Question about BC puppy

[SincereArtisan]

Journey, my first response was a remark on the BREEDING being irresponsible. B-R-E-E-D-I-N-G, as in BREEDER. Not the OP, or her dog. It is evident from her post that she was not the breeder of her pup. I believe the OP is doing a wonderful job with her pup, and asking all the right questions....

 

I agree with Eileen, the third breeding was implied. And reproductive specialist or not, I don't believe that a heat has the same effect on a dog mating, carrying, whelping, and nursing a litter of puppies.

[juliepoudrier]

I am not (nor was I ever) disputing whether back-to-back (-to back?) breedings are healthy for the bitch. My responses came from the heartfelt belief (as stated here at a least a gazillion times) that border collies should be bred for the right reasons. The fact of multiple breedings in this case (even if the third litter isn't back to back or is another litter entirely) smacks of milling and not of responsible breeding. If the OP wishes to correct that perception and tell us these are working-bred dogs and the owners preferred to have their excellent working bitch out of commission all at once (hence the breedings on consecutive heats), then I might feel differently, although even if the bitch is an excellent working dog, I would consider it irresponsible to breed successively unless there was a prior litter at some point that proved the cross was a good one. Churning out a bunch of puppies in the space of a year certainly doesn't give a person time to prove the cross, and if we aren't going to be hypocrites, then it's only right that we point out the multiple breedings as a red flag of irresponsible breeding. If some of you have a problem with that, well, too bad. It's the way I see it.

 

To the OP,

I am in the process of raising multiple youngsters (one who will be two at the end of January and two who will be two in mid-July). I knew what I was getting into, and yes, it's more work in that you'll have to make sure you have plenty of time to spend *individual time* with each youngster if you want to bring out their full potential and not just have a bunch of hoodlums running around your yard. I don't actually recommend doing it except for the most dedicated of owners because it is more work, but only you can decide if you're up to that. Mine did (do) make great playmates for one another, but I had to be careful that they didn't tune me out in favor of their young doggy buddies. My "ace in the hole" was that these three are all working stockdogs and I control access to the stock, so I am "doG" so to speak as I control the *best thing* in their lives and so am able to be a little more free with their unstructured time. Does that make sense? They all get plenty of one-on-one with me when we're working stock, so I haven't had to worry as much about them choosing the other dog over me (which is one of the big concerns of raising two pups together), but that doesn't mean I haven't had to spend time making sure they keep me in the picture too, outside of working stock. The big step is recognizing the pitfalls in raising two youngsters together and then being proactive to avoid them. If you think you can do that, then you shouldn't have any real problems.

 

The comments about having two close together when they reach old age is a valid one, but I think we all realize that we will have to deal with the deaths of our beloved pets, and I'm sure I'll be facing that soon enough, but I won't let the pain of losing one or two close together prevent me from having them. Many of us in multiple dog households face this issue (I have several older dogs: 13, 11.5, 10.5, followed by some middle aged dogs, one 9, one nearly 8, and one 6). The older group could go in quick succession and I understand that. It's not something I look forward to, but it never was really a consideration in whether I added another dog.

 

Good luck with whatever you decide.

 

J.

[Eileen Stein]

Journey, sorry I wasn't clear. I was hoping for a reference to something published, or at least quoted material in context from specialists, rather than just names.

[mom2lillie]

Thank you all for your replies. I wanted honest answers & have been reading this board long enough to know what I was getting into - haha. I think we'll hold off on another pup for now. Maybe once we get through Jack's adolescent stage we'll consider it again. We are just soooo amazed by him that we want another - but can definitely wait. As for my situation, I am a stay-at-home mom so I am home most of every day. I also have a large, fenced yard for Jack to run. Obviously I also walk him everyday on-leash. As I said before, we are trying to do right by him. We definitely did our homework before we got him - but reading everything still doesn't quite prepare you for their endless energy. Basically every night is 2 hours of throwing the ball & him retrieving it until he finally lays down with his bear. He is the most fun I've ever had with a dog. We had a Sheltie before him & I had an American Eskimo before that. I am enjoying the quiet with Jack so far - he howls every now and then but so far doesn't really bark (except at puppy class with his friends!).

