Puppy Beginnings: How I Became a Dog Breeder

Host Christy introduces herself and shares her lifelong love of dogs and how she started breeding after studying with mentors and a local vet school. She briefly describes her dogs (Bentley, Sophie, Piper, Gracie and Phoebe), her breeding experiences, and challenges like parvo.
In upcoming weekly episodes she will cover why to breed, choosing dogs, pregnancy care, whelping day, the critical first six weeks, parvo prevention, the guardian program, and placing puppies in forever homes. Subscribe and join the Facebook page for updates and contact information.  Facebook: Of Hearts and Hounds

Transcript

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Welcome back everyone to Of Hearts and Hounds. My name is Christy and I am your host. Today on this episode we will be talking about who I am and what you'll learn. So, like I said, my name is Christy and when I was younger my parents had dogs. So my love for dogs and puppies began as a smile child. So I grew up around Dalmatians, poodles. I also grew up around a bass and a hound, and then grew up around some collies. So I grew up around a lot of dogs, and I even had one time had an Irish setter where I played like she was a horse. I always wanted a horse as well. So I got a newspaper and laid it on her back and hopped on there and said, Giddy up. Obviously she didn't go anywhere, but that's you know, so just the getting to know a dog and understanding them all just became at a young age. Well, when I turned 18 years old, my parents they got a Dalmatian and they bred her to a stud and had puppies. So I enjoyed holding the puppies, looking at them and everything, and but they all ended up coming down with parvo, which is what I will be talking about in a later podcast or in a later episode about because that is something you're gonna want to hear about and learn about because that is something that can kill a whole litter of puppies. So I will be covering that in another episode. Make sure you listen to that. We ended up having only one to die, which was amazing. So I did begin my heart for the dog breeding then, but over time it became harder for me to find the time to do that due to work and finances. But around eight years old, God opened the door for me to be able to be a dog breeder. So how I began that was I first did some research on it, on what type of dogs I'd want, to and what kind of puppies and everything. And then I talked to some mentors that of people who bred in those areas, and then I also went to the local vet school and talked to the reproductive people and found other information that I needed to know. So I did find out that you can't breed your dog on the first heat. You need to wait till they're on their second heat, and the dog also needs to be, she needs to be at least a year and a half years old before she can breed your female dog. That is a male dog, they mature at six months, so they're ready to breed right at six months. So so Bentley was ready, but Sophie needed to wait. So she was my first dog that I will talk to you guys about. So I did my research and I taught the vet school, I talked to mentors, and after all that I started realizing I can do this, and that is when I started thinking about the dogs that I will be getting and stuff. So I started out with Bentley, who is a miniature poodle, and he became the father to several of my puppies, and then a stud to other dogs. So he I got him, and then about a year after I got Bentley, I got Sophie, my cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and I bred her with him, but then after I got Sophie, it'd been about a year or so, and I got Piper, my miniature golden doodle. And she also bred with Bentley. Then once Sophie was a year and a half and had her first heat, she had her first litter of puppies. And in her first litter of puppies, I kept one of them. And I kept the female, and her name is Gracie. And she ended up becoming my dad's dog, but she still also became part of the breeding program. And I would take her to a to my mentor's house who had the stud that I bred her with, which was a miniature poodle. Then it had been about two years later, and I had gotten a guardian for another Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, which was tricolored, and she became, my friend became a guardian for her that dog, and I bred her one time with a stud. So now with Sophie, her and Bentley bred, and they had their first litter they had seven, but then they also had five litters of puppies after that. Then Piper, when it was time for her to breed, I bred her with Bentley, and she had four puppies. And Gracie, I took her, like I said, to my mentor's house and bred her with their mint miniature poodle, and she had four sets of puppies as well. Then with Phoebe, my other Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, which is in the Guardian home, she ended up just having one litter of puppy due to some health problems. So then she was turned over to my guardian, whom she lives with now, and that's her dog is no longer my dog, it's my guardian's dog. And I will explain more about the guardian program in another episode as well. So that is how I did my breeding programs as far as this first part of it. And so in my next episodes, I will be starting to talk about more into the breeding program. So these are what I'll be talking about on my next episodes. My next episodes, I will talk about the breeding, um, why breed, and why should you breed, what's your reasoning for breeding, and everything, how to bick out your dog, to breeding process, the pregnancy care, preparing for birth, the big day when the puppies are born, and then the critical six weeks of the puppy's life, and that's when the puppy's eyes will be opening, you'll begin potty training them, you'll also start socialization, and then you're also going to be protecting them in every way you can from Parvo. And I'll be going over everything about Parvo there. And then another last episode I will talk about in this series will be ongoing to Forever Homes. And then I'm also, like I said, hoping to talk about Guardian program in the future. So stay tuned. I'm excited to share the rest of these episodes with you. I will be recording these weekly. So subscribe to my podcast and keep in touch. And also join my Facebook page that I have for up Hearts and Hounds. I have that, and that will also tell you guys when I have a new episode up, any links on what I've talked about. And I'm also going to provide some breeders that I trust that would be great mentors as well. And I'm also will put my email address on there as well if you want to get a hold of me or write me an email. Thanks.