That's It the Poodle are gone !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Rover]

oops my post is gone, i pressed the wrong button or something I did

[gundoglover]

What a heart breaking story - you have been so unlucky. I am confused about why you let your girl go, given there didn't seem to be any problems for her. If she passed her health tests, and you wanted to breed, I don't understand why you didn't look around for a stud dog rather wanting to buy in your own? Buying a puppy is always a risk. At least using a stud with the required health tests (even if you needed frozen or chilled semen) would have been more certain than buying a male hoping that he is good enough to breed. Perhaps you had considered this but rejected it for some reason?

[Rover]

The best way to sum it up is A. I have lost confidence in the poodle gene pool, I truely think it is very difficult to find a dog with a reasonably good health profile, some " good" dogs are only so in the ring, I have done a lot of work on this and traced pedigrees, I would not know where to go.
The other problem is cost sending my bitch to a male if I coukd truely trust one ( that is my perception ) the freight is 300 each way add 1500 for service add boarding grooming and we are talking somewhere around 2500 to 3000 for one service. All good if you have 6 or more pups but noy so good with 3 pups at an average selling price of around $1000. Dont forget the pups still need to be brought into the world fed cared for wormed vaccinated and microchipped. It s not economically viable. And in anycase why should I not be able to get a good healthy male to show ?
So i threw my arms in the air and decided I could not keep doing it this.

[Rover]

Sorry many typos

[Boxerheart]

Rover

You could have got frozen semen. I am looking at a victorian stud dog to use next. I am in negotiations to collect from dog for however many straws I may get. This may cost me a bit more, but it will work out cheaper than running on a male in my limited kennel space, while still helping me broaden the gene pool in the girls.
I hope the negotiations will work out.

[espinay]

Dogs are not easy and it can be heartbreaking. I think patience and perseverence is the key quality when it comes to being a good breeder. Things rarely fall into your lap and heartaches are frequent. Often it can be one step forward and two steps back. Certainly it can take a will of iron to continue on in the face of adversity sometimes, but it helps to know what your goals are and to keep them firmly in mind. It helps to have a passion to pursue too as that tends to keep you focussed. I have found that those without a passion or a goal tend to last on average around 5 years give or take before they disappear from the scene.

It is rare person who finds dog breeding economically viable, and the truth is, for a good breeder to get to that point they often have to spend a fair amount of money, particularly at the beginning. There is a well known saying that "there is a lot of money in dogs...and most of it is mine"

You have decided at this point that to continue with the poodles is for you not a viable option. Fair enough, your call. Is there a next step for you when it comes to dogs and breeding/showing? Tell us your thoughts - what you want to achieve/what is your goal/what is your passion - and perhaps the good folk here can help guide you so you can work your way towards achieving it.

[LesleyS]

Excellent post espinay, couldn't have said it better myself. I think we all stop at times and wonder why we continue on with the breeding, its not easy and lots of disappointments but when everything does go right and one breeds a particularly nice litter or puppy, geez it feels good.

[Pauline]

Hi Rover
I sympathise with the frustrations and issues of breeding - I know I have had so many issues with the health issues surrounding the breed I had at that stage committed some 18 years to that I ended up dropping the breeding and taking up Labradors. The sifference has been that in the labs there are many health issues but alteast they are testing and no-one presumed it is a breed without problems - in my othr breed ( Kelpies) people still breed under the premise there is nothing genetically or temperamentally wrong with the breed so no=one does any health test.

So my question - have you considered taking that love for dogs and breeding and looking at a different breed which manages the health issues more openly?