 

On the rescue front - I would LOVE LOVE to rescue an older BC. I am just terrified since I have an almost 4 yr old. She is a great kid, but she is a kid & a little rough. Jack has grown up with her & knows what to expect. The two of them torture each other Quite fun to watch actually. I would be afraid an older dog might not take to her as well.

 

I would like to address everyone's concerns about the breeders, while I admit I am certainly no expert. I have no idea when the next litter is coming. I assume there will be one - have no idea if it will be tomorrow or 3 years from now. I haven't asked. I also haven't talked to the breeder since this litter was conceived - I only received an email saying they have a new litter. I am sure they have their reasons for having another...I don't know what they are. IF we get another pup from them, these will be questions I ask. I don't believe their dogs are working dogs (unless you count a tennis ball) but I do know their parents are. We happen to be friends with the folks that bred the momma & they are highly regarded in this area. They no longer breed or train (they used to train working dogs) but still have a large farm with their bc's. We are looking forward to taking Jack out there to meet his grandma & seeing if he has a herding drive. If he does, well then we'll cross that bridge...He will do what he enjoys (even if that means I am driving 2 hours every week!). Guess it is time for a bigger car!

 

Anyway, thanks for all of your comments. I do appreciate reading everyone's point of view. If I didn't, I wouldn't be on this board. I also want to add that if I didn't want to be responsible with my dog, I wouldn't be here either. I enjoy seeing what others are doing & learning from that.

 

Thanks!

Carrie

[Shetlander]

On the rescue front - I would LOVE LOVE to rescue an older BC. I am just terrified since I have an almost 4 yr old. She is a great kid, but she is a kid & a little rough. Jack has grown up with her & knows what to expect. The two of them torture each other Quite fun to watch actually. I would be afraid an older dog might not take to her as well.

 

Just to put a plug in for a rescue at some point down the line. That can be the best way to go because most rescue oganizations spend a lot of time really getting to know the dogs. They can say whether the dog is good with children, other dogs, cats, loud noises, cars zipping by the house, etc. Those are all things we wait to find out with our puppies as they grow. So just something to consider.

[Lenajo]

From Dr Robert Hutchinson on Canine Reproduction in 2002

 

When a bitch ovulates, whether we breed her, don't breed her, or pretend she's not in season, the progesterone HAMMERS the uterine lining for sixty-plus days.

 

The progesterone level is NOT affected by pregnancy. In the cow for example, if the uterus does not get communication from the fertilized egg by day 16, the whole process starts over again. In the bitch, you don't have that luxury.

 

Even though the bitch's body produces the progesterone, the progesterone is inflammatory to the uterine lining, so that after a heat cycle, the bitch's uterus is never as healthy as it was before the heat cycle. So we go from a normal uterus... and this start's with the first cycle of her life...to an endometritis to endometrial hyperplasia, which some of you have been asking about - this is when the uterus starts to thicken and we start to get bubbles in the lining of the uterus - these changes affect the uterine lining so much so that eventually the uterus cannot control the bacteria, and the ultimate end stage is pyometritis.

 

Part of the conference was regarding Cheque drops, and the use of them to save the uterus from aging in the manner above so that a btch can be bred later because of competition and working scheduled. Not sure if those drops are available now, as they were not cost productive to produce (per this same vet) and were possibly going, or gone, from the market because it.

 

Proven by other research is the longer a btch;s uterus is exposed to progesterone by heat cycles, the higher the risk of complications such as pyometra or cancer.

 

another quote from the same vet:

 

Pyo is EXTREMELY rare in a young bitch; remember, bitches do not go into menopause. Only humans and gorillas do.When a bitch's reproductive life is over she should be spayed.It's very good to spay an older bitch, because the uterus is always going to be hammered by progesterone every heat cycle.

