From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (December 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. WikiProject Dogs or the Dogs Portal may be able to help recruit one. If a more appropriate WikiProject or portal exists, please adjust this template accordingly.

Dog breeding is the vocation of mating carefully selected specimens to produce specific qualities and characteristics.

Litters of puppies and their mothers should have clean, comfortable bedding.

At its best, breeding is a blend of science and art. The skilled breeder has knowledge of canine genetics and health, and the purpose for which his dogs will be used.

At worst, breeding can be a slipshod enterprise in which the major concern is profit, with little regard to the health and welfare of the dogs involved. Breeding is often done by so-called ‘backyard breeders’ (the pejorative term for random or ignorant breeding conducted on a small scale), and ‘puppy mills’ or ‘puppy farms’ (larger businesses). It must be pointed out, however, that many excellent breeders run small-scale programs in their homes, barns, or back yards, and there are profitable large-scale operations run with knowledgeable staff and superlative veterinary care, so size and motive alone are not indicative of the quality of the breeding program.

The birth of a litter of purebred puppies is recorded on a breed registry maintained by an all-breed kennel club or a breed club. Such registries are not the exclusive province of show dogs, as is sometimes thought; the clubs of working dogs also maintain records of their dogs’ lineage.

Requirements for the breeding of registered purebreds vary from club to club. Most breed clubs allow for any registered puppy to be bred from once it reaches a suitable age. Some clubs maintain an adjunct or limited register, for puppies of purebred parents not deemed to have the qualities for showing or breeding, or who exhibit a fault. A few clubs, such as the Swiss breed club of the Greater Swiss Mountain Dog, the Jack Russell Terrier Club of America and the Mini Foxie Club of Australia, Inc. have additional, strict requirements for the certification of adult dogs before breeding.

Before breeding a purebred dog, health checks are needed, such as joint x-rays, hip certifications, and eye checks. The certifications needed vary from breed to breed and stud owner to stud owner. Some stud owners will not permit their stud to breed with a bitch with hips of equal or lesser quality of the rating as FAIR. However, if your bitch is rated as FAIR, there is still hope, if her parents are both rated as good or excellent some stud owners will permit the breeding to proceed.

Many critics cite the beginning of breed registries that require dogs to be bred from only the same breed for registration purposes--as well as those organizations' control over dog breedng--for increasing the number of inbred dogs thereby increasing the number of genetic disorders.[1] Other see the predominance of conformation breeding in the pet animal market as having a destructive effect on working dog breeds.[2]

A responsible breeder checks each puppy for health and conformation.

Snuppy, the first cloned dog, shows that it is possible to produce a dog that is the genetic twin of another dog, although it is still difficult and expensive to do so. In the future, it might be possible, and some people might choose, to create a twin of their favorite pet or of an admired champion dog rather than to adopt a dog or to wait for the outcome of a mating between two preferred parents. If taken to an extreme, this would mean that people would be able to review photos of breed champions, read their descriptions, and choose one to duplicate, which would be cloned on demand. Although the two dogs would have identical genes, they would not necessarily have identical markings. In breeds in which markings vary by individual, Spot the Second might have spots in places that Spot the First did not, and vice versa.^{[citation needed]}

• Article showing graph of increased inbreeding resulting from closed registries
• Rosettes to Ruin:An Article on the effects of conformation breeding on working dogs