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Originally Posted by gaileena  But, this is just something we thought about doing, not sure that we will. |
I'm glad you are thinking about it, instead of already being decided.
You will get a lot of good advice here about how to determine if a dog should be bred. There's good reasons that you'll be told about having full health certifications and titles before even considering if these two should be bred, and if it would be good for the breed to breed them to each other.
In some older threads on breeding there is one person who has posted some great stuff on the risks that having pups can pose to your dogs, and all of the things that can go wrong when dogs give birth.
I've got my own personal hot points on why you really should think very long and hard about breeding, and then probably decide against it.
Before you get decided on breeding, please get very familiar with your area rottweiler rescue and also keep track of the rottweiler listings on Petfinder.com. Every one of those dogs in need of a home were bred by people that thought they were bringing happy puppies into the world and that they'd go off and have good lives.
We live in a very rural area - only 18,000 people in our county. Each year 2000 - 2500 are euthanized at our county dog pound and that includes plenty of rottweilers. They've started posting their pictures on petfinder and trying hard to get them adopted, but the number of dogs euthanized each week dwarfs the number that go to homes. It just breaks my heart to see rotties with names and pictures and individual faces show up one week and be gone the next - knowing that most did not beat the odds.
Would you ever want the offspring of your family dogs to get shuffled off to a fate like that? Or to live it's entire life chained to a doghouse?
Even dogs of the best breeding can have their lives derailed and eventually end up in situations like this - but at least if they are bred by code of ethics breeders they stand a better chance of going to a decent home in the first place and have some protection in a contract that is written so they don't end up getting passed from home to home to pound to euthanasia. But even with that, rescues still end up trying to find homes for top quality rotts on a regular basis.
No matter how smart, loving, and pretty your dogs may be, or who their ancestors might be, without their own titles and health clearances it is likely that a number of their precious puppies and future grandpuppies will fall into the sort of situations you would never wish for them. Sure, some might end up in a happy home with a happy life, but do you really want to breed for a chance of that knowing that the odds are that most of their littermates won't be so lucky?
If you have a true desire to breed beautiful, smart rottweilers and send them to good homes - please read and take to heart all of the advice you are given about what it takes to breed in a way that improves the breed. The good puppy buyers aren't going to buy from people who are doing less than that (with the exception of those who don't know better and often suffer a lot of heartache until how they learn to find a decent breeder.)
As you think about it all, keep count of the rotties that go through your local rescues and that show up in petfinder in your area. It will be heartwrenching, but it is a very important part of your decision making process.
Lynda