Julia T got the worn out gears in my head moving and I was thinking, What would be a check off list of things we'd want in a working line brood bitch. I'm not planning on breeding my Erika, a Czech/DDR working line girl. But maybe further on down the road when I hit the lottery and become a gentleman breeder. The only breeding experience I have is with hogs and with hogs you can eat your mistakes. Your thoughts from you professionals and gentlemen/madam breeders would be most educational

From the Leerburg website ...
http://www.leerburg.com/broodbch.htm

That pretty much covers the essentials.

Doh, Thanks Charlie

Good link Charlie and I am glad your curiosity is peaked Dennis <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Since Ed focuses primarily on working dogs and my dog is show line which I am happy with, I think there are some solid points to the article and others that don't apply to show lines, but I would hope the fact that she has a SchH3 and KKL1 proves she has been temperament tested and her Korung recommends her for breeding. There has to be something more here then just paper.

Form Ed's Article

 Quote:

The last step in the program is to select the male that your bitch is bred to. Here at my kennel we usually have 2 or three stud dogs. We select the stud dog according to the needs of the female. Some females should NEVER be bred to certain bloodlines or certain temperaments of dog.

I tell people that breeding is like making bread. It's an ART. It's about putting the pieces together to produce something you can be proud of. Breeding is ART. Done right and we produce a beautiful specimen one mis-step and we have mud.

This is exactly why I am asking the questions I am asking. I don’t want to become a breeder… but I wan’t the litter she does have to be a good one. I know it is a crap shoot, but any help is appreciated as I am not educated in this area at all.

As usual, Ed pretty much nails the essentials. An unstated but key theme of that article is that you must have clear, specific goals for your breeding program. Then, find the dogs that help you meet those goals.

An issue that one has to be really careful about is kennel blindness. We **all** have the smartest, fastest, hardest, prettiest and bestest dog. Just ask me about mine. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

The good breeders, dogs or livestock, are able to step back and say, "Nope. It's not there. Time to move to the next one."

It's pretty easy to miss or dismiss faults in your own dog, especially if you've invested a lot of time finding, training, trialing and showing the dog. Most small breeders don't have the luxury of being able to closely observe and work the dogs before they pick a breeding candidate. So, it's pretty hard to tell yourself the fancy $10,000 KKL1, VPG III bitch you imported really isn't going to do much to improve the breed and is really better off being a treasured pet.

A friend was in Leerburg's foster program. The female she had is in the category of a 'real nice dog'. Dallas turned twelve last fall. She looks and acts like a dog five years younger. Still has that happy little swagger to her walk, i.e. good, solid hips. Still has the Queen of Everything attitude too. Reading through Ed's article, I kept going, "Yep. That's her."

Go to the articles and scroll way down to find a visit with Karl Fuller. Good info in there. It is close to the bottom.