Tell me about it....Stud!

Honestly!  I just can’t understand some breeders and their understanding of what it means to own a stud dog.

For me, a stud dog owner should be;

• Fully prepared for what owning a stud can and often does entail, including the constant scent marking, potential aggression towards other males and naughty behaviour in general to name a few.

• Be experienced in their breed of choice, enough to be able to support anyone that may potentially use their dog anyway and preferably have a number of litters of that breed under their belt so they can lead by example.

• Hopefully be knowledgeable about health testing within their chosen breed.

• And most of all BE AVAILABLE !!  For advice and support and actually for the stud service itself, its kind of vital that bit :)

Just this last week alone, we’ve had more than a handful of clients that have progesterone tested with us and then at the last minute had to change their chosen stud to someone available when the bitch was ready to be bred or had to breed their bitch much later than we had advised.  This risks the bitch missing or worse a singleton litter because the stud dog owner wouldn’t / couldn’t be available on the days they were needed despite being given notice throughout the testing process, if not prior, as it was in most of the cases this week.

It really surprised me some of the reason we’ve heard have been given to our clients...

We only allow our stud to be used on Tuesday afternoons and Sunday mornings” Whattttt????? What If the bitch is ready to be mated on a Thursday? She has to wait till Sunday and her breeder pay their stud fee ( as of course all of these breeders charge upfront!!??) for her to have a high chance statistically of not getting in pup at all so late after ovulation.

“Only one mating allowed.” Don’t get me wrong, we can pinpoint through progesterone testing when the optimum time would be for that one mating.  But what about the thousands of breeders out there that choose not to test or don’t know about testing yet? This breeder offered no advice what’s so ever just stated, you get one mating and that’s it and of course the mating had to be at their convenience.

The best one was stud fee’s that altered depending on what day the dog was mated… really apparently we should all be on double time on a Sunday.

We’ve done studs in our PJ’s at 6 am and 11pm when a client has had to come for a mating right away or on their way from work.  We’ve been mid meal sooooo many times and had to rush back from Crufts one year with a stud client waiting on the wall outside on our return at 9pm for a mating with Winstone and we have never quibbled our availability and we work round our clients as much as we can.  I’m on the phone regularly and recently even advised the stud owners puppy buyers as that’s what I personally feel my responsibility should extend to for the best of my breed. Although, I do know sometimes I go much further than would be expected of me!

Contrary to some clients expectations of us, we don’t have a stud of every breed in our office, we can recommend studs in the area in some breeds if we’re asked though.

However, that doesn’t help for example one breed we are working with that only has a handful of studs available to her in the whole of the UK.  The difficulty tying in with the stud dog owner is making this experience awfully stressful for a fairly new breeder and a breed that really does need to be preserved or risk falling into the almost extinct category.

Please Please research your studs before you decide to mate, have some correspondence with the stud owners prior to your girl coming into season if you can so you can each share your intentions and manage each other’s expectations.  If you own a stud, please try to be empathetic to your clients.   It’s not ideal doing a mating during Sunday dinner but if that’s the bitch’s optimum time it really should be done.  At the end of the day, you’re being paid handsomely in most cases for the slight inconvenience of cold roast tattys.

Maybe the Dodo had really awkward breeders who just didn't want to get out of their cave too early back in the day and that’s why they really failed to survive?

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