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Posted by DOGOMAN
on 6/11/2009, 9:09 pm
190.50.149.148
Do you want to breed? Read this first, if you can stand my 1.600 words, then you are off to a good start...:-).
Dogo breeders are most often subject of all kinds of insults, despise, demands of perfection; they frequently have their dog prices judged by non-breeders or all kinds of Internet inhabitants, and are basically sometimes seen –at least, portrayed as- little less than greedy scumbags who want to make money out of peddling “inferior quality” dogs towards innocent buyers. They are expected to breed perfectly healthy, true-to-type dogs of sound structure, balanced temperament, fearless hunting instincts, etc, etc, CONSISTENTLY, at, let’s say, less than U$S 800. “No dog is worth more than xyz”, you read (like if dogs were a commodity). “Nobody should be expected to pay for a dog more than xxx”. “The dog wasn’t exactly what I expected”. “Breeders should take a dog back whenever is needed; it doesn’t matter if the owner was a jackass who had it for 6 years chained to a tree and turned it into a wreck or didn’t do anything with it. The breeder should take it back”, you read.
Well, I am not a full-scale breeder, but as a person who has bred a few dogos for quite a few years by now as a personal hobby to complement the pleasure I get from hunting with them and making friends, I want to make a solitary point in favor of the always-vilipended breeders, that scum of the earth. Which I know won’t make me popular, but since I know where I am standing already, I guess it makes no difference. And when I say breeders, I am talking in general terms, not referring to anyone in particular; just making a generic point. The obvious distinction between good breeders and bad breeders is left out because it is too broad, non-specific, and subjective (what is good for some, may not be for others). I would prefer to assume the honest vs. non-honest dichotomy, and for obvious reasons, talk about the honest one.
Let’s say an honest breeder, which we will call Alpha, has a mating in mind. He has a great b###h, named X, and a great male, named Y. Some people, probably non-breeders, would think of it as a perfect start. However, it’s a matter of perspective. Depending on where you look at it from, it can be an ending, and not a start. Good or bad, time will tell.
Let’s go 3 years back. The same breeder had 2 b###hes and 2 males; this time, the would-be parents of the ones mentioned above. Let’s call one of the couples, for the sake of simplicity, female V and male W. In order to avoid making this a crossword-puzzle, we will talk about this couple only, and leave the other one alone, assuming a similar story.
Both female V and Male W come from a good lineage with good records; are 3 years old, and the breeder is planning to mate them. Let’s see the story of both.
Both V and W have been raised, fed with the best possible food, vaccined, dewormed, several times ($$$).
Both V and W have been BAER tested and scored fine ($$$)
Both V and W have had their hips x-rayed and scored fine ($$$)
Corioretinitis have been ruled out (more $$$). Structure is sound, well within the standards. Mouths are both complete; bite a scissors. Type is solid, rusticity is ok. Temperament is sound and dual, courage has been tested ($$$; whether more or less, is dependent on location, facility to find places to test or hunt, boars to use, willingness to stretch the limits, etc). Gas has been spent, tires have been punctured in solitary dirt roads, time has been used, wounds have been stitched.
By the way, female V comes from a litter of initially very promising pups; parents impeccable. 8 pups were born including her; lets call this litter, litter A.
In this litter A: Pup 1 ended-up bilaterally deaf and proven as such, so he was PTS and buried at 2 months of age, after being fed, vaccined, dewormed, and BAER tested ($$$).
Pup 2 was a unilat, so he was neutered and given away for free to a hunter after…after doing all that was done with pup 1, except the part of PTS and bury (more $$$).
Pup 3 had a big black patch on the birth of his tail, so he was given the same treatment as pup 2 (more $$$).
Pup 4 developed as undershot, so again, same as brothers 2 and 3.
Pups 5, 6, 7 and 8 were structurally ok, so then taken to “boot camp”, to be temperamentally and functionally tested severely to know if they had what was necessary. A 1-week trip, 2000 kms, driving in an out, taking time from work ($$$) and family, and doing some field-tests and hunts. Since no 1-week test is enough, finding the help of a full-time, trustworthy hunter to leave the pups with, horses, food for the pups for 2 months, the whole bananas ($$$$). Driving back to boot camp at least once a month (time permitting; Alpha also has work and sons to look after) to hunt with the pups and see how they are developing (more $$$).
