Complete Dec Edition in PDF - E Yorkshire Terriers

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Searching For Mr. Right The Pursuit of the Perfect Stud Dog By Michele Wrath I love solving puzzles. My husband has accused me of buying the Sunday paper just for the puzzle page. Half of the time he is right. From the traditional crossword to word jumbles to Sudoku, there is something terrifically rewarding about solving a puzzle and getting all the pieces to fit. That is how I feel about breeding dogs. Searching for the right stud dog is a process. We all go about it differently. When we first got started in dogs I spent a lot of time observing how people made their breeding decisions, what their approach was, and the criteria they used to base their decisions on. For every breeder out there, there is probably a slightly different method. Some believe strongly in the marriage of pedigrees over all else. Some breed entirely animal to animal. Others breed to the dog everyone else is using and the truly brave strike out in hopes of discovering the next great producer. Everyone around me shudders when I start the stud dog selection process. When I say process I mean process. It takes me roughly 9 months to decide on a breeding. I am an analytic at heart and when there is more than one choice I need time. Just ask my husband – making a dinner selection off a menu with lots of options can be a painstaking process – and one made not without a round of questions soliciting the waitperson’s favorite entrées or choice between two entrees – usually completely different. And once the waitperson has weighed in with their recommendations it often doesn’t change what I was about to do anyway but I feel better for the asking. Breeding dogs can be a lot like that! I have some basic rules that I follow when I begin my search. First and foremost, I get very clear about the strengths and weaknesses of my bitch and what my objectives are for doing the breeding. It doesn’t matter what I want her strengths to be, it matters a lot that I am honest with myself about what they really are. If you know your line well, you have a good sense for what you can cover and what you cannot. This becomes very important later and I find it to be one of the best tools to speed the sorting process. Next, I separate my emotions from the animals sitting in front of me. Gladys Knight had a popular song entitled “What’s Love Got To Do With It”. I think this should be every breeder’s anthem. Love has everything to do with the relationship we have with our dogs, with the time we spend with them, with the feelings we have for special dogs owned by others. It is our love of dogs that causes us to be in the sport of dogs but it has nothing to do with why individual dog should be bred or used in a breeding program. Some of my favorite dogs are those that were absolutely not the right choice for the breeding I was planning. It doesn’t change how I feel about those dogs; it just means that my bitch did not have the attributes that made her a great match for any of them.
Now the fun begins. Every breed publication in the house, every old Quarterly, every Pedigree Book, every DVD from every National Specialty we ever attended comes off the shelf. Perhaps not all at once, but eventually there will be piles of breed history adorning the various table tops in our home. The internet has certainly aided in the stud dog selection process. I am eternally grateful to all those dedicated breeders who are also internet savy and thoughtful enough to build such detailed websites with an abundance of information that is every analytic’s dream. The OFA database is a wonderful source of data and holds tremendous promise as a research tool. As the database is more widely used it will be an even better resource for breeders. Armed with a short list of candidates, the search begins in earnest. It’s at about this juncture that I pull out Pat Trotter’s book “Born to Win”. It was one of the first books I read as we got into the sport of dogs and it is the one that I refer back to on a regular basis. Pat Trotter was one of the most successful, if not the most successful breeder owner handler in the sport, and I find her book to be both informative and thought provoking. She has some interesting theories on breeding and the decision process used to put two animals together and it always causes me to think a bit harder and longer about what I am attempting to do. The sorting process can like be a roller coaster ride. I’ll find a dog that appears to “have it all” – or at least what I am looking for. I am jubilant. The pedigrees align, the dogs look good together and the offspring produced by Mr. Right are lovely. I can see the future progeny in my mind’s eye and they are, of course, exactly what I am hoping to get from the breeding. And then something will surface – you know – that thing that you think you just can’t get past. The dream fades, reality sets in, the dog goes back into the “pending” pile and the process starts over again with the next candidate on the list. This goes on for months, until I run out of ideas and my friends get sick of listening to me. I file my notes, put my piles of books and DVDs back on the shelf, turn the computer off and walk away. There isn’t another single piece of information out there that is going to make a bit of difference in reaching a decision. It is time to “sleep on it”. Before all the stud dog owners reading this rise to defend the honor of their men, let me just say that I attribute much of the difficulty with this process to the dam. It is her combination of unique strengths and weaknesses that make the selection process so complicated. If only she had a stronger rear, better front, darker eyes – you name it – whatever the strength required to offset the offending fault of the prospective sire, the selection process would be so much easier. And then one day, often out of the blue, the answer comes. It has often been said that breeding is a blend of art and science, and for me, this is when the art takes over. Mr. Right stands out above the rest and I just know he’s the one. The pedigrees align, the dogs indeed look good together, the offspring produced by Mr. Right are lovely, and I can clearly see the promise of the breeding in my mind’s eye. Did anything change? Yes, but not with the dogs. What changed is that I can now, with great acuity, describe exactly why I am doing the breeding, what I am hoping to accomplish, and why this stud dog is the best choice for my bitch. I can almost smell the puppy breath!
Page 1: E Yorkshire Terriers Volume1 No.5 A
Page 5: “Chandler” is the top Specialty
Page 9 and 10: CH. HEKAN Promise for Karma H BOS a
Page 11: Morgan wins BEST IN SHOW! BIS Can/A
Page 14 and 15: American and Canadian Champion Shak
Page 16 and 17: TWO National Specialty High In Tria
Page 18 and 19: Merry Christmas from 3 generations
Page 20 and 21: Multiple Group winning and Multiple
Page 22 and 23: ingold Chip joins his sister Ch. Wi
Page 24 and 25: Am Nat’l Int’l BIS BISS Ch Spar
Page 26 and 27: Have you heard??? THREE! First To M
Page 30 and 31: Don’t forget to order your Roving
Page 32 and 33: Advertising Guidelines & Pricing DE
Page 34: Season’s Greetings Wishing you al

Complete Dec Edition in PDF - E Yorkshire Terriers

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