 

So whether you breed or not, the btch has the same stress, the same uterine changes. You can debate about the stress of feeding the litter, but having raised pups and help raised pups from other breeders for many years I can tell you that that a well cared for female is not going to lose weight, or be overtly stressed by lactation. The only way to determine if that care is being done is to look at the female is question, and the past history of that breeders care of his/her dogs.

 

I've verifed the vet information above with a major veterinary reproduction clinic in Illinois. Again, back to back breedings and then spay was the recommendation for the health of the female. They did not address other issues - care and feeding, work schedules, etc...as it's too variable per owner and dog.

 

The website that carries the entire 2002 seminar transcript referenced from above is here

[Eileen Stein]

I do know of Dr. Hutchinson but I have to say his support for routine use of Cheque drops has led me me to discount his views. I think Cheque drops are still on the market, but I suspect they are used mainly "off-label" as anabolic steroids by bodybuilders and other athletes. I could be wrong, but don't think his advocacy of their routine use to prevent heat cycles in bitches ever found much veterinary support.

 

Just a couple of points:

 

(1) He is certainly right that the bitch has elevated progesterone levels for 60-some days in connection with ovulation, and that this is true when she is bred and when she is not bred. It's also true that an unspayed bitch's risk of pyometra increases as she ages, and that once her uterus is removed the risk is eliminated. I do think he is overstating the case when he says, "these changes affect the uterine lining so much so that eventually the uterus cannot control the bacteria, and the ultimate end stage is pyometritis." Many, many unspayed bitches live out a full life without getting pyometra, so it's by no means as inevitable a consequence as he suggests (though it's something that any owner of an intact female should be mindful of). I also think the connection between endometrial hyperplasia and pyometra is not considered by some other experts to be as direct as he portrays it here. More to the point, though, the relevant factor is not infrequency of breeding, but being intact. A good case can be made that, as he says, "When a bitch's reproductive life is over she should be spayed," but it does not follow that she should be bred on every heat until then. And the longer her reproductive life, the less true it is.

 

(2) I simply can't agree with you that " the longer a btch's uterus is exposed to progesterone by heat cycles, the higher the risk of . . . cancer." The risk of mammary cancer, which is the chief cancer risk related to the bitch's hormone cycle, rises until approximately the third heat and then rises no further thereafter. So if you are breeding her back to back, you have already incurred pretty much all the cancer risk attendant to ovulation.

 

(3) As I said before, I also don't agree with you that "whether you breed or not the bitch has the same stress . . . ." She may have the same hormonal stress, but it simply isn't true that pregnancy, whelping and lactation are not stresses. Common sense alone has to tell you that they are, and I have seen it for myself with well-cared-for bitches. I'm not saying that a bitch cannot withstand the stress of breeding, whelping and nursing litters back to back and emerge healthy; I'm just saying that it's inaccurate to say the bitch is not more stressed by that than by an unproductive heat.

 

I've verifed the vet information above with a major veterinary reproduction clinic in Illinois. Again, back to back breedings and then spay was the recommendation for the health of the female.

 

If you are breeding the bitch only twice and then spaying, I don't think either back-to-back breeding or skipping a cycle presents a significant enough risk to recommend one over another on health grounds. Although pyometra can strike a bitch at any age, it is certainly more common and more of a concern in the older bitch, as Dr. Hutchinson himself says. But there was nothing in the OP's post to suggest that "back to back breedings and then spay" was the scenario here. Though it wasn't explicit, I thought the impression given was otherwise.

 

Of course, I'm only talking here about physical stresses and health of the bitch, not the valid points that others raise about breeding for working ability.

[haleigh]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this or not (since there is so much stuff flying around right now) but was the litter planned? You never know. It might've been an accidental ooops litter. Even the most responsible breeders have those once in a while...

