Breed my white long haired GSD. Help?

doglover7

I have a beautiful all-blonde long haired male German Shepherd. He has a lovely temperament and is the perfect pet.

So here's my conundrum....
I'm not crazy about the idea of buying and selling dogs. I do, however, think that this dog is such a fantastic animal that it would be a shame not to breed him. I've got all his papers etc - he is a thorough-bred but cannot go into show in Ireland because he's not entirely white (although I've never been interested in showing him, he's purely a pet). He also has strong back hips etc, and is not in any way inbred or over-bred.

As far as I've been told, to breed a white GSD, I don't necessarily need a white bitch, just a bitch that throws white? Maybe someone else can confirm this? I've never bred a dog before so I'm not too sure of the ins and outs of it.

Can anyone point me in the direction of someone who breeds white GSDs?

Thanks.

andreac

Have you had your dog health tested first? have you had her hip scored? theres no way of telling if the dog has good or bad hips unless you get them hip scored by a vet. I would make sure all of this is done before you go breeding her.

I cant help you with finding a dog etc for her but have you contacted the IKC and get in touch with the GSD club of ireland and they should be able to help you find a dog or give you advice on breeding.

Sorry just realised its a dog you have and not a bitch. When you have a dog its usually people come to you to use your dog for stud and not the other way around, this is usually done by showing him and people then see him and if hes a nice dog then people will enquire to use him for stud.

~Thalia~

Your dog is absolutely ADORABLE. I have a bi colour GSD myself and I LOVE the breed.

I have to be honest with regards to breeding though, only on Sunday I heard of a litter of GSD pups 8 of which were drowned. There are far TOO many unwanted dogs already of all varieties and do you think in recessionary times that anyone will be able to get good homes for 8 to 9 pups as sheps have quite large litters. My advice would be against it but if you are set on it then I should imagine the best place to start would be The IKC.

Best of luck whatever your decision and your dog really is STUNNING!

Toulouse

Beautiful dog but we do get at least a few whites a year into the pound I deal with (we've had 3 already this year) and probably 1 normal GSD a week. That's not counting all manner of GSD x's we get in too.

I'd really look into this alot more before you make a decision.

cloudy day

Hi. It's hard to tell from that one pic much about your dog tbh.

You'd really want a full body stance of him being stood up properly.

Also, not wanting to be critical, as I've nothing against breeding if folk do it right, but it seems you don't really know too much about it.

Perhaps you should put the idea on hold for a while until you do some more research into the breed and what breeding entails. I dunno, you may know a lot about breeding, if not, it's hard work, time consuming and very expensive if you are prepared to do thinks right. There's no hurry.

Morgana know's a bit about gsd.

adser53

Hey doglover, i was in the same boat as you a while back. I have, imo , a fabulous male american akita that i wouldve loved to breed. After plenty of research i decided that it'd be selfish of me to breed him. It sounds harsh but there are far too many dogs out there already and like me, i think you want to breed cos you love your own dog so much. Breeding is very expensive and time consuming and you have to put in 110%. Consider what you would do if you were left with a litter you couldnt sell or if you sold a pup to an unsuitable owner- would you be prepared to take a pup or two back. The idea of breeding sounds great but in reality theres a savage amount involved and personally i would advise you against it as ethically i dont think you want to breed for the right reasons and as i said above, there are too many dogs being surrendered and destroyed as is. I dont know you or how much research etc youve done but im just offering this advice based on my interpretation of your post.

cloudy day

+ 1 adser

red_ice

I envy you for having a GSD. My girlfriend has a black and tan gsd of 12 years. Im infatuated with the dog. Shes amazing and i am very interested in hearing your progress with the breeding process. I was going to write a post and ask people about how they get on with their GSD's... pros and cons etc.

Bailey(my gfs GSD) had a litter of pups and out popped a white one, however it got out from the adoptive parents house and was hit by a car

As far as i know, there is no dead set way to get white gsd's they just come out of the bloodline on the random.

Seriously tho, do your homework before you decide to breed. Check back as many generations as you can for your dogs ancestors health. Take it to someone who knows GSD's inside out. Their correct form and so on, good posture all that lark. Then do the same with the dog you decide to mate it with. If the mix is good you can have an amazing litter. If not, you'd want to make sure that you have enough room for the extra dogs that you will have to look after. Because if your breeding and looking to sell to people who want to show, they will know what to look for in a dog, and the slightest thing wrong would be an instant turn off - these people dont mind waiting for a long time to get the right dog. Another thing, i heard that white GSD's dont get shown? Its a genetic weakness or something? Im more than likely wrong tho. We showed chow chows, i dont know about GSD's!

cloudy day

Hi Red Ice

I love chows, do you still show ?

cloudy day

Have any of you heard about the New Panda breed ( colouring) GSD in America.

Have markings similar to a Bernese dog.

red_ice

cloudy day wrote: »

Hi Red Ice

I love chows, do you still show ?

Have any of you heard about the New Panda breed ( colouring) GSD in America.

Have markings similar to a Bernese dog.

i was looking at the panda breed last night. Theres nothing that suggests the colouring is bred into the dog, i think its just hair dye on a chowchow.

When i say 'we', i ment my dad. We had 5 of them. 4 of them were ireland and uk champions. One of them is the record holder for most wins or something for the breed. We dont have any chows anymore, for multiple reasons. I wouldnt recommend getting one myself, as much as i loved them, they are very hard to look after and require alot of work.

B'witched

I have owned GSD's since 1976 and been around them most of my life as we had them as family pets when I was growing up.

