.com Forum · Alpha Dog Forum

I dont frequent the forums very much but I play in a few breeds, like the one in this kennel who are really getting stuck with our lines, and I just bought in 3 500+ day old boys that Im sure the dog napper will kill off before I get a chance to use them!

The way I would personally do it:
To encourage people to show progeny, only those dogs that are a sire of Merit (of any calibre) are freezable by the owner of the dog.
Stored semen will incur a fee of say $100SD a month
Outside use of semen is by approval of stud only by the owner of the dog.
Only a maximum of 12 "straws" are available to be collected from any one dog. (one collection)
This may help struggling breeds a bit- maybe criteria of "worthiness" could be changed.

In RL, we do this to preserve things about dogs that we want to include in the future, preserve an old successful line or just keep some diversity to what may happen in the future.

I have put this past Jeff who said it is up to the great SD community to vote on this- so its not totally off the table.

so the question is, if the option was available, would you use a frozen semen option? Also, please leave a comment if you select yes but needs tweaking so it could be up for discussion


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Last edited by Larbro on 10/20/2015 10:12:55 PM

Frozen semen?

No		23.33%
Yes, but some tweaking of criteria is needed		20.00%
Yes		56.67%

I'm not sure how much use it might be at the moment while a dog is still alive but I can definitely see it being very useful in the future.

I'm in a rare breed where the head trait got locked in the 11 range and I can't tell you how frustrating it was to see old dogs with the trait I needed that I couldn't breed to.

I'm going to vote yes but the criteria needs tweaking.

I dont think it should just be limited to merit winning dogs. In some rare breeds it is hard to get merits just simply due to budget constraints, lack of space to keep dogs or just plain lack of people in that breed.

I think it would also be nice if there was no approval needed. For example an owner could put up 4 straws in the public semen bank for a set price. They could keep the other 8 for private use. This way even if they stop playing the game the dog could still be used.

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Last edited by Silk N Denim Terriers on 10/20/2015 10:44:14 PM

I like that train of thought So many REALLY old dogs, like the 3 I just HAD to buy, a long way behind SOP wise but oh so even. To see dogs in basic abandoned or inactive kennels that havent been touched in years, yet you cant offer on "rescuing" them in order to diversify or improve is frustrating! Maybe an idea would be to set the collection age instead? and an option to select what you keep stored yourself and what you sell?

I will go and read the frozen semen help section on showcattle.com. it might give us some info we can use to set it up on here.

Edited to add...
the help pages on showcattle.com didn't really have alot of info.

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Last edited by Silk N Denim Terriers on 10/20/2015 11:21:18 PM

that would be great. Jeff eluded that this was kyboshed by the users last time it was put to the vote, It would be really nice to know why it was, I would hate for the idea to be thrown out only because people cant see the long term benefits. If we can get together all the correct information and inform people of the benefits, I hope this is a feature that is embraced in the future.

OMG I so need this in some of my breeds. Where theyve been dying breeds for so long that there are simply no inactive studs to find because theyve all died. Not even for traits, but just because genetic diversity is dicey and COIs are high..

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Last edited by Gypsy Fires Kennels on 10/20/2015 11:16:32 PM

Stolen from another game:
I think it would be good if we could buy frozen semen for a horse, from the horses page. Say the owner has taken 15 straws from the horse, they want to keep 5, and sell 10. On the stallions page, you would have an option to sell __ number of straws for __ price. The straws would have to be ones you had already taken from the horse. Then anyone who looked at the stud would see, under the bar to breed to the horse, "X straws for sale for $XXXXXXX. Buy one straw." That way, when you find a nice looking horse (and many people do keep the 30+ ones too) you would see there were straws for sale without having to search the market/messaging the owner. If it could be tied to the market, then that would be even better - so putting it up for sale on the market would make it show on the horse's page and visa versa, and buying it from the horse's page would remove one from the market and visa versa.


On some of the horse sites, you pay like 20000 to freeze. Considering you would get 12 matings out of one collection, maybe a price like $300 to collect and then $100 a month to store it? Minimum fee chargeable should reflect that IRL best breeding practices suggest progestrone testing and vet based artificial insemination, so maybe a minimum of $100 stud fee for semen?

I can see multiple sides to this.

I think it would be great for rare breeds or those with few breeders to diversify the population, bring in (back) new traits, etc.

For many breeds who have multiple players, or even one large kennel, I can't forsee this being used a lot. My dogs' SOP raises by leaps and bounds, I often FH sires because I have much better ones available.

How much effort would need to be put in on Jeff's part to make this happen in comparison to how much use or change would be able to come about?
$100/month adds up if you're freezing multiple dogs.

