A-litter

The LoveBoat

Breeding: yes or no? A question I’ve though about a lot and it’s something I still think about every now and then. I don’t want to simply ‘multiply’, that’s already being done by many. The French Bulldog has quite some issues and I would like to ban those by breeding carefully selected animals. Sometimes, the fear of losing one comes over me. I’m the one who wants to breed them, they didn’t ask for it.

Breeding two dogs is easy. Everyone can do that. Breeding a healthy and characterful litter so the new owners will ne and stay happy, is something totally different.

It starts with the parents. It’s important that they are tested and checked for many common disorders, such as BOS syndrome (problems and malformations of the airways), disorders of the back and legs, heart and skin conditions.

I’ve bred a litter from Dixie. She has been extensively tested: I have X-rays of her back and she’s fit for breeding. Obviously, this does not guarantee healthy puppies, but it makes the chance of getting healthy puppies bigger than when you simply put two animals together.

After many considerations, I chose Tyke (pronounced Taik) to be the stud. There were a number of candidates that I thought would be suitable.

Where did I base my choise upon? First of all, the stud dog must have the same medical tests as Dixie and in terms of pedigree they should fit together. Eventually they’re all related one way or another, but I want to see the same relatives as far away as possible. Not easy at all, I’ve been studying pedigrees for many hours. In the end you don’t see anything anymore. I also have to think about the future and the descendants have to fit my other dogs as well.

There’s a DNA profile available of both dogs. This proves that the puppies are from these parents and that I didn’t get a couple of Polish or Hungarian puppies that I put in together with my own pups, which unfortunately often happens. In addition, the DNA that is collected , will be put into a database, so hopefully hereditary diseases can be detected in the future.

I prefer the more elegantly looking Frenchies. I’d like them to run around and play. Dixie and Tyke were a good match. I’ve kept Ayla out of that combination and she’s very energetic and muscular.

When the puppies were 5 weeks old, two of them suddenly died, which was very, very painful to me and my family. Autopsy revealed that they had suffered from an infection of the heart muscly, probably cause by a respitory virus. Because puppies of that age have little resistance, they are susceptible to some infections. So it was sheer bad luck and basically unavoidable.

This litter was my so-called A-litter. Their names were alliterations, like Bog Bob, Ayla After All, Tiny Tyke, Giant Goliath and Darling Darco.