bitch for the first time. Forty five years ago my father brought home
our first Boxer, along with his unique approach to breeding. He was
raised on a farm and had a farmer's way of looking at breeding. Farmers
tend to be very practical. With that in mind, my father felt that if the
life expectancy in Boxers was eight to ten years, then you want to breed
when your oldest stock is getting ready to die. This means you breed
your bitch for the first time when she is 5 years young! At the age of
five her mother is ten and should be getting ready to die. This replaces
your stock without over-burdening your resources. But since we have
always bred for temperament and longevity, my father had another reason
� also deeply rooted in farming � for waiting to breed. With all the
adult onset diseases Boxers have, by the age of five you generally have
a very good idea if your bitch is healthy. And if she is healthy she
should be a good candidate for breeding. Now remember this was long
before we had all the tests available to us today! My father�s �idea�
was to let nature weed out the weaker members of the breed. He also
believed that even if you didn�t show, you bred to the standard. I
showed horses for many years so I did not show dogs, but we still bred
to the Boxer standard.
I recently read an article in which the author recommended waiting to
breed until your bitch was three. The parents would be six, giving you a
good idea of their adult health. My father's theory takes this a step
further. Breeding at five, the parents are now ten - how healthy are
they? Do you want to include the five-year-old in your breeding program
if the parents are horribly ill?
Another consideration: my dogs are very slow to mature. The mother of my
previous litter was four years old before she completely dropped her
chest. Think about what might have happened had I bred her to a dog
looking to increase the chest on my dogs. I have learned that it takes
time to know what your dog is really going to be when it is fully
mature. By waiting to breed, I give my girls every opportunity to show
me where I really need to improve my line.
My father�s other �idea� was to breed your bitch only ONCE! And that�s
what I�ve done since 1970. Every time I breed, I am as nervous as when I
was pregnant with my �pink� kid. I am worried about the health of my
�girl� and her puppies. My feeling is if I get my bitch -- and remember,
this is a family member in which I have now invested five years of love
and attention -- through her pregnancy and delivery and she and her
babies are healthy, it is time to say Thank You and move on (I give her
lots of pats, hugs and kisses and have her spayed). After my last litter
I got a lot of pressure about doing a repeat breeding. My first question
was Why? I always got Well, she is a good producer. My answer was No,
she produced a good litter. My girls only come in heat every ten or
eleven months. This means in order not to breed on back-to-back heats,
my bitch would have been seven years old when she had her second litter!
Now that you are all riled up, let me tell you how this has worked in my
family of dogs. As I write this I have a 14 year old plus Boxer bitch
sleeping in her crate right now. Her name is Tia. Her daughter, Missy,
just turned eight years young. The eight-year-old�s �kids� just turned
three. You might have noticed there are 6 years between the 14-year-old
and the eight-year-old. Well we moved and my husband threw out a bunch
of papers that had been sitting on top of a file too long (or so he
felt). Included in this pile were Tia�s registration, and our son�s
birth certificate and health records (Norm didn�t have his glasses on
(that was the last time he cleaned up without glasses!) I thought Tia
was 5 when I bred her. She was six years, four months old when she
delivered her FIRST and only litter! We have had many 14- or
15-year-olds and even a 17-year-old. Tia�s mom was almost 15 when I put
her down. The 17-year-old was put down when his hindquarters finally
gave out! At the age of 14 he had to have surgery to remove an eye after
he had a tangle with a cat!
If your goal in breeding is to set records, then a couple of things
would have to change. You�d have to endure a large drought of puppies
while you waited for your bitches to age. So you might have to increase
your number of bitches to maintain your records. And if you were to
decide to do this, you might want to increase the age of breeding on
your bitches slowly. But with over 3000 Boxers being registered every
month, do you really want to continue to play the "numbers game"?
What I do is not perfect but it has worked for us for over 45 years, and
has worked for us in the show ring, too. We have always bred for
temperament and longevity -- everything else is a bonus! -- but if you
are interested in how we are doing in the quality department, please
check out our "pups" We believe that is proof aplenty of the value of
"waiting to breed"!