Breeding Challenges

Each day, we post darling photos and videos of our pregnant dams, the handsome sires and their beautiful pups but behind those images is the reality of breeding. You read a bit about one of those realities when Miss Rainbow died. Tonight, I'm going to tell you more, probably because I'm incredibly tired after ten days with minimal sleep.

Most litters go smoothly, with easy breedings, pregnancies and whelpings. Dreamer's has not followed that pattern and although an outlier, it is our existence at the moment. Last night, I feared that Dreamer had developed a uterine infection. To be totally gross, there was a smell in the nursery that I knew shouldn't be there. Her discharge, something that all dams experience, had changed to a color and consistency that I didn't like. So tonight, I took her in to my fabulous vet, Dr Jim Zgoda at Otterkill Animal Hospital for a check up. Ultrasound confirmed that there was fluid in the uterus that shouldn't be there but it had not become the dreaded pyometra.

However, treatment for mild infections is not easy on the dog but the alternatives are either let it progress or spay Dreamer in the next few days. So, tonight we start prostaglandin treatments. HOpefully Dreamer will come through without problem but I suspect we won't be getting much sleep tonight.

Wish us well tonight and send Dreamer positive thoughts that she won't be too uncomfortable for the next three days.

Let the Games Begin!

It was a big night, last night! It was 72 hours since the pups were born and that means the beginning of our developmental program. That means, the pups went to school for the first time. Now mind you, they have learning all kinds of things with Dreamer in the whelping box. They've learned how to find mom or each other for warmth, how to root around to find a nipple and how to hang on for dear life while brothers and sisters try to pry you off, how to throw your weight around if you have it or how to be sly if you don't. Yesterday, they learned how to balance precariously on each other or their mom's foot to grab and hang on to a dangling nipple.

But now they are going to learn some additional subjects, such as Biosensor 101 and Scents 101. We started last night with Biosensor, a set of exercises developed by the military for their working dogs. These series of movements slightly stress the pups in ways they don't typically experience in the whelping box. Stress has to be managed carefully in young animals because it can be detrimental or developmental, depending upon the amount, timing and type of experiences. We don't want to throw too much at them too soon so this program goes step by step from now till they go to their new homes, then we give their new owners information on how to keep up the lessons.

I'll post some videos over the next few weeks but tonight, I'm off to do Biosensor on the pups and introduce them to "moss."

We are Growing!

Andy and I were both anxious last night but everyone came through with flying colors, if a bit sleep deprived. The pups are all consistently gaining weight and everyone is over 1 pound as of this morning. For me, that's a big hurdle for golden retriever pups. I want them to be 1 pound before the end of the first week and then growing steadily after that till they go home at 12-15 (yikes!) pounds.

It's so interesting to see the changes in the pups and Dreamer over the past few days. Initially, we couldn't drag Dreamer away from the pups...literally. It was like having a mule on the end of the leash. Yesterday, she started spending a minute or two outside the box (hence yesterday's sadness) and even came downstairs when dinner was being made. She couldn't concentrate enough to eat it down there but she could leave the pups for a short, three-minute trip.

This morning, she voluntarily went for a trip outside with Una and Corey and again supervised breakfast preparation. She had to eat it upstairs with the pups but was probably away from the box for at least five minutes. However, when she came back to the nursery, she ended up in the laundry basket not the whelping box :-).

She's also just started nursing sitting up. I've found this to be an important developmental opportunity that dam's give their pups as (and so that) the babies get stronger. Many folks force their bitches to lie down to nurse for weeks and I would too if the pups weren't gaining weight. However, if they are, I think the challenge that nursing sitting presents to the pups is fabulous. Without fuss or muss, without expensive or complicated equipment, without extensive scientific studies or publications*, mama dogs help their pups gain in strength, coordination, and problem solving. When you are only 2 inches high and blind, exactly how do you get to that nipple 6 inches off the ground? I'm not going to give away the puppies' secret but they do and in doing so, they learn to be persistent, to fight for what they want, to balance, to use all those wonderful muscles God gave them, and I'm sure much more.

Photos and videos are being uploaded now so check them out.

Gayle


* For those that don't know me well, I'll share that aside from observing dogs, I base many of my dog rearing methods on science so I'm proud that I can also learn from my dogs and not be a total geek :-).

