My 3 year old has me thinking about breeding! Have alot of questions!!! - Page 2

Also your dog is not too big for show, he is too fat. He is way too overweight, and his hips and elbows are probably taking a quite a lot of strain. And he does not have a good pedigree at all. 

Thanx again for all the helpful tips and information! I realize my dog is over weight for sure. Bad winter and I'm working 10 hour days,and wife is about to get 3 degrees in May! We are looking into a trainer for Berlin and I have family and friends that have already asked for a pup from him and are willing to wait two years to get one. He's such a great pet! I will be getting hips checked again! And hopefully a good grade across the board!  Wish me luck!  I guess if things go bad I'll look into getting another male to breed! I no its not going to happen over night! 

Dog is overweight definitely. With being overweight, you have a higher risk of lots of diseases, including spine, elbow, and hip problems. He does not have titles, that should be worked on. Does not have hip/elbows done, that should be done. There's really nothing big in his pedigree, no one with hip scores. He has 2 in the first 3 generations that are titled that have nice lines. He comes from lines that have a2 or fair, some good and a1, but most a2 or fair, some a3. And that is from those who have had theirs done. What makes him so breed worthy? Everyone here will tell you how much they love their dog, and don't get me wrong we all favor our dogs. I wanted to breed my first GSD bad, until I grew to learn the breed, what makes a dog breed worthy, and knew she didn't fit it. It upset me, but the last thing I would want is to breed just to make money and maybe keep one little replica of my dog. What about the rest of the litter? Everyone here loves their dogs, but it takes a lot to really make a dog breed worthy and better the breed, not just breed because you want to and you like the dog. What does he offer to the future lines of the GSD world? There's too many in shelters and rescues who are from people who thought their dogs needed to be bred because their dogs are great. That doesn't make it worth breeding. Sorry if it's harsh, it's just my opinion, you can take it or leave it. He's handsome, needs to lose a lot of weight. 

StaticDean, I'll leave it to you to decide if it's good luck or bad that you post this on a board where the biggest fights is whether Sch. titled, breed surveyed, show lines are as good as Sch. titled, breed surveyed W/L.

I can't imagine an oversize dog, with no titles and no breed survey, carrying the white gene is worthy of breeding anything but pets for the backyard pet market. If this is your plan, good luck to you, but I doubt you get the blessing of many here.

I really like Ebay Drache Feld, pedigree and picture (Ulko and Karo). If this is where you want to start, title and breed survey your new pup and breed her to a titled and breed surveyed male.

jmo,
Rik

StaticDean, not only does your dog carry the white gene but also blue, you may just want to keep him as a great pet,
and go out and look for a stud that has a similar pedigree/bloodline as your female

What is funny is, plenty of regular posters on this very board that some
have given the old virtual "high fives" to have bred litters-thats right, not just
one litter, litterS of puppies from untitled and untested dogs, and hell, they 
have even done inbreedings of father to daughter, and bred dogs that they
knew could not pass any hip/elbow certification!
So hey, let's not jump on this guy too much, because there is a shitload
of  "back yard breeders" amongst us.

That said, this pasted below is probably one of the most intelligent and honest 
posts I have seen Brittany put on this board. It should be made a "sticky" IMO.
Hell, even Brittany has at least done BH's on not just one dog, two!
That's more than some of the BYB's that people seem to think are so wonderful!


 

StaticDean, Let me first say welcome to the forum :)  Bhaugh is right. This forum is surrounded by tough individuals who in fact aren't afraid to express themselves, but do not mistake that as a threat but as an educational POV.  One of the biggest mistakes that I've made in my life is to breed my female who is now deceased. Zambi had a decent pedigree with Titled and show rated parents. You can check her out by going to her pedigree page at http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=442063-zambi-von-haus-barkus Her Hips/elbows were marked as good and normal under OFA. Go to OFA's website and you will see. She obtained a show rating of G, not because theirs anything structurally wrong with her... she had longer length of coat. I've trialled her twice and received 2 BH's from her. I bred her to a beautiful SchH3 V bodied male whom I instantly fell in love with.The stud dog's temperament was flawless, and liked to work. I originally bred her to get a foundation female, or a male that I can use as a future stud dog... hoping that I can get an identical appearance of the father. It didn't seem to happen that way as the male that I kept back ears did not fully erected and the female has EPI. To get to the point Zambi had bad allergies. At the time I was completely ignorant about genetics and breeding. I had people here telling me not to breed her, and I did all thanks to my stubbornness nature. Zambi would have an occasional allergy related flareup where her ears would be bombarded with black tar like substance, and the skin would be red raw. Sometimes it gets bad enough where her ears would bleed from the excessive itching. On 8/17/12 Zambi died from an allergy related condition that reached to her brain. She had encephalitis related symptoms. It's OK to be bias about your dogs. We all think that our dogs are the best, but when it comes down to the reproduction the bias behavior needs to go away, and honesty needs to play a big role in the decisions of breeding an animal. You are about to bring life to this tough world. To breed you should have some knowledge about genetics; to know the difference between genetically health related to non-related. You should know at least basic veterinary medicine as your puppy buyers may occasionally call you up for medical related questions. You should know the standards: http://www.germanshepherddogs.org/sv-standard/. Having a dog over 100lbs does not meet up to the SV standards, and most likely would not get a breed survey. You should have goals that you want to achieve in the breed. To thrive in Improving the quality, not quantity. We have enough pure bred German Shepherds being tossed into the shelters every single day. Many of them are euthanized because theirs just too many of them in pounds/shelters. Base on what you wrote about your dog... he sounds like a very good pet quality dog, and nothing more.