Deciding When To Breed Dogs

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When you are raising dogs in order to breed them, you are going to need to decide when you should begin the breeding process. This is very important because you don’t want to breed dog when they are too young, and you also don’t want to wait too long.

There are some good rules to follow when you are deciding when to breed your dogs. First of all, keep in mind that you should be prepared for your dogs to not breed as you would like them to. Just because you have a male and a female doesn’t mean that they will breed correctly, and it doesn’t mean that they’ll produce the puppies that you want them to.

A good rule to follow is that you should never breed a female dog on her first heat cycle, and not even on her second if you can help it. You should wait until she is at least a year and a half old, or on her second heat cycle, which ever comes first. Most breeders wait until the female is two years old to start breeding.
Male dogs can breed when they are at least a year old, although they might not mature fully before then, so you want to keep an eye on your male and make sure that he is the correct age.
Remember if you have a male and a female dog that are living together, you will need to keep them apart during the heat cycles that you don’t want them to breed in. Your dogs will breed if they get the chance, because dogs don’t know that they are too young ,and they won’t understand if they have already been bred on their last heat cycle. Therefore, it is up to you to make sure that breeding only takes place when you want it to take place.
The first thing to think about is the age. Then, it is important to think about how often. Responsible breeders won’t breed their dogs on back to back heat cycles.

So, if your female dog has had a litter of puppies on one cycle, even if she had no problems and the litter was successful, you don’t want to breed her on the next one. Be sure that she is kept away from the male dog until you are ready to breed her again. 

Please note: This article is part of a collection of dog-related content that we purchased the rights to. Opinions expressed may or may not agree with those espoused by Master Dog Trainer Adam G. Katz. When in doubt, please refer to the advice given in Adam’s dog training book.  This article is provided for your enjoyment, only. It’s relevance to real world working dog training may be limited.

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