Hard Day

Breeding dogs has taught me more life lessons than I care to recount but more than any others, it has taught me that death is the intimate partner of life. Despite our best efforts to ignore and avoid it, the period to every life is a passing to another world. Today that lesson was taught to us again.

Miss Rainbow left us this afternoon. It's hard to believe that beautiful little girl, whose life was so brief, is gone but she is. Her exhausted mother who has been as diligent a first-time dam as I've ever seen, had a moment of confusion and lay on her baby girl. I was downstairs greeting the next puppy watcher who was coming to babysit while I had to work. In those few moments, that life lesson was learned again.

Dreamer knew something was wrong and after doing her best to revive her daughter, calmly allowed us to work on her baby. It was as if she knew that this situation was beyond her abilities and put her trust in us. Alas, it was also beyond mine. Despite an extended period of resuscitation attempts, I could not make that beautiful heart beat again. Sometimes love and intention just isn't enough.

It's been an afternoon of tears but I know that the real lesson is in front of me, in ten lively golden souls and their loving mother. We cry, we rail against the seeming unfairness of lives cut short, and we wish there were another way but then we have to move on and turn our eyes to the day. So tonight join us in lighting a candle for Miss Rainbow because tomorrow we will again return to celebrating life and the joy these puppies will bring to ours.

What a Day!

Dreamer started her second day as a mom with a spa treatment to get her cleaned up after the whelping. We normally would have done it yesterday but she is so intense about being with her pups, I figured it could wait a day. There has been a big change in the pups over the last day, as they put on weight and bulk. They are more comfortable at normal household temperatures, rather than the sauna that they needed for the first 24 hours. All of us are grateful for this maturing, but especially Dreamer who was very hot the first 36 hours.

All of us headed to Otterkill Animal Hospital this afternoon so Dr Jim Zgoda could check out the crew. Dreamer had experienced some unusual things just before the pups' birth so I wanted her to be seen before too long. Aside from a little touch of early mastitis, all is well. The pups were healthy and strong. We'll tackle the mastitis with hot packs, puppies and cabbage leaves before resorting to antibiotics.

In the meantime, we are taking pleasure in just watching the pups. It's hard to get enough of them. Although often described as "helpless," newborn puppies really are very capable but in only a few limited ways. They can seek out heat and milk with great accuracy, they can climb over hill and dale or at least brothers and sisters to get to mom, and they can let it be known loudly and clearly when they are unhappy. They also mew when they are content, one of the happiest sounds I know.

Goodnight all, I have puppies to watch! You can check out photos and videos from the day at Gaylan's Webshots page. Enjoy!

Welcome, *High* Litter!

Dreamer's first litter, Gaylan's "High" litter, arrived last night smoothly and sweetly. Dreamer was due yesterday, January 28 and she was a good girl, delivering right on time. Her water broke around 5:25 PM and soon after 7, the pups started arriving. We ended up with seven girls and four boys, all delivered naturally by 11 PM. They are an active bunch so it took a little while to get the temperature warm enough for them and not too warm for Dreamer but as you can see by the video, they are now content and quiet. We LOVE quiet puppies because it means that they are physically comfortable. Off to tackle the laundry before it becomes a landslide, as well as clean Dreamer up after her exciting evening.

We are very proud to introduce, in order of appearance:
Mr Blue, born at 7:13 PM, weighing in at 12 1/4 oz
Miss Purple, born at 7:27 PM, weighing in at 14 1/4 oz
Miss Red, born at 7:56 PM, weighing in at 12 3/4 oz
Miss Rust, born at 8:15 PM, weighing in at 12 oz
Mr Brown, born at 8:46 PM, weighing in at 14 oz
Miss Yellow, born at 8:56 PM, weighing in at 11 1/4 oz
Miss Rainbow, born at 9:40 PM, weighing in at 11 3/4 oz
Miss Black, born at 9:59 PM, weighing in at 13 oz
Miss Pink, born at 10:16 PM, weighing in at 12 1/4 oz
Mr Green, born at 10:38 PM, weighing in at 11 1/4 oz
Mr Royal Blue, born at 11:01, weighing in at 12 1/2 oz

Reversing the Trend: Proposing The Rule of 6s

Many golden retriever breeders raise their litters using Pat Hasting’s Rule of 7s, a set of guidelines that encourage breeders to stimulate puppies during their first seven weeks. For example, the Rule of 7 has breeders introducing puppies to seven different footings, objects, environments, people, feeding containers, etc. For years now, the Rule of 7s has provided breeders an easy mechanism with which to think about puppy socialization.