Thats the whole reason I was looking into it originally. Breeds with less than a handful of breeders who are attempting to improve are struggling because COI is getting pretty high and even with co-operation, we are breeding into a corner.
I found 3 males for sale in a kennel that has shut up shop, those males are over 500 days old, and yes, behind in SOP by about 3 full points, but at the same time, they are very even all over, and since they are that old, they are so watered down lines wise, it gives us something new to go out to in order to avoid the dreaded high COI. I see it as a very useful tool that will help keep breeds alive.
The storage price can be polled etc, I see collecting and storing as a choice, not everyone HAS to do it, but it would be nice to have the option

I have not voted yet but the question was asked, would I use it. Well, yes perhaps at some point, who knows. I might, but I have yet to experience a “Gosh if only frozen semen was available from SuperStud” situation.

I admit that I have opposed this each time it has been brought up.

In real life, the reasons behind AI are distance between sire and dam (timing, cost and dangers of shipping), disease transmission, preservation of super good dogs in the event of premature death (accident, illness), and perhaps unwillingness to maintain the live animal as a stud. We don’t have distance to contend with. We don’t have disease. We don’t have premature death due to anything. And our studs remain equally fertile from age 14 to 400 – age doesn’t matter.

I fear that some would find a way to abuse it. In certain breeds from time to time we already see complaints of extreme “dog-in-the-manger” mentalities where one kennel (or group) have a lock on the best dogs and refuse to share in a fair manner (putting an animal at stud and/or approval at 10 to 100 times the going rate is not sharing). These folks are still going to have to be willing to collect and store the semen and make it available.

To get my approval this issue would have to be addressed.

The other issue I have had from day 1 (10 plus years ago) are all those poor males out there that are all skin and bone, malnourished victims of OldBoy. This is such a common factor – it applies to perhaps 95% of kennels. Condition of the male will impact quantity and quality of sperm. A litter conceived with such males should see reduced litter size at the very least. Out of condition males would not have the minimum viable sperm count to make collection appropriate. So, at the very least a male would have to be 20 (negotiable) in order to be collected.

Ultimately, I don’t really see a lot of legitimate use for this feature but I’m willing to consider it. Personally, I’d rather see Jeff spend his time working on some of the stuff on ShowHorse that has been voted on and given Admin approval years ago now.

To address the issues with rare breeds and unavailable dogs in abandoned kennels, perhaps we should consider removing any need for owner acceptance for a dog that has been place for sale in a kennel that has not been accessed for 120 (negotiable) days. Likewise, studs sitting in such kennels could be automatically placed at public stud for the going rate - place a limit on the number of breedings or length of time if you like. (Jeff could create and run a process once every three months and put all the males at stud. If someone comes back there would be a notice in their mail and they could undo it.) In order for rare/struggling breeds to make use of AI, breeders would have to anticipate the need in the future. If they are going to quit, are they going to care? If they care, they’ll put their males at stud before they totally abandon their kennel.

Edit:
Regarding out of condition males, I was not so much suggesting that collected males should be in better condition but all males should be in better condition. I was not suggesting a double standard at all but sexual equality.


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Last edited by gaylanstudio on 10/22/2015 11:43:40 AM

I voted yes for this because I honestly am not fussed either way, if it helps the rare breeds then great!

To that end though is it possible for ?Jeff to "create" a few admin dogs and put them at stud for the breeds that are really stuck? I don't know if this is any better really, it just depends less on other players.

I do feel for those in struggling breeds and hope there is a way to help.

Also, is the option to buy source dogs still available? I know they are starters and crap SOP wise, but they'd help the coi situation, maybe the price could be lowered for the rare breeds?

At the moment stud condition has no impact on puppies so why should it impact semen collection? That would be a double standard.

All of the above are valid reasons.

I see freezing semen, especially in breeds like Sealys, would be helpful for the future more than creating source dogs for genetic diversity. I have created some source bitches in Affenpinschers, Its going to take FOREVER to get their stats to a point where I can show, and will probably end up being back to square one with compacting lines again because I have to use current studs to get it right. Whereas with these 500 day old, brink of dying, Sealy boys, they are only 4 SOP points behind everything else in my kennel, but genetically watered down enough that subsequent use of them has my COI back at a reasonable number.

And as for super studs- I have a line that I ADORE in my Dobermann kennel. Its produced winner after winner, and also down the generations. While I have used them to oblivion now, and my COIs are starting to suffer- it would be nice to have that option to sneak back to down the line.

Unfortunately- you will probably NEVER stop the selfish people keeