ADRK does not allow AI??

[Judi W]

I believe that some of the reasons (which I would agree with) are to make sure that the breeding partners are dogs that are capable of breeding naturally. Males that have never mounted and bred a bitch, bitches that cannot breed without being dosed with thyroid and AI'd - none of this is good in the long run for a breed. There are many breeds that cannot copulate naturally and must deliver by C section. Too many generations of manipulated breeding can have a permanent effect. Fertility problems in bitches should be selected against, not engineered around and a bitch that refuses to stand even though ovulating is not desireable. Males that may not have the desired libido - ditto.

Now, on the other side, Germany is a fairly small country geographically so the difficulty of transportation is not as extreme as in the US and they do not set their rules to accomodate us here. The shipping of semen has been a boon here and allows breeding partner selection that otherwise might be very difficult. With the airline regulations now in place shipping a bitch is going to become ever more difficult.

Well, both sides.

[Michele Baxter]

Why is it that the ADRK will not register a litter unless it is done in Germany? i.e. not shipping semen?
With today's DNA technology one would think that all parties could be DNA profiled and there be no problem with this sort of thing. We need some of these bloodlines over here and there's no way to accomplish it other than taking your bitch to Germany. What exactly are the rules if anyone knows specifically pertaining to this rule? Is there any thought of change in the works? What with all the Breed Specific legislation going on in Germany maybe they need to rethink this one. Thanks.

[BostonRott]

Yep Judy, you are exactly right! ADRK is very into "natural" breeding, most dogs over there are not even brucellosis tested. But one of the main reasons is to maintain the integrity of the breed and if a bitch won't stand or a dog won't mount.....well, do we really need more of them??

Also, breedings are very controlled, with only a certain number allowed per year, and also the tattoos of the dogs are checked to be sure that Dog A is truly being bred to Bitch B. With AI, they lose that ability. Yes, DNA testing would help......but can it differentiate between littermates. I.e. say Dog A is well titled and a major show dog, but a breeding idiot and won't mount....or worse yet, shoots blanks......so they bring in his litterbrother (untitled, unknown) and do the breeding (lie about who the stud really was).......could DNA differentiate the littermates? Maybe, maybe not. Depends how genotypically similar they are.

[Urbans]

Yes, you can tell the difference in DNA between littermates. Unless they are identical twins. ;)