Things that can go wrong with breeding/whelping

[DharmasMom]

I haven't found a GOOD reason TO breed yet. I am sure there are some but none that I can see. God love you guys that do it and do it RIGHT!

[lhczth]

Seeing my heart dog upside down on a table with her middle cut open. It wasn't the cost or being worried about losing the puppies. It was the fear that I might lose my dog.

[trudy]

to me the saddest problem is the healthy seeming pups that get sick or have a congenital defect meaning their life will be very short..these are pups you've loved and cared for, and then to know they are dying, too sad, I've heard of litters with parvo,if they survive, tons of $$ has been spent, or they just die, one after the other...too sad

[wyominggrandma]

Having watched your bitch go through about 7 weeks of a normal pregnancy and look outside in the yard and see the bitch having the puppies and them not being viable enough to live, no matter how hard you and the vet try to keep them alive.

[shilohsmom]

Great thread and another vote to make this a sticky!

[GSD Fan]

I too vote to make this a sticky and add this to the breeding part.

-Your female or male catches a illness from their mate during the breeding and it leaves them infertile.

-Your female attacks and possibly kills the male during the mating.

-You pay a LOT for frozen semen or for the breeding to take place and the female does not conceive.

[meldleistikow]

Where I grew up, I always heard that a female should have at least one litter to "calm her down". Stupid, I know. Growing up, my parents bred our Old English Sheepdog to the Old English Sheepdog in the next town a few times. She was the best mother and luckily nothing ever went wrong. Then I got my German Shepherd when I was 10. We bred her for the first time when she was three. That went great, so did the second litter. Unfortunately the 3rd litter was a disaster. She had six puppies total. For whatever reason, she ate 3 of them. Out of the last three that we saved from her (I am almost certain she would have done the same to them), only one lived. I was in high school and I was up every 2 hours to feed him. My Grandma took him while I was at school. Fortunately, he grew up to be a happy healthy guy and lived with my Grandma.

It was heartbreaking to know that my wonderful German Shepherd ate her own puppies. I still have nightmares sometimes. I feel terrible that I ever bred dogs. I learned a lot, but mainly I learned that I had no business breeding at all.

[PupperLove]

Jackson was from a litter of 12 puppies. When his mother went into labor, the first puppy was stuck so she had to have a c-section; That puppy did not make it. It costed the breeder $2,000 for the C-section.. After her c-section, the puppies had to be hand fed by the breeder and some of the puppies were not taking to it. Two more puppies did not make it and one failed to thrive.

[jetscarbie]

My SIL's dog had a litter of pups.....10.

They made some money selling 4....now they have 6 pups running around and last I talked to them....they were going to start giving them away. And these are AKC pups. For some reason, they thought they were going to make a jackpot on these pups.

Actually the 4 they sold barely covered the cost they spent at the vets office getting the pups their shots.

[Konotashi]

I've heard of females either bolting or twisting after the male is tied, then ripping the male's penis off.