[Bill Fosher]

Through a series of convoluted events that I won't go into here, I ended up with three dogs that are very close to one another in age: 7, 6 and 5 at the moment. The six year old and five year old are about seven months different. Despite the fact that two of the three are neutered, there's still an incredible rivalry among them. It has never gotten to the point of fighting, but I think it easily could have without very close supervision and if the eldest (intact) wasn't such a non-fighter.

 

Speaking strictly from a shepherd's perspective, I think the only reason to have lots of dogs that are close to the same age is if you need to have a string of dogs ready for work every day -- in situations like hot or humid climates where summer work must go on during the heat of the day, or where injuries make take dogs out of commission for longer than a day or two.

 

Unless you need several working dogs at any given moment, my recommendation would be to keep three or four years between dogs. That way you'll usually have two ready for for work, one coming up in training, and (at least) one soaking up the heat by the wood stove in his old age.

 

Having such a large age differential between dogs will help keep pack dynamics predictable and calm -- just one less thing to worry about. It will also allow you to concentrate on training one dog at a time. While the older ones will need tune ups, they'll have their basics down pat by the time you bring the new puppy on board.

[Kate@JIm]

Hi Folks! We have a 6 month old male BC pup. He is the greatest thing to happen to our family. We have an almost 4 yr old daughter whom he adores (and of course she loves him!) We want to do the right thing by Jack - since we already have him & love him. Don't want to traumatize him. Please give me any suggestions you have.

 

Thanks!

Carrie

 

I know it's tempting, but wait....

wait a few years, you have the best situation right now, keep it. You really couldn't ask for more.

Let your pup enjoy playing, romping with other dogs after class.

[Pippin's person]

Hey Carrie,

 

Welcome to the boards. I think you have made a great decision to wait adding another dog. In general, I think (and it's just MHO) that one of the best things you can do for a single dog is to add another one and you sound like you have a great situation for having more than one. Two dogs is definitely not twice the work of one (though once you have more than two, things do get to be more work)

 

Alaska's comments on adolescence are no joke--we have seven dogs, four of whom we raised from puppyhood. We wished to send all four of them to reform school from about 7-12 mos or so. Ours were real pills at that age. They didn't lose their training so much as just act like teen-agers. In fact, now that I think about it, we *did* send three of them to reform school at those ages by sending them to our livestock herding trainer for extended training stays.

 

We have two males who are 6 mos. apart and we have to pay attention to them constantly--they play together, but they also have pretty serious rivalry with one another and have had a couple nasty fights (no serious damage, but noisy). When you do add another dog, it's probably easier to add a female as #2 if you have your druthers--but if the right dog (or the right litter) comes along, two males is a joy, too.

 

If you are open to rescue, you can almost certainly find a good match for your 4-year old. One of the real benefits of rescue is that the people fostering the dogs know how the dogs handle children, other dogs, cats, school buses--you name it. It's more of a roll of the dice on those scores with a puppy--often dogs get relinquished specifically because they turned out not to be good with children even though they were raised with them.

 

Careful what you say about a bigger car--we went from a Subaru Imprezza (2 dogs) to a Subaru Outback (three-four dogs) to a mini-van in short order....

[mbc1963]

On the rescue front - I would LOVE LOVE to rescue an older BC. I am just terrified since I have an almost 4 yr old. She is a great kid, but she is a kid & a little rough. Jack has grown up with her & knows what to expect. The two of them torture each other Quite fun to watch actually. I would be afraid an older dog might not take to her as well.

 

Again, on the rescue side...

 

I walk with a dog who's maybe 4 or 5 years old, owned by a very active woman who's 78. The dog is some huge mix - boxer/lab, or maybe mastiff/lab? When we're in a park and he's off-leash, if there are children within 500 yards, he finds them and loves on them. He lets them climb all over him, take his ball, roll on the grass with him. I've never heard the dog bark at anyone, never mind growl. In short, he's a dog who was MEANT to be around kids. Alas, he just happened to get adopted by an elderly woman, so he has to go out and find kids wherever he can!

