# Breeding (Stud) questions



## mkmoritz (Mar 2, 2014)

First time prospective breeder.

Wanting to stud my V out at some point. He's 7 months now. 

What age is good to start studding him?

Also, he's a very hyper boy... I'm working on harnessing his hyperactivity, but how much does that play into turning a buyer off?


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## einspänner (Sep 8, 2012)

I'm leaving this thread up because I think it can generate some good discussion and because you're not advertising your pup as a stud. However I just want to remind everyone that forum rules prohibit seeking or advertising stud services. Please read #9 for the full text http://www.vizslaforums.com/index.php/topic,21698.msg150203.html#new

Back to your questions.  I would say 2 years of age is the minimum as that's when you would get his hips scored. I would also work with a trusted breeder to create a list of criteria he must meet before studding him out. My list would include conformation, hunting, and obedience titles, good hips at minimum, and possibly other health tests. We're all likely to develop blind spots with our pups, so it helps to have an objective guide to cut through our emotional ties. If he doesn't make the cut don't breed him. In any breeding your goal should be to improve the breed; it should never be to just make money or to hold on to a piece of your boy for posterity's sake. 

As a fellow first time owner, I'd really caution you to find a mentor. Becoming a breeder is in the back of my mind too, but I imagine it happening 20-30 years down the road after I've lived with and trained a few more of these awesome creatures.


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## SuperV (Oct 18, 2011)

einspänner said:


> ..... I would say 2 years of age is the minimum as that's when you would get his hips scored. I would also work with a trusted breeder to create a list of criteria he must meet before studding him out. My list would include conformation, hunting, and obedience titles, good hips at minimum, and possibly other health tests. We're all likely to develop blind spots with our pups, so it helps to have an objective guide to cut through our emotional ties. If he doesn't make the cut don't breed him. In any breeding your goal should be to improve the breed; it should never be to just make money or to hold on to a piece of your boy for posterity's sake.....


x1000000


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

I would ask what are your plans for this pup, and what have you started doing to work towards them? Have you started any training that he can excel at, and prove he is asset to the breed? 
You also need to look at his bloodlines. Have they proven themselves, and do they have health clearances. Prospective buyers will be going over bloodlines with a fine tooth comb. 
You can get health clearance done at 2 years old, but most dogs do not hold enough titles at that age for me to consider them as a prospective stud.
I may look at them as a dog I like to keep tabs on for the future.


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## Ksana (Mar 30, 2013)

TexasRed said:


> You can get health clearance done at 2 years old, but most dogs do not hold enough titles at that age for me to consider them as a prospective stud.
> I may look at them as a dog I like to keep tabs on for the future.


I am just wondering when do you consider a potential stud to hold enough titles? Would Ch. be enough, or would you prefer to see GrCh. for conformation? What about field testing? Would JH or FDJ be enough? Or would you prefer to see advanced titles being in place?


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## Ksana (Mar 30, 2013)

einspänner said:


> Back to your questions.  I would say 2 years of age is the minimum as that's when you would get his hips scored. I would also work with a trusted breeder to create a list of criteria he must meet before studding him out. My list would include conformation, hunting, and obedience titles, good hips at minimum, and possibly other health tests. We're all likely to develop blind spots with our pups, so it helps to have an objective guide to cut through our emotional ties. If he doesn't make the cut don't breed him. In any breeding your goal should be to improve the breed; it should never be to just make money or to hold on to a piece of your boy for posterity's sake.


Yes, two years of age is considered the min age when the hip (and perhaps, elbow) x-ray results are most accurate. I would say most of the breeders seem to make their conclusions based on hunting and conformation, or hunting titles alone. Although, I agree, it is a good idea to also have obedience and/ or agility, rally-O, etc. I, however, don't see to many Vizlsas doing obedience. Some hunters believe, if you do a lot of obedience with your hunting dogs, they seem to loose drive in hunting. Saying that, we expose our V. to everything we could (field trials, field tests, conformation, agility, obedience, and rally-O); however, it is too early to say whether we have a win-win situation or win-some-loose-some one.


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## redbirddog (Apr 23, 2010)

Hi. Haven't been around much lately. Sorry 'bout that for those that actually find anything I say of interest.

To the subject. There is only one reason a stud is needed. Quality sperm. The act itself can be done artificially. 

I was asked this week what makes a good Hungarian Pointer that can hunt and how hard is it to train them to be great.

"You can polish a diamond and create an amazing gem. You can polish a turd for years and just have a turd."