Following in Ms Hasting’s footsteps, we would like to propose the Rule of 6s, a set of breeding guidelines for golden retrievers. These guidelines do not focus on puppy rearing but instead on increasing the lifespan of the puppies we produce. It is commonly accepted that golden retrievers are living shorter lives, down to 10 ½ years for dogs according to the 1998-99 Golden Retriever Health Study sponsored by the Golden Retriever Club of America. We think it’s time to reverse this trend! There is no reason that goldens shouldn't live 12-13 years.

Why goldens are living shorter lives is unknown but there are three common breeding decisions that likely contribute to the problem: inbreeding, ignoring longevity as a trait, and overuse of popular sires.

1) Inbreeding. For the purposes of this blog, "in-breeding" refers to the breeding of dogs related to each other and therefore includes line-breeding. Although inbreeding has long been the norm in dog breeding, recent research indicates that inbreeding also reduces longevity, along with contributing to other health problems. As with most purebred dog breeders, golden retriever breeders often use inbreeding in order to maintain or improve sought after physical or performance traits. However, the price of these improvements is a statistically significant decrease in longevity.

2) Ignoring Longevity. Longevity is a trait similar to the many other traits that dog breeders pursue in their dogs. In fact, reputable breeding is all about seeking good traits while minimizing or avoiding bad ones. Some traits are simple to select for—they are visible in the dogs we are breeding, they are controlled by a single gene, and their distribution among puppies can be easily predicted. However, other traits, such as longevity, are more complex. In fact, longevity may be one of the most complex traits: we cannot know how long an animal will live when we breed it (unless we are using frozen semen from a deceased sire), longevity likely consists of interactions between many genes, and at this stage we know little about how longevity is inherited.

However, just because longevity is difficult to breed for does not excuse us for overlooking it. In fact, we think it is one of the most important issues that we should tackle as reputable breeders. Thus, longevity must be included in the list of traits we use to select breeding stock and combinations.

3) Overuse of Popular Sires. Dr Jerry Bell highlights the issues with the popular-sire syndrome, which occurs when a stud is used extensively for breeding, spreading his genes quickly throughout the gene pool. Dr Bell says "there are two problems caused by the popular-sire syndrome. One is that any detrimental genes which the sire carries will significantly increase in frequency - possibly establishing new breed-related genetic disorders. Second, as there are only a certain number of bitches bred each year, overuse of a popular sire excludes the use of other quality males, thus narrowing the diversity of the gene pool."

A European study found that the golden retriever has one of the biggest problems with Popular Sire Syndrome, with only 5% of golden males being used for breeding. This means that the genetic material of 95% of male goldens is lost to the breed's future. Who knows what those genes contain but it is likely that at least some of them are important to the breed's future health.

So, how do we turn this situation around in hopes of increasing the lifespan of the average golden retriever? We can start by using four simple breeding guidelines to reduce inbreeding, select for a reasonable lifespan and increase the breed’s gene pool. These breeding decisions will improve the odds that a puppy from these breedings will live past 12 years.

Breed litters:

1) With 10- and 12-generation coefficients of inbreeding (COIs) of 6.25% or less.
2) With at least one parent, typically a sire, that is at least 6 years old.
3) Whose grandparents all lived longer than 6 years.

And, for breeders:

4) At least some of the time, use sires that have been bred fewer than 6 times.

So what can you do to help if you think these proposals are a good idea? If you are a buyer, you can ask breeders if their breeding or puppies meet at least the first three, if not all, of these guidelines. You can also confirm the information yourself at www.k9data.com. There are more details below.

If you are a breeder, you can commit to following these guidelines in most if not all of your breedings.

Finally, you can help spread the word about this effort to reverse the trend by forwarding this page to other golden retriever lovers. We can take action to improve the longevity of our beloved dogs but we need to act now. Will you help?

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Buyers can determine if a breeding meets these criteria by asking the breeder to post their breedings on k9data.com. Dates of birth for the sire and dam can be found on their individual pages. COIs are found under the "View Genetic Information" link at the bottom of the page.