Breeding Setups

[holland]

The leerburg site was interesting-it would also be interesting to see what set ups people have for their dogs whether they are breeders or not

[bethany.cole2013]

I'm not particularly interested in becoming a big, commercial breeder. I would want to be more of a smaller hobby breeder, as I love having the company of my doggies in the house with me and I wouldn't feel as comfortable with having to hire people to take care of my dogs for me. I was mainly just curious about people's opinions of these larger setups and what they may look like.

[onyx'girl]

Personally, if I were a breeder I would want to keep it small so that my dogs could ALL be housedogs, but that's just not possible for a lot of folks

Co-owns could accomplish that if you trusted who you were in partnership with.

[selzer]

Originally Posted by Freestep

True Haus has a great facility, IMO. They have an indoor-outdoor kennel setup. There are large chainlink runs attached to a kennel building, so that part of the kennel enclosure is indoors. Inside the kennel building there is a grooming tub, tack room, and air conditioning in the summer (it's hot here but winters are mild). Just outside the building there is a grooming table and a powerful force dryer (the kind I would kill to have). The entire property is fenced so that the dogs can get out and exercise, and they have a big training field with all the equipment. They do rotate dogs in and out of the house, so they get household time as well. I am not sure how many dogs they have at the moment, but it's too many to keep them all in the house at once.

Personally, if I were a breeder I would want to keep it small so that my dogs could ALL be housedogs, but that's just not possible for a lot of folks.

There is a problem with this. We need to breed for the future, else, we really should not breed. This does not mean we keep a puppy out of every litter we produce, but we should keep puppies from our litters, raise them, grow them out, and if they are breedworthy, add them to our breeding program.

If you start your program with two bitches, no dog, yes they can both be house dogs, most like. But the moment you start keeping pups to raise, keeping a bitch who is retired, taking a pup back that did not work out, keeping a puppy that seems to have an issue, you are no longer in the range of them all being able to run freely in your home all the time. With multiple intact females, crate/rotate or kennel will most likely become inevitable at some point.

I think that you can probably get a better pup genetically from a medium size breeder who keeps a number of females and has a few litters per year. The kennel set up does not speak of the quality of the pups, but the cleanliness of the kennel may speak of the health and dedication of the breeder. You want a breeder's dogs to be kept in decent conditions, because no one wants to support someone who is using animals foully to make money.

But the requirement that the breeders dogs must all be house-dogs limits how good of a breeder that breeder can be.

[martemchik]

All else equal...I'll go with a breeder that keeps their dogs inside. It's a personal thing, not based on anything scientific or even logical. Just like to see that the dog is a pet first and a breeding animal second. Again...this is an all else equal thing and I would never rule out a breeder that has kennels. What selzer stated is probably very true, the more dogs you have the more likely it is that you are producing an all around "better" dog. The breeder isn't just using one female to get all their pups from, and is actually continually improving their lines by holding dogs back. If you intend to keep all dogs inside, it would probably get quite difficult at 5 or 6, unless you live in a mansion.

[cliffson1]

What Castlemaid said is critical to being a good breeder regardless of the size or setup of the kennel!!!!