From: dadams@cray.com (David Adams)
Newsgroups: rec.pets.dogs
Subject: Why choose a male dog? +help
Date: 31 Jul 92 16:57:00 GMT
Reply-To: dadams@cray.com
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.


You might remember sometime last fall I had a discussion
about getting a dog (lab) and in the process got quite
some education.  ;^)

I ended up not getting any dog because I could not convince
my wife that we should allow the dog in the house.

More recently my wife has had some experiences which have
led her to reconsider that position, so I have been looking
again.

But then what I want a dog for has also been changing.

I have never been interested in showing, but now hunting
is beginning to have some apeal.  "Oh no!" my wife says.

It is certainly something to think hard about since hunting dogs
tend to be more hyper--possibly causing difficulty at home?

I am going (45+ miles) to look at some possible candidates this
weekend, and this is one place I would like some advice.

There are 2 female pups left in this litter in a rural Minnesota
setting.  4 months old.  (Born March 24.)  Both are Black.

The sire is a US Pheasant champion, with a long string of other
hunting titles to boot.  He is black.  The Bitch is also a proven 
hunter of rare skills from strong lines.  She has a reputation for 
trainability, but she has not competed for any titles.  She has the 
"classic" friendly, trusting, Labrador disposition.  She is yellow.

The owners are not big breeders.  They do not have a kennel.  They
just felt that their dog was a dog of rare tallent who deserved to
be bread.  They are a hunting family.

The owners will gaurentee the health of the pups in writing.  This is
important to me, not in the sense that I want them to take the dog
back if it gets some illness and get my money back, as if the dog
were a car or a piece of machinery that didn't work.  I simply feel
that the gaurentee means that the owners take pride in their animals
and have the kind of confidence in them that they can afford to 
make that kind of a promise.

They offered (note it was their suggestion) to take the pups to a
vet with me (I assume I get to choose the vet) for a check up and
to answer any questions I might have, before I decide to buy the
pup.

They are asking $222.  (for one)  The price is not a problem.  For
a quality dog I am willing to pay up to about $350.  And it sounds
like this may be an opportunity to obtain a high quality pup.
(At least it has potential from the bloodlines.)  It does make me
wonder why they are not charging $223?  Maybe they totaled some 
subset of their bills that they want to recover.

So far this sounds pretty good.  Here are my concerns.  (What others 
should I have?  No flames please, I recognize I may be biased, unbalanced,
uneducated, or not thinking clearly, that is why I ask for your advice.)

There is no history of displasia in the lines.  I do not know which 
members have been certified OFA, but the bitch has not.  This is
due to the philosopy of the owner.  Aparently to be x-rayed the 
dog needs to be sedated (something I never realized) and there
is some risk involved.  I can respect this view, but x-raying for
displasia is important to me.  I guess I just have to weigh this.
I suppose I could ask to see the registration papers and note which
ancestors are certified OFA.

The pups are female.  I know this poses no quandry to many dog owners,
but personally I have a greater hesitation to have a female spayed than
to have a male neutered.  Why you ask?

This has to do with my philosophy about breeding:  (Warning philosophy
follows)

Let us make a conservative estimate that bitches used for breeding purposes 
by responsible breeders have an average of about 20 pups.  (How reasonable
is this?  I choose 20 because it makes the math easy, but if it is not
reasonable the logic still follows, so read on.)  This would mean that
10% of all female dogs are enough to continually replace the current dog
population.  (In fact they could probably support a healthy population
explosion.  :-()  This would mean that the best bitch in 10 should reasonably
be bread.  The rest should be spayed.   

On the other hand one stud can cover 100+ bitches in a two year period
(Assuming that responsible breeders do not breed their bitch every year.)
This means that the best male dog in 1000, or better said, the top 0.1%
by quality, of all male dogs, should be kept intact for breeding purposes.

The problem is that the time to fix a dog is when it is fairly young.  
(for a lab about 7 mo.???)  And most dogs don't really get the chance
to prove themselves until they are older.  Admittedly many dogs prove
otherwise before 7 mo.  ;^)

Thus, if I have a male pup from high quality lines, I would have no
problem having it neutered.  Inspite of the quality in its genes,
the chances it will be in the top 0.1% are relitively small (note:
given quality lines this probabilty would be greater than 0.001.  The 
probablity would be 0.001 only if the dog is chosen at random and
nothing more is known about the dog than that it is pure bread.  A
quality lineage increases the conditional probability.  Sheesh! ya
had to be talking to a statistician didn't ya!)

However with a female dog from quality lines, the probability that
she is in the top 10% becomes quite reasonable, and it makes me 
think twice awful hard about having the dog spayed.

I didn't really want to get into breeding, and worry about the risks
of having an unspayed bitch in heat.  So the answer to this quandry
for me is:  "Get a male, have him fixed."  That doesn't mean I won't
look at females, but I do have more to worry about if I do.  I would
probably have the female spayed at about 7 mo. anyway.

While it is important to breed only the dogs with the best qualities,
I feel that considerations should be much more stringent when selecting
potential sires than when selecting potential dams.  We can afford more
selectivity when dealing with the sire.  True??

--David C. Adams  Statistician  Cray Research Inc.  dadams@cray.com
___________________________________________________________________
       member--Minnesotans for Global Warming.



Ademdum:

I am also going some 30+ miles to visit another professional breeding operation.
This lady had two lab bitches for breeding.  3 bitches of other breeds (including
golden, and wirehair?)  She breeds each bitch once a year for 5 years.  Then
the bitch is spayed & possibly sold or given away.

It seems to me that once a year is to much?

The dogs are supposed to have lots of tittles.   I'll be carefull to look over
the pedigrees.

Somebody else faxed me a pedigree.  It wasn't exactly what I wanted.  It 
only had the names of parents grand parents and great grand parents etc.  
In the Monks book the registration shows not only the names but OFA numbers,
tittles, etc.  That was what I was really hoping to see.  (I don't relate
to all these names.)  I suppose I wasn't clear when I asked them to do that.

-- 
--David C. Adams  Statistician  Cray Research Inc.  dadams@cray.com
___________________________________________________________________
       member--Minnesotans for Global Warming.



---
--David C. Adams  Statistician  Cray Research Inc.  dadams@cray.com
___________________________________________________________________
       member--Minnesotans for Global Warming.