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Re: [RC] [RC] Jack Russels... - heidiThus, I'm not comfortable with what you say next: "Both parents should be on the premises, or at least available for you to veiw in person.?Some breeders contract out to a stud, so if he iatn't around, that's fine, but definitely pay him a visit." The breeder should be looking for the best match for the bitch. That best match might be in the next city or several states away. If the bitch and the stud dog are both on the premises, I advise asking a lot of questions before acquiring a dog from this person. On the surface, that kind of situation doesn't look like a carefully thought out breeding program to me (i.e. a "backyard breeder" -- watch out for health and temperament issues), although it might be. Hear, hear! (Ditto your comment that what you said about dog breeding programs applies fairly well to horse breeding.) If both the sire and dam are on the premises, you should be looking at a large breeding program, where the dam has been either purchased or carefully bred to be the right match to the sire. And there are likely other related dogs there as well. If the sire and dam are the only two owned by the "breeder" then beware. We had a small breeding program for several years for Mastiffs. Because we were small, virtually all of our matings were with outside dogs--sometimes we had a real "keeper" female that we would breed to an outside male, and sometimes we had a real "keeper" male and we would find a female puppy that suited him well, and raise her and show her and eventually breed her. We have hauled dogs back and forth to California to breed, and have shipped semen, and got one of our nicest bitches from Georgia to breed to a lovely male that we raised a few generations back. We knew what we wanted, and went to where we could find those qualities. That's how good horse breeding operations are run as well--which is why those of us with umpteen stallions still sometimes breed out, or lease mares out to people with stallions we like, to come back in foal, or lease mares from other people to breed to specific stallions, etc. There should always be an eye to the future, and where the program might be going in 10, 20, or 30 years. Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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