Females - Page 1

Am i wrong in assuming that the female does not count as much as the male when breeding?

Thanks Judy It just seems to me that the male always get the attention.

Yes, you are incorrect.  The mother contributes 50% of the genetics and ALL of the raising/nurturing (excluding contributions from humans of course).  Dad doesn't help raise the puppies.  So in that way, mom contributes *more than* 50% of what the puppy will become.  

The Males get more of the attention because MOST people want to show/work a male...Mainly because a female has Heat Cycles and therefore has a change that is not always condusive to going places and working with the same mind set as a male...
I personally have my own criteria of which a female must meet for me to want to work her and therefore to breed her...If my females don't work and don't work well...Then I won't use them for breeding...
I also think a GOOD Female is the hardest thing to find...I mean...I can find a good male anywhere and all I have to do is pay a Stud Fee...
I am very picky about my females and therefore many of them don't meet what I'm looking for when I'm looking for a good breeder...
I mean in this day and age...Since you're going to pay a good price for one anyways...I demand it all...and am willing to wait for what I want...
If your goal is to help the breed...then we must be very selective which dogs we breed and which ones we don't...
MOST of the time...and let me repeat...MOST of the time...A good breeding female...one that produces well...Is one that is a good working dog...Good Temperament...and everything else we look for in a good German Shepherd Dog...

~Bob~

It is 50/50, both give equal to the litter.

Genes are inherited in pairs, one half of each pair coming from each parent. It is a random pairing which explains why siblings often look and produce differently. They have inherited similar, but not identical gene pools from their parents.

one thing to bear in mind, you can get far more offspring from a male than a female, hence even though the female probably plays a more important part, because the pups learn from mother, you can spread more DNA via a male.

Another reason males get more attention is that they have the ability to contribute more to the breed in numbers. In a lifetime, a female can produce maybe 20-30 pups (I know some will produce more, bigger litters, etc, just an average)whereas a male can produce way more. If it is a popular, sire, that is. So the impact can be bigger.

Personally the female is what I look at first, since she will imprint her personality on the litter for 7-8 weeks. The last 4 dogs we bought were based solely on the female, we told the breeder we'd take whatever she produced (we knew the breeder had a number of really nice sires she was looking into), as long as the sire was good with the breeder it was good with us. We couldn't be happier with all 3 of the dogs. 

Annette

Thank you it now makes sense to me