Question for breeders of working/hunting dogs.

wildlands · 07-15-2007, 08:51 PM

How close to the drop date of the litter do you work/hunt your dog? After the litter is born how soon do you get your dog back to working/hunting?

The reason for my questions. My female just came in today early. If I breed when I am suppose to that would put pups coming about the end of Sept. I would miss a lot of the tracking season with her if I can not use her. I am debating about skipping this one just wanting feedback. If I can work her up to two weeks before then that gets me the first week or so of bow season her in Ga. Looking at mid to upper 80's in the day low 70 night. Then once the litter hits the ground 4 weeks later if I could work her then I would get 2 months of good tracking in.

What is yalls thoughts?

Wildlands

daleh · 07-15-2007, 09:46 PM

If you need her don't breed her.

MIbeagleman · 07-16-2007, 02:30 PM

I will run a pregnant bitch until I notice it starting to affect her. I watch her closely each and every time out and when I feel she is having to work harder than what she normally does, then that is it. Then it is just out for walks until she delivers her pups.

Some have suggested that working a pregnant female ( guess we aren't allowed to call a female dog what they are *****...) will help the pups to develop to be better hunting dogs. I guess it can be argued on both sides of he coin. Heck, I don't know. I do know one thing for sure that keeping yourfemale in shape during a pregnancy will help her during whelping.

All that being said, there is a risk each and every time you take your dog out hunting. There is always a possibility of her getting hurt, but I have seen a very pregnant beagle win a field trial before too. That win gave her the FC title to go along with her name.

As far as when to start afterwords, let her dry up a little after weaning. Nothing worse than having saggy teats dragging in the briars getting torn to shreds. Each dog is different here. People use different remedies to get their dogs to dry up faster, but I am a fan of letting mother nature take her course and giving thefemale time to regain her body weight and strength after feeding a litter of pups. I start with walks and work her up from there. I just don't take them out and run them for 8 hours the first time out after pups.

Emery

springerDIVA · 07-16-2007, 06:46 PM

Our breeder and mentor ran his girls until he could confirm pregnancy. Then once they dried up after weaning they could go back out into the field. You don't want your female to go out to places where she could pick up who knows what and bring it back to the litter.
One sick dog is bad but an entire litter is worse.

coolbrze0 · 08-05-2007, 04:26 PM

For my beagles, I run up until 2 weeks prior to whelp. Labs we use for waterfowl so I don't "run" them everyday. Gestation is 63 days for dogs, so start watching accordingly. 2 weeks prior to whelp, I still take them out of their kennel so they can exercise.

Phil from Maine · 08-05-2007, 05:27 PM

If I know my dog is going to have pups I sure wouldn't want to hunt her. There is way to much stuff out there that can cause problems for her and the unborn pups. So I have to agree with Dale on this one if you need her don't breed her.........

wildlands · 08-05-2007, 08:45 PM

We decided not long after I posted this and talked with a few people not to breed. She works/tracks on leash so not to much problems with her getting into trouble while we are working. But due to the fact that this is what she lives for and loves it would not be fair to her to miss almost 2 months of tracking. Plus we will be attempting the 40 JGHV blood tracking test in Feb and she will need all the practice she can get. The people on our list were very understanding and will still be looking to hear from us this spring about breeding then.

Thanks everyone for your responses.

Ken

BlueRidgeRetrievers · 08-08-2007, 06:57 PM

I think that was a very responsible decision...