Turns out pups 5 and 6 don’t cut the mustard, but for different reasons. Pup 5 is ok, a good fighter, but gets killed by a boar. Shit ($$$).
Pups 6 seems ok, but he is never the first to reach the catch, and he never seems to get hurt or cut. Bastard seems to lack some heart or fire, according to the hunter. Or maybe he gets disoriented No way to know for sure yet; maybe he can change; maybe he is a late developer. Got to keep it there and keep trying; he is worth it (more $$$).
Pups 7 and 8 seem to be the real deal. So, pup 7 is sold offshore in U$S 1.200. Pup 8 is kept by the breeder, and is later going to be…Female V.
So, working hard, diligently and being honest, breeder Alpha keeps one pup for him / herself, and sells one. All in all, loses a reasonably bunch of money and time, but hell, he / she likes this. It will get better. It has to.
Male W comes from a similarly promising 8-litter pup; litter B. This time the results are better; after culling and discarding, the breeder gets 4 “clean”, a-priori breeding-quality pups (50%). Three are sold offshore in U$S 1200 each; the remaining one is…Male W. However, after 2 years pass, one of the pups sold abroad develops Wobbler’s syndrome, a congenital spondilopathy which affects cervical vertebrae in long-necked dogs and cripples them, normally after the 1st year of age. Common in Dobermanns, not common in Dogos, but heck, shit happens, doesn’t it? Breeder Alpha feels the obligation to return the money; customer is rightfully upset. Balance of litter B: 3 pups sold, 1 of them reimbursed (net balance, 2 sold), 1 pup kept: Male W.
Male W and female V are mated. Eight beautiful pups are born, after a similar process as the one related before ($$$$), breeder Alpha gets…Female X!
Out of a similar couple and process ($$$$), breeder Alpha gets…Male Y!
So here we are, back were we started. Three years later, breeder Alpha is ready to mate Female X with Male Y. Like we have mentioned, structurally and temperamentally correct dogs. Some lack of consistency on the line, it might seem…but nothing strange to any dogo line that is being bred anywhere else in the world, since the breed is young, the gene pool limited, and most lines are intertwined someplace of the other. Right? Whatever breeder Beta or Gamma might say, that’s the truth of the breed, and everybody knows it. Right?
Ok, so then, back to Female X and Male Y….
Female X needs:
Deworming prior to heat ($$$)
Sonogram prior to heat, to evaluate uterus and rule out chronic endometrytis (one of the main causes for female dog infertility, $$$$)
Vaginal culture ($$$). Shit, she has a staph: Cephalexin, 10 days ($$$)
Progesterone dosage (to adequately estimate ovulation, $$$$)
Exfoliative vaginal cytology (same reason, $$$)
Male Y needs:
Brucella test ($$$)
Spermogram ($$$)
Sperm culture to rule out prosthatitis ($$$)
Both need:
A whelping box ($$$)
A cage for over 3-week old pups. Last one was wrecked by the pups; those bastards, so Alpha needs a new one ($$$)
Food ($$$)
More deworming ($$$)
The mating is successful!! Eight beautiful pups are born!! Alpha is all happy and ready to lose his or her sleep in a couple weeks, when the suckers stop sucking, or the mother decides she has had enough of the little rascals.
But hey, we have 8 great puppies, so who cares? Maybe Alpha has done things well, and 4 or 5 of the pups (at least) can fly, can’t they? Shit, that one with the gray speckle on the neck….that speckle seems to be growing! It will surely be one great big black patch in a few weeks….
Anyway, breeder Alpha needs to go to the vet urgently. It seems one of his / her promising juvenile studs has just developed a bloat. Off he / she goes to get diagnostic and treatment ($$$$).
Breeding right and trying to be decent. What a rush; what a goldmine. Hop up, boys and girls, and be my guest.
Marcelo
PS: The events referred are fictional, but I am sure many breeders reading them will feel identified with at least some of the situations described. And remember the frustration they felt back then.
And for those who have never bred and think it is an over-exaggeration…again, be my guest.
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