Stud dog | How to Choose & Select Best Stud For You
Stud dog, The choosing of a dog embraces all the points already considered in the choosing of a bitch. As with the bitch, pedigrees are of vital importance—not just the names on the family tree, but the knowledge of all the characteristics of every dog in it.
In most cases, it will be impossible to fill in the picture completely, but every bit of available information should be obtained and fitted into its place.
Most beginning breeders start with a bitch and depend on outside stud dog service to supply the male elements when the time comes for breeding. There is a distinct advantage in this way of operating, for should your first litter be a disappointment because of the unsuitability of the stud’s bloodlines to those of your bitch, the remedy is simple.
Try another stud dog the next time you breed. Keep on trying different studs until you strike a happy combination that gives you the type of puppies for which you are striving.
Do not, however, try studs haphazardly. Make each choice carefully, and give plenty of thought and study to it. It is unlikely that you will be successful the first time, but there is always another chance, and another, and another. Keep trying. Never lose sight of the end toward which you are working.
If you are planning to buy a stud, wait until you can get a good one, and until you have mastered the other angles of breeding. The better type stud you purchase, the farther up the ladder you are starting, and the quality of the stud is even more important than that of the bitch.
In the case of the bitch, you have an endless choice of studs, merely by going outside your kennel and paying the stud fee. But once you buy a stud dog, you have a different proposition on your hands.
Selecting a Stud Dog
Do not buy a stud dog with the intention of using him entirely yourself. Neither should you feel that once you have bought one, you are bound to use him for every litter you bring along. You still have the opportunity of going outside and choosing any dog you may care to use, and if you are wise you will do this from time to time.
I have seen breeders ruin the stock of their kennels by keeping to one sire until inbreeding had been carried to such a degree that the pups were narrow-skulled, nervous semi-imbeciles. Even where line breeding and inbreeding are carried out by an expert, new blood is definitely needed periodically.
Therefore, when buying a stud dog, remember that there are other breeders in your vicinity. If you get a topflight dog, you will be able to derive an income from him which will not only repay you for the extra money you spent on him but will serve as an advertisement for your kennel among other breeders.
You will find that dog fanciers will judge your knowledge of dogs by the specimens which you possess and not by the complicated theories which you can quote.