I now rescue them,:( they are dumped in the pounds by the hundreds, the last thing that the breed needs is more pups, homes are not available for the ones we have now without bringing more into this god forsaken world.

Having good breeding does not save them from the dog pounds, I recently took a GSD bitch and 9 puppies from a pound, the puppies are X breed, they had been surrendered into the pound when the puppies were 2 days old, the bitch I discovered later when I contacted her breed (through her microchip) had a fabulous pedigree, including Champions, Sch111, German imports. Her pedigree didn't save her from being dumped did it? :eek:

Unless you are going to take responsibility for every puppy your dog produces then please don't breed.

Hips are not the only problem that the GSD breed suffers from, there is a list as long as your arm, the same as any breed.

Here is a good website, have a very good look at this http://www.german-shepherd.biz/german-shepherd-health-1.aspx

Hope this has given you some food for thought,

cloudy day

Hi red ice. the panda german shepherds look fab. Seemingly she has been breeding and showing for years and these parti cloloured pup's popped out. I think they lovely.

I can imagine the Chows are a lot of work. I've heard they are not really pet's.

red_ice

B'witched wrote: »

the bitch I discovered later when I contacted her breed (through her microchip) had a fabulous pedigree, including Champions, Sch111, German imports. Her pedigree didn't save her from being dumped did it? :eek:

In todays economic climate people are doing silly things.. thats one of them. My point was that you breed a dog knowing that people are interested in it. When we bought our chows we knew everything about the bloodline of them and waited a long time to collect them when they were born so we could see if there was anything 'wrong' with it. Harsh i know, but if the dog was anything less than perfect it wasnt our problem. Thats the point im making.

cloudy day wrote: »

Hi red ice. the panda german shepherds look fab. Seemingly she has been breeding and showing for years and these parti cloloured pup's popped out. I think they lovely.

I can imagine the Chows are a lot of work. I've heard they are not really pet's.

Yea, they looks nice alright. Id just love to train a gsd, what a great companion they must make. Id love a wolf gsd hybrid most tho, but i hear they would kill you to be the 'head of the pack', no thx!

Chows make great pets. They just dont do much. I loved them to bits, and they were very affectionate animals and amazing guard dogs and are very strong. They do what they want when they want and expect you to accept it, but they know their boundaries.

Broad

Hi doglover7
If you put your dog to stud you don't have any influence over how the bitch and puppies are treated, raised and sold. You will just be paid by the owner of the bitch by cash or pick of the litter or whatever you negotiate. Your dog must be accessed for hip disorder by xray and possibly other things before you use him to breed (am not sure about GS as am retriever owner).
I did raise one litter and sold seven and kept one but found it heart-breaking as I adored all of them and still three years later think about the puppies. Luckily most of the new owners keep in touch and give me updates. One I took back as his new owners could not take proper care of him and he was being neglected.
There are just so many dogs out there - I think I heard Pete Weatherburn talk of 10,000 a year put to sleep in Ireland compared to 400 a year in Scotland. We really are doing something wrong and sometimes I wonder if I should not have bred from my dog. All four of my own dogs are neutered now.
Best of luck whatever you decide.

cloudy day

Everyone has an opinion and ya hear lots, but I would say to be able to experiment and experience things is tru joy. I watch a program - The Wolf Man. He gave it all up to live with wolves as part of the pack and study them. Amazing.

Dusty87

cloudy day wrote: »

Everyone has an opinion and ya hear lots, but I would say to be able to experiment and experience things is tru joy. I watch a program - The Wolf Man. He gave it all up to live with wolves as part of the pack and study them. Amazing.

Seen this aswel. Was pretty amazing. The longest he has been away was when he had to get stitches from a 'play fight'

igglou

Broad wrote: »

There are just so many dogs out there - I think I heard Pete Weatherburn talk of 10,000 a year put to sleep in Ireland compared to 400 a year in Scotland.

Unfortunately its up around the 30,000 mark are put to sleep each year. And thats just the official number from pounds. I'm sure there are many more puppies drowned and greyhounds done away with on the QT in this country with poor animal welfare laws and control over breeding.

For that reason alone I would recommend you don't breed your dog.

Morganna

u need to get ur dog hip scored .

cloudy day

Dusty87 wrote: »

Seen this aswel. Was pretty amazing. The longest he has been away was when he had to get stitches from a 'play fight'

He is soooo cool, and i keep forgetting to look for when he is on. My little girl thinks he's amazing, as do I.

doglover7

Thanks for all of your input. There have been some very useful points. Whoever said the blonde GSD's can't be shown is correct - they're not shown in Ireland and even if I was living in Germany, he's not white enough to be shown. Although I have his papers and know his ancestry, the breed is not recognised by the Irish Kennel Club (I'm open for correction on this one). I've kept my dog as a pet and he's just fantastic.

Someone else said that I want to breed him simply because I love my dog and that's very true. To be honest, I don't really see the point in breeding for any other reason.

I've held off breeding for all of the reasons that you guys have pointed out... mostly because of the sheer amount of dogs wanting homes, and the lack of control I have over the fate of the litter. However, if there were pups that couldn't be rehomed, I'd gladly take them myself - I've got at know a fair few dog lovers who would be thrilled to take one as a pet.

In an ideal world, I would love to share the responsibility of finding homes for the puppies with the bitch's owner, and would breed simply to keep his line going. (His mother and only brother were shot by a sheep farmer).

I will continue my research and see what I come up with. Again, thanks for sharing your thoughts and info about it with me.