 

So, you might be able to get a rescue like that, and fulfill his purpose in life! I agree that rescue is straighter route to a good match, because you never know how a pup will turn out, but when you find an adult who loves kids, it's really obvious.

 

Good luck!

 

Mary

[redborder]

I agree, it always depends on you as a dog owner, can you cope with 2 teenagers in the house? And maybe the second puppy is not as "easy going" as the recent one.

 

I don't think the fact that they might all die in a short span of time would be an argument for me, as not every dog is guaranteed to reach old age and some unfortunately leave us earlier than expected.

 

On the rescue front, I adopted a rescue BC, he is a failed sniffer dog and is brilliant with people, kids included, which helps as I have 3 of those to

 

Good luck with your decision.

[AK dog doc]

Couple things:

 

1) Welcome to the Boards, Carrie - and how intelligent of you to consider carefully before diving into another puppy right away. If you are this forward-thinking about your dog decisions in general, that bodes well for you and your dog(s) in the future! (And have we mentioned pictures?)

 

2) I agree with Eileen that there is a marked difference between a false pregnancy and a real one. While it is true that, because ALL dogs do a false pregnancy, the uterus undergoes the same hormonal exposure regardless of whether or not the dog is in fact pregnant, it it NOT true, IMO, that it undergoes the same OTHER stressors regardless of whether or not the dog is pregnant. Moreover, there are stressors to other body systems that occur when the dog is pregnant that do NOT occur if the dog is not pregnant (to wit: cardiovascular, renal, hepatic, immunologic, musculoskeletal and integumantary IN ADDITION TO the reproductive tract and mammary tissues). While the female body (canine or otherwise) is a complete miracle of design, and endowed with complex and elegant mechanisms by which to handle those stressors, that does NOT mean the stressors don't exist. A breeding bitch is not just a uterus and a pair of ovaries; it's a whole dog. If false pregnancy and real pregnancy were identical to the dog as a whole, we would always see unbred but intact bitches coming in 3 or 4 months post-estrus thin, bald and out of working trim, maybe with mastitis, maybe with malnutrition in the face of good intake, maybe with other problems. That essentially never happens in unbred post-estrus bithces (at least, not as related to the estrus cycle), but it happens not infrequently in post-partum bitches. It sometimes takes them a few weeks to return to working form, and it can take months.

 

3) While it's true that some bitches undeniably DO maintain enough condition during pregnacy, whelp and lactation that they can readily tolerate a back-to-back breeding, it's equally true that some bitches undeniably do NOT maintain such condition. Much may depend on the number of pregnancies (back-to-back or otherwise), the age of the bitch, the size of the litter, the size of the puppies, the management provided by the owners, the individual health and metabolism of the bitch, and the luck of the draw. Moreover, there is some evidence in human medicine that there can be whole-body depletion of nutrients in the mother's body that will affect the overall health and/or intelligence of the next baby, unless there is sufficient time between pregnancies to replenish those nutrients (in humans, about 4 years, unless one is proactively supplementing for replenishment.) It is not clear whether or not this is a factor in dogs (in part because some of the testing is not transferrable to veterinary medicine and hence we must work by extrapolation until such time as testing advances make objective data available), but it certainly is possible, and would be something to consider in assessing the wisdom of a back-to-back breeding.

 

4) I do agree that not enough is known about the circumstances surrounding this particular back-to-back breeding to draw very many conclusions, except insofar as it's not possible for the breeders to know what exactly they have produced in terms of working dogs by the previous litter, and hence there is some question about whether this is a good idea in this given case. As a general rule, I'd typically advocate against a back-to-back breeding in BCs for that reason alone, regardless of the other factors; and it's less common for me to see a bitch weather pregnancy, whelp and lactation in such good condition that I think a back-to-back is a good idea, than the reverse. I certainly HAVE seen dogs that have no evident physical bars to back to back breedings; but I see them quite a bit less commonly than ones for whom I'd advise some time in between in which to regain condition.

 

JMO and JME, of course.