Glad to hear that Bailey's okay
fingers crossed that his scores are good!
Below I have written down my thoughts on breeding from working cockers that are kept as pets, this isn't aimed at anyone, I just thought that it might prove an interesting read
I personally think that active homes for working cockers have been shown to suit them relatively well, so in this instance an 'active pet' home works well for this breed. Although as has been previously pointed out due to unscrupulous breeders and the drive for 'rare' colours many working strain or working x show are ending up in homes that have not been told about, and therefore cannot cope with, the extra energy levels etc....so this is an emerging problem
I am not at all keen on the 'active pet home' owners taking the decision to breed from their pet as they have in no way proven that their dog is better, or is as good as, the core working stock that are known to be 'fit for purpose' in the UK. If everyone bred from their 'pet' working cockers then we'd have a huge explosion of very average pups most of which would either not find homes or go to unsuitable homes because the well informed, and experienced working cocker owners wouldn't touch them with a barge pole
.
Therefore, in my opinion if you're considering breeding from your dog you've got to ask yourself these questions: What makes your dog better than everyone elses? How will breeding from your dog improve, or maintain the high standards of the breed? What qualities do you think any pups that your dog produces will have that will set them apart from everyone elses pups in an already saturated market? (rare colourings, easily manageable coat etc... are not acceptable 'qualities' to justify breeding a working breed in my opinion!). Why should you produce 'pet quality' pups when there's already far too many surplus pet puppies being bred in the UK?
If you feel that you are the owner of an exceptional working cocker, but haven't worked it because you got the dog as a pet, I would encourage you not to breed from it. Instead leave the breeding to the owners of the working cockers who have been proven in the field of trialling, beating, or both
If you really want to breed from your 'pet' and think that the breed would be losing something really special if your dog didn't have pups (remember most litters have between 4-7 puppies, so your dog is likely to have siblings which carry the same/similar genetic traits and they might have already been bred from) then I think you owe it to the dog to make the effort to train it up to the gun and take it out into the field to show off it's excellent qualities and also to confirm that your dog really is a gem. Once you have confirmed that your dog is indeed a very special example you must run all of the relevant health checks on it to make sure that it is physically sound. Then you have to be very careful in selecting the best possible match to mate your dog with.
If your dog really is something special then it is at this planning stage that you will be inundated with people keen to put their names down for a pup from the planned mating, this is why well bred working cockers are rarely openly advertised.
So in my opinion a litter of working cockers from an unproven dam, sire, or both, shows that the 'breeder' hasn't thought things through properly, has most likely cut corners, doesn't have the breeds best interests at heart, and is therefore in my view not a 'breeder' that I would want to deal with when sourcing my next working dog. I guess the new docking laws will help in identifying the breeders that do use their dogs for work, although the 'evidence' that one has to produce to get pups docked is relatively easy to obtain falsely
Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the matter. I commend anyone who strives to health test any potential breeding dogs that they have, although as has been said in previous posts, this is just one aspect of responsible breeding, and on its own is in my opinion not a green light to start breeding
John, well done for planning ahead and getting all of the health testing (and hopefully some gun dog work!
) done before any more litters are considered
Have you thought about getting Willow Optigen tested? I say this because as she has had a few litters it might be worth finding out her PRA status, as hopefully she will be clear and this will guarantee that none of her pups that she's ever had will develop this awful illness themselves.
Mary xxx
