them or, or cause a large vet bill. So just be aware of parvo, get those pups registered. Don't wait too long or don't wait, not registered, get those pups vaccinated. Don't wait too long. You maybe wait seven, eight weeks or whatever. Boom. Something pops in there. They get sick. Now the whole litter sick, you've lost all this. Previous home, you know, all this work you've done before getting all these health clearances, you've done all this travel time to get them bred, maybe progesterone tests and all this stuff. And now you lose your litter. That would be just devastating. You're not being, you know, you're not going to make any money out of those pups. The people that are wanting a pup are going to be really bummed out, disappointed. And so try to keep those puppies healthy and safe. Um, so I think we're going to go ahead and pretty much wrap up on this. Um, hopefully some of this information can help you guys out. Um, I know sometimes I'm not trying to be a Debbie Downer with any of this stuff. This is again, more of an information. Podcasts, I guess you could say about breeding as some things to consider, you know, um, when you're breeding these puppies and how much work and how much time it can take and, and, uh, are we really bettering the breed or are we doing it just to make a couple extra hundred bucks, hopefully sell the puppies, hopefully get them into homes. And I, you know, you're doing it cause you think it'd be fun for your kids just to do, you know, that would probably be the, that would be the wrong reason if you're doing it. And you want your kids to have a good experience, do it the right way. Talk all this stuff that we talked about, you know, try to produce some really nice dogs that one you can be proud of and they can, and two, they're really healthy and they're going to go into good homes. And you know, when you do all this previous work, you can also ask a little more money for your puppies. And lots of times when people maybe pay a little more, They're getting a really good dog, but also they care more about it. Right. If you get something for free or you give your kids a gift that they don't really have to work for, they usually don't take it serious and they don't really care for that article as much. So we want dogs to be that same way. We want them, maybe they. You know, I have to put a little skin in the game. They got to pay a little more for that dog because it's been bred well. And you've done all this, you've put all this effort into, you know, producing a beautiful animal and you want people to take care of it, enjoy it, make it part of the family, take it hunting, make it their adventure, buddy, whatever that may be. Hopefully this helps you guys out kind of answer some questions for you when it comes to breeding your dog and producing puppies and putting them out there on the landscape. So it is really fun to have puppies. I mean, when they're in that four to five, six week mark where they're not too crazy and they're just super cuddly. It's pretty awesome. Then they become more work after that. So I don't want to discourage any of you of having puppies, um, if you're thinking about it, but also the same point, just want to encourage you guys to do it the right way and have a positive experience. So I want to thank you guys again for listening to the podcast. Hopefully this will help you out and, good luck, enjoy training your dog, have fun with them, and we'll see you in the next show.