multiable sires - Page 1

i have seen the akc allow registration of more than one sire. my question is does this happen often. is this a common practice and why would someone do such a thing. it must be unsafe.

I don't think it would ever be intentional. In case of "accidents" a responsible breeder would DNA the entire litter to find out who is who's. The AKC will register the pups accordingly. An irresponsible breeder (knowing the bitch was with 2 males) might just do eenie meenie when entering the sires name on the litter registration. And chances are they'd get away with it unless they just happened to be inspected by the AKC at the time the litter was in the breeders posession.

Most do it intentionally. One friend used 2 sires because her first pick was quite old and they felt it might be his last litter IF it took. Her bitch was 5 or 6 and had missed before, so she was bred to him and to one of his sons. After the litter was whelped they were DNA'd and all the pups were sired by the son. Another used 2 brothers, another bitch with traditionally small litters. She whelped 4 pups, 2 by each sire. There are pros and cons. It certainly would make sense to DNA a litter if there was the possibility of there being 2 different males in the mix. If DNA is ever required by AKC to determine parentage, I think there are going to be some very big surprises.

The one time I actually heard of it being done on purpose was because the bitch was old and it was to be her last litter. The breeder wanted pups out of her by 2 sires. Why would it be unsafe? Just asking... Debby

There are a lot of reason to do this. Some mentioned above. I think Blitzen is right, if DNA was required, I think there would be many, many surprises! Nothing unsafe about it. I went to a lecture years ago by Carmen Battaglia who talked about this. At that time, AKC was just looking into it.

Knew a breeder who oops had 2 males breed to the same female, and then OOOPS again, had a third male breed to the same female. DNA results showed one pup from the third male for sure, and pups from both of the other males as well, I believe. The female wasn't old, I think it was just accidental. I have heard of people using multiple (TWO!) studs on the same female if she were older. With DNA certification, I see no problem with it, personally.

As long as all dogs involved were checked for STD's and other health clearances I see nothing wrong with this either...if the breeder was honest and did the DNA checking as required.