This is no negative reflection of the opening post's dog, but we have an exceptionally great breed created by people that really KNOW the breed and the standard.

Only create diamonds in the Hungarian Pointer. 

To the original poster. PM me any time. Bailey has put 17 pups on the ground but the whole process was expensive, time consuming, challenging and sometimes frustrating. 

Go into it with your eyes wide open and a dog worthy of the royal hunting dog of the Hungarian Empire.

Happy trails and trials,
RBD
redbirddog.com


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

Ksana said:


> TexasRed said:
> 
> 
> > You can get health clearance done at 2 years old, but most dogs do not hold enough titles at that age for me to consider them as a prospective stud.
> ...


Because I'm a hunter I look more towards hunting and FC titles. No a JH would not be enough. Plenty of dogs can get a JH but can't handle the pressure of the more advanced titles. A Ch title is a bonus, as long as the dog has other titles. A Ch title alone would not interest me, because this is a hunting breed. 
I also like a dog that has a natural drive to retrieve, so I would want at least one of the parents to have this quality.

Now if I know the dogs bloodlines and watch him run, I would be more inclined to purchase a pup if he really impresses me, even if he didn't hold as many titles. Titles are only part of a very big equation.


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## redbirddog (Apr 23, 2010)

Lament of a Stud Dog

"My job is making puppies, and I get two tries at that. 

They pat me on the head and say ‘good boy’ – and that, is that. 
Its half my job to give ‘em teeth and top lines, 
fronts and other, 
remember it’s only half my job, they also have a mother. 

It’s NOT my job to carry pups and make ‘em grow
and nurse ‘em, and feed and clean and make ‘em strong,
that’s for the mother and her person. 

It’s not my job to wean - and feed the calcium and food, 
and stack and gait and housebreak, and make ‘em showing brood.
It’s NOT my job, to plan the breeding and learn what produces well, 

to study pedigrees, learn what’s there and pick out what to sell. 

It’s NOT my job to guarantee champs,
- the breeder picks the pair. 
To mate, and whelp, and feed, and show,
and HOPE the champ is there. 

It’s NOT my job to be on hand, when points are given out, 

the breeder, owner, dam and friends take credit, with a shout. 

It’s NOT my job to deliver a win, it’s only genes I sell. 

But, let the puppies turn out BAD, 
and guess who catches ****!!"​
http://redbirddog.blogspot.com/2010/04/history-of-vizsla.html


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## Ksana (Mar 30, 2013)

A Ch title alone would not interest me, because this is a hunting breed. [/quote]
I am glad to hear it. I see some great looking Vizslas in the show ring that are easy to show because they are so phlegmatic and have no drive whatsoever (not even interested in outside world when they are on the walk outside of the show ring); it is hard to believe these Vizslas would do great in the field.

[/quote] I also like a dog that has a natural drive to retrieve, so I would want at least one of the parents to have this quality. [/quote]
I wonder how could you tell if a V. has a natural drive to retrieve. My V. is young and has recently become crazy about the ball game. I through a ball as far as I could and he brings it back, sits in front of me (if he does not, I wait until he does sit), and puts the ball into my hand. If the ball is lost in the tall grass in the field, I tell him to find it and he does and then brings it back to me again. Recently, we have started the game of the blind search, when he does not know where the ball is and I point with my hand (left, right, or straight ahead) which direction for him to go to and search (he finds and brings the ball back to me). Then he delivers again and keep asking for more. I do not hunt and only observed him a few times with a shot bird in his mouth (he intends to run around with the first bird in his mouth and show off, before he brings it back to me; he then gives it to me, but with not a huge excitement as he does not get the bird being thrown out there again, for another retrieve) . So I wonder if is the a way to evaluate a natural drive to retrieve based on V's behaviour with other objects or do you need to do it with birds?


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## texasred (Jan 29, 2012)

No it does not have to be done with birds to find out if a dog is a natural retriever. Some dogs just love the game, and we use that natural drive.
June at 8 weeks would tear off on mission to retrieve a puppy bumper.
Her mother loves to retrieve, and I was lucky she past that on to June. I don't think I know anyone that likes force fetching a dog. Some dogs love the hunt, but would rather go back to hunting than bring you the bird.
If it took me throwing the bird again to build up a young dogs excitement on retrieves, I would.


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## mlwindc (Feb 8, 2013)

I wanted to chime in on this because it's something I am very interested in.

