Trialing a pregnant female - Page 2

You can trial and show and breed survey a pregnant female up to 4 weeks into her pregnancy. That is what the SV officially allows for. I am sure they have good reason for allowing it and years of experience to back it up. When a female is showing and obviously too big to trial, a judge will not allow it. With some older brood bitches that fill out quickly after breeding, show early, carry a rather large litter , or are out of shape a judge may not allow particiation even though she is still within the acceptable time frame. No judge will allow any dog, male or female, to participate at an SV event if the dog is in no shape to participate! Or will pull a dog at first sign of trouble. A pregnant female is NOT sick! 30 days into the pregnancy the embryos are about the size of a hazelnut to walnut and that first half of the pregnancy does not take much out of a female at all. Most will not even start to show until after 4 weeks. In the wild canids have to go and hunt until the last day. They may not have to confront blinds, hurdles and helpers, only trees in the way, uneven treacherous terrain and prey up to the size of a moose! In theory if she was ready for it a female can do BH & AD one weekend, and SchH1 & SchH2 the next or on two separate weekends, and KKL the one after, all within the 4 week time frame. Its a stressful schedule, for any dog, pregnant or not, but doable. In theory. We occasionally trial, show or survey a female after she was bred. Sometimes to meet the schedule of an impatient owner or buyer. Or with young females - because one can never predict when females are coming into heat exactly. If she comes into heat before we expected it, makes no sense to miss a heat if she is ready to trial and is fit to do it. Summer litters are just so much more pleasant to raise. The KKL could also be done after the pups are weaned, providing there is one scheduled at that time of year. Again, if dates do not fit sometimes it creates a need to scramble and make it fit. Has nothing to do with ignoring the wellfare of the dog. If any dog is not up to it (show, trial or KKL), for whatever reason, the judge will not allow the dog to be shown at the scheduled event. Simple as that. The worst for the handler are the hormonal changes the female might experience, which can result in lower scores, or a more unpredictable performance, or refusal to perform at all. Its the breeders risk to take. She may fail after all. The breeding may not take - maybe because of a tough trialing schedule, but it may not have taken under normal conditions either. Litters are resorbed all the time for various reasons, not necessarily because she was trialed. Another breeder risk to take. cont...

cont... In general, in the first 4 weeks there is no pronounced risk to the female, providing she is fit and healthy to begin with. On the contrary, it is a testimony of a great performance despite the influences of pregnancy. We just had a young (2 yrs in June) working line female titeld to SchH2 (overall high SG score) while she is pregnant and also breed surveyed to KKL1 with a special notation under VI (recommendations for breeding) that she is suitable to improve working ability. She performed very well in both events, especially for such a young female. Now imagine her performance when she is not pregnant. She was ready for the SchH3 before she was bred, but that will follow after the pups are weaned, because it is the sensible thing to do in this individual case. What is sensible and what is not is something the handler needs to decide, with a keen eye on the situation by the judge. One the one hand you want the dogs to prove that they can perform under all sort of conditions, on the other they need to be pampered. Pregnancy is a natural state. Not a disease! Or a hinderance. *** This female in the ad obviously was not bred in Germany, or under SV rules, since BH, and SchH1, and one show rating have to be in place *before* the mating. She does not need the KKL, but the rest, yes. Few places other than Germany would provide access to 3-4 trials within a 4 week time frame though. Curious...

I agree with Olga,in the beginning of pregnancy there¿s no problem with taking part in trials with pregnant female.In our country,it is allowed to take exams until the 5th week of pregnancy.Those guys mentioned in Kyle¿s message might have passes all the trials within just two weeks in the beginning of pregnancy. However,I agree that it is unexcusable to do these things in the last 3 or 4 weeks before the puppies are born.

Thank You everyone for your input. DH, Olga and Cage thanks for the detailed explanations. Well done. Kyle

"I'd prefer a good spanking :)" I'm sure you would Uwe :)

*chuckles* Your whip or mine, Uwe? ;)