Runt of the litter - Page 1

Hi,

Just curious.

My friend has a bitch who 18months old but she is small made (pls dont ask how small) (she is on the slower side of the standard). Her father is is well known top dog in Germany and mother is also german, thus she is also german. She has a good pedigree and even her litter mates turned out very well.

If she was bred to a very good dog is there a possibilty that her good genes could pass onto her off spring.

http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/gsd/bulletins_read/120387.html#120650

here is a link to more discussion of the same.......

pjp

Regardless of which dog she is bred to, she will pass on 50% of all her genes to her puppies. Good or bad, doesn't matter. They will get half from their dam, half from their sire. If you are asking if she could produce some nice puppies if bred to a very good dog because her parents are both good dogs as are her littermates, my answer would have to be - maybe but I wouldn't count on it. I'd first ask myself why her growth was stunted. Sounds to me as if this is a very small female since you don't want to disclose her size. I assume this is not a dwarf GSD?

The way I look at it she still has 6 months (at least) of filling up, so I wouldn't judge her just yet, but if will not fill up in time, than yeah she might pass it to the offspring. Good luck, I seen females that didn't fully grew till 3 years even though after 12 months the growth is minimal.

How were the other pups in the litter?  Were they all significantly smaller in size or was this just the runt of the litter?  But I guess more importantly I'd be interested in the other things that would be factored in when determining if she should be bred i.e. her temperment, workability, drives, nerves....those to me would play a bigger role and would be the primary focus on making my decission.  What good would it do you if she were perfect in looks and met the standard but had no drives, poor temperment or weak nerves????

A friend of mine bred her bitch who IMO was on the smaller side to a very nice stud dog who was larger and more masculine looking....the litter was overall a nice working litter and of "average" size in terms of the puppies sizes.  Only 2 of the 7 turned out as big as the father, one female pup was small like the mother and the other 4 were of medium size.  The pups are now almost 2 years old and the people who've still kept in touch with her that are doing things with their dogs have been pleased with the workability of their dogs.  The little female she had in the litter she sold as a pet on limited registration and those people did spay her as they were never interested in breeding anyways.

I guess it really all depends on what your breeding goal is but it's always been stated time and time again that you always want to breed the best of the best and hope for the best.  You really don't want to take mediocore dogs because you're increasing your odds to produce substandard pups. 

I am going to guess...she was pretty heavily linebred?  When you linebreed, you tend to get smaller dogs over time.  If you outcross a heavily line bred bitch on an unrelated male, the size of the pups in the litter should come up from her size. 

Personally, I love the 60 pound bitches.   People always oooh and aaaahhh over the large bitches, but give me a little bundle of dynamite!  

Veronica

I agree with Veronica,

Sometime's the smallest pup in a litter is the youngest pup and has had a developmental battle since birth.

I don't alway's assume it's a genetic defect.   I'd be more interested in the dog's ability's.  Sometime's there's a trade off and the dog altho being small might be strong in other area's.

JMO.

I'm with Veronica. I much prefer my true to standard females over the oversized ones.

It's funny when I have a litter cuz all want to know why my females are so "Small"!!!  They all stand 23-24 inches and weigh between 65-75 pounds.  And then they say they want the bigger ones cuz they live longer. People are so uneducated on the breed.

I would have to say give this female some time..I hope they aren't trying to breed at 18 months?

She is very active, well balanced and just about 1/2 inch short of the min standard. She is not as heavy.

There were 5 in the litter so its not a very big litter, the other 4 grew up well, she was smallest in the litter.

Zidane was the runt of his litter. Marlene