Recently two "shes' in my
kennel were converted
to "its". The reasons for having a pair of hard hunting
Pointer bitches spayed go well beyond the contention that a man
ought to practice what he preaches
But that ought to do for starters. For almost as long as I have
been messing with gun dogs, I have advised others to have their
females spayed. Spaying is a simple surgical procedure, roughly
comparable to a human hysterectomy. It prevents females from
having puppies and, with rare exception, does away with the customary
semi-annual estrus (heat) period, during which male dogs from
miles around are lured to the scent of a female ready to mate.
There is an ingrained reluctance on my part to tamper with anything
natural. When you have kennel facilities in which dogs have been
housed over 40 years and for years have been accustomed to, on
average, having 10 or 20 personal dogs on hand, your outlook
regarding keeping breedable bitches will differ greatly from
the non-professional. |
So the recommendations made for others were tinged by
hypocrisy. I have kept more then my share of intact bitches,
put up with the inconvenience because they trained early and
easily and there are always the possibility that I would want
some puppies from my favorite gun dog. So I avoided, for the
most part, the single detrimental result of spaying. Once it's
done there is no reversal. No matter how well a young bitch turns
out, if she is spayed there will be no puppies, never.
For the majority of hunters, that's no real problem. They aren't
in dog breeding or dog training business. Matter of fact, while
there are a lot of sound reasons to select a female pup over
a male pup, the silliness of the reason is because a female can
produce a litter of pups. There is no virtually no practical
reason for anyone who needs only one hunting dog at a time to
reason for anyone who needs only one hunt
|
ing dog at a time to breed a bitch, high
quality or not. By simply buying pups from pro and serious dog
folks, as folks, as needed, hunters get better pups at less cost.
Excess pups won't have to be sold cheap, given away or abandoned.
For one reason or another I have owned spayed females. They're
convinced me that a spayed female is the answer to a dog owner's
dream of finding a relatively trouble-free, no problem, easy
to maintain housepet/gundog. So regardless of my practices, the
advice I offered for others was sound and based upon personal
experience.
Sometimes ago, after deciding I had gambled. Messed around with
and cleaned up after my share of homebred litters of pups, I've
sort of gone whole hog on the spaying bit. I also threatened
to follow another thing I've strongly advocated. If you want
a guaranteed good gun dog, buy one trained or at least well-started,
from someone who will demonstrated to your satisfaction the dog
he is selling will do the job for you.
But lots of things get in the way of such good judgment. Because
pups are appealing, I'm a dreamer and I keep telling myself I'm
going to get around to doing them justice, I haven't closed the
house and kennel to pups and young dogs; nor can I claim that
the ones I acquired from other sportsmen are in any way inferior
to those I've bred myself.
We have, at the time of this writing, an even dozen dogs at our
place. None are client dogs. I no longer train dogs for the public
and have to admit to slacking off work I do with my personal
dogs. Half are |
