Ok to ask Buyers to Neuter/Spay puppy? - Page 3

That makes sense and I agree, my (albeit WL) GSD was a fantastic seizure alert dog. Don't think a lot of people were judging initially just confused. Good luck with training them. :)

KNPV stands for Royal Dutch Police Dog  http://user.mc.net/~jimengel/JimRead/KNPV.htm 


I would be interested to know what lines are in your dog, Fawndallas, and also in yours, Euroshepherd.

One of the reasons I've never done schutzhund is because all service dog organizations say SDs must NOT have any form of bitework training.

My male is a rescue, likely working lines, and his temperament seemed to be programmed to be the perfect dog for the task. When he comes into a strange place, he doesn't sniff every square inch of the room the way one of my females used to. (She was all about the nose, and loved to track.) He gives a few sniffs, then settles down, but his ears are moving constantly, taking in everything. He will sit for an hour or more at my feet without moving, but as soon as I reach for my purse, he's on his feet, waiting for the signal to go. He once lay on a rug that was just covered with snack crumbs (the con room of a conference I was at) and after me telling him 'leave it' never even sniffed the crumbs. He's rock-solid in traffic and crowds, and tolerates having his feet stepped on with rarely a whimper.

He's big and dark, and makes a great deterrent when he barks at people who've come onto the property, but the minute I let them in, he accepts them and wants them to play with him. He's got a great full-mouth grip, and at age 10, still plays a mean game of tug! I'm surprised at how good his grip is: his teeth are worn almost down to the gums, because he likes to play with rocks!    I try to keep him away from them, and give him other toys to chew on, but he still finds them (digs them up, if there are none on the surface)! He spent the first three years of his life on the end of an 8 foot chain, and rocks were the only things he had to play with, poor boy!

I'd thought my female was too high energy for a SD, but last summer, when Ranger failed to respond to the low battery beep on the smoke alarm, SHE was the one who woke me up, and absolutely refused to let me go back to sleep until I'd found the problem and fixed it. This was totally without training, either. I guess she learned by observing Ranger!  That was the point where I decided to to see if she would pass the grade as a service dog.

She's a cross between German showlines (Ursus) and American (Dallas=Kismet's Sight for Sore Eyes). The main problems I have with her higher drive is she gets very excited when she knows she's going to work, and starts to yip and cry. If I don't put a leash on her, she dashes out the door and runs circles around the car until I let her in. She also likes to get ahead of me on the leash, and we are constantly working on doing a correct 'heel'. One of my other dogs was heeling better at 6 months than she does at 5 years!   Once we arrive at our destination, she settles right down, though. She's great with people, traffic and crowds, and once I began her training, very quicly learned to ignore food in grocery stores and restaurants. She's really good with other dogs, and I've never seen her start a fight or growl at one.

Her brother is also a service dog for a boy with autism.





 

Good luck with your plans for your litter and also your venture into training service dogs. Could you please do a little more research tho on your early spay/neuter thoughts.Yes it is good to fix them, but just consider the effects of doing so too early on the dogs overall health for the rest of their lives.

I don't think she meant spay/neuter immediately, but that it had to be done, say in their first year or something? Unless I read it wrong.

I don't think non-breeding contracts are that uncommon.

Good luck with your litter

Sunsilver, is there a way I can message you privately?  I don't see it on your profile. 

This should work. Send personal message to Sunsilver

I don't know how large of litter this is, but it sounds like 5 of them will be going to either family or donated to a service organization, which would NOT be planning on breeding already.  You can ASK people to do anything, doesn't mean they will comply.

I personally don't know of anyone that has taken someone to court or been taken to court if someone didn't comply with their contract. I personally have felt that contracts aren't worth the paper they are written on, it just makes the buyer feel warm and cozy. IMO

 I hope EACH puppy turns out to be exactly what you had hoped and planned.

Best regards,
Cynthia

IMO  it's fine to request that buyers neuter pet puppies. Helping to pay for the surgery is a good incentive. The age is the bone of contension and I can only speak to my own personal experiences. I prefer spaying a female before her first season to prevent breast cancer. After her first heat that benefits wanes with every season until it is nil. Intact females are prone to developing uterus infections that are life-threatening and most pet owners do not want to go through having a female drip blood all over their house twice a year or having the neighbors males trying to get to their females.

I never asked most buyers to neuter males unless there appeared to be a good reason to do so - like humping the kids. If the concern is that the dog in not used for breeding, then a tubal ligation or vasectomy could be a good alternative to neutering. However, females with tubal ligations will still have seasons and accept males and there is no benefit as far as prevent breast cancer goes.

Frankly, I have seen many females neutered young including hundred of puppies that resulted from test matings. These dogs were followed for their entire lifetimes and very few suffered from any health issues that could have been attributed to early neutering other than they may have grown taller with less substance than if they were not neutered. Males won't develop a masculine head if neutered before they are sexually mature.

Not meaning to start another of those proper neutering age arguments. Just telling you what has worked for me and other breeders I know well. Females have been neutered before their first season for years with no longterm health issues. Of course some have developed bone cancer, etc, but there is no way to know that they wouldn't have anyway and most studies I've read have been done on breeds that may be genetically predisposed to bone cancer - labs, goldens, Rottie, IWH's etc.. IMO we need to know a lot more before I will forego the recognized benefit of preventing breast cancer in order to keep a pet female intact. I've had 2 females die from breast cancer, had 2 emergency surgeries on older females with pyometra, have seen more than a few females die while undergoing surgery for pyo. I've never owned a female that died from any longterm effects of being neutered young.

Thank you all.  It has been a busy few days.  One of the puppies started kind of wiggling its tail today while eating.  Soo cute.

One is still loosing a little weight.  I gave it some one on one time with mom this morning.  He looked to have more energy and assertivness this afternoon.

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Health Screening I had done:

Rose was screened for hip dysplesa (sp) both in hips and elbows.  Those passed as "good."  I had 3 vets tell me though that this is no guarantee she will not get it later in life.

She also had full blood work done to test for any genetic issues like locemia (sp) and such.

Rose also had blood work done every 6 months to make sure she stayed in health and nothing showed up.

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I do understand that there is at best a 10 to 1 chance of a dog actually working out as a service dog.  I am hoping at least one of these pups will pass all the tests. I have done my best to encourage that based on the breeding.  Now it is up to me as the breed to socialize and train them to give them all a better chance for this.

As for alert, I do not know if any will work out for that.  Rose is not an alert dog.  I have trained her to help me as I need it for my MS.  For example:
  She knows to help me up when I fall.  If she cannot, she goes and gets my husband.
  She opens and closes doors for me.
  She brings me my phone if it is ringing and I cannot get to it.
 

Sunsilver
Thank you for the translation and information, and the link.  Dutch working scene is a complete blank to me, I hope to learn more now that I'm aware of that.