Our pup will be two this October and he is still intact. He is NOT going to be entered into any kind of field trials and/or earning ribbons because, quite frankly, we just don't have the time to devote to those kinds of things. He is, what I consider with great affection, a hillbilly dog. I think if you go three generations back, there's a JH somewhere, but otherwise, no titles or anything else in the ring. 

That said, he is an excellent hunter. He has incredible drive in the field and a fabulous nose. We took him out for the first time last fall and he brought home 8 pheasants -- they set out six for us. He also has incredible temperament and I would LOVE to be able to breed him someday if only for the temperament alone (we live in the city so there are a lot of vizslas in town who are strictly home/running partners, not hunting dogs). I know it's not a popular opinion on this forum, but I don't think vizslas need to hunt in order to be happy dogs. We happen to hunt ours, but I know many lovely city dogs who get plenty of love and attention with their families who work outside of the house, etc.

Realistically, though, I know we will never stud him. I say this because he went through hunt training with someone who formerly used to breed vizslas (he now does GSPs and Labs). The trainer, on his own, said that we should snip* our pup if we didn't intend to put titles on him because the reality of trying to stud out your dog is expensive and frustrating (as redbirddog said). He knows dogs with titles that haven't been studded due to any number of reasons, including the fact that there's always a "better" dog out there. While I never thought seriously about studding Wilson (it's more of just a desire to have more with his temperament), that conversation made me realize that it made better sense to let those who were seriously devoted to furthering the breed take care of the breeding than to try to do it on my own. I have no interest in being a backyard breeder, so that may have something to do with it too.

* He recommended snipping our pup because, while he has great drive, he's also a bit of a doofus and likes to play too much. They finally sent him home after five weeks of being on the force fetch table because our pup would literally sit down and scratch his head instead of retrieving. He's just not a retriever, unless there are more live birds on the line. We are working on it, but recognize that he will probably never be steady to shot. We are hoping to get him to be steady to wing this fall and I think he can do it. The breeder thought that him being 2+ before this fall training season rolls around, it wouldn't hurt to go ahead with the procedure if we weren't going to breed him anyhow.


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## MeandMy3 (Feb 27, 2013)

Having been on the breeding end of this with our lab, RBD's poem rang true for me. The stud is only half of the genetic make-up, so if you want a pup with that same temperament and personality, choose the female carefully. We had 8 pups - two of them have their mother's personality and the other 6 have their father's personality. Lucky for those owners! We love our female like crazy and we chose to keep the pup that was most like her, however, both are a handful. Most days I really wonder what I was thinking.


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## R E McCraith (Nov 24, 2011)

Mk - the 1st ? How great is your pups breeding #2 are you ready 2 spend the time and money 2 get titles that prove your pup has what it takes #3 health issues - great breeders spend time & money 2 produce the best of the breed - sorry 2 say the I want 2 breed will V the down fall of the V - it takes work 2 train a great pup - it takes a lot more than that 2 V a great breeder !!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Ksana (Mar 30, 2013)

I met a dog owner living nearby who as soon as she realizes her dog would not become a good stud, she just gives him away and gets herself another puppy. It breaks her kids' hearts every time she does it. I am afraid breeders-to-be like her would get so determined to breed that they simply prevent themselves from ever develop a great bonding with their dogs. I don't think they ever happy. She even admitted she paid her vet to issue certificates stating her dog got teeth surgically removed (they were undeveloped) and for other things as well, so her dog could get the conformation Ch. and become a stud. This whole thing made me to question the conformation Ch. Field trials on the other hand award every deserving dog with a title. I especially liked NAVHDA and VHDF as they also check conformation. I was surprized they did much better job than some conformation judges. Every tooth was checked and accounted for, coat was evaluated, all joints were checked, etc. For example, I have seen dogs awarded best of breed and a group placing who according to NAVHDA records had under- or overshot, were missing a testicle, had eye problems, etc.

I personally would not neuter my boy for health reasons and will continue invest into his training and competitions (I believe, this like other sports helps to create a great team relationship and bonding.) If it happens that he does great, gets titles and passes health checks, then I would consider using him as a stud. Although I have a background in genetics and am good in researching pedigrees, I still would not want to do it without a good breeder guiding this whole thing.


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## redbirddog (Apr 23, 2010)

http://redbirddog.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-did-i-bred-our-vizsla.html

Here is a post I did three and a half years ago. "Why did I bred our Vizsla."

Hope it still makes sense.

Happy trails. Breeders are an interesting group of people. I have known several over the last five years. They run the gamut of personalities and philosophies of genetics and the environmental impact of the liters. 

I like them, but could never be one. Too much drama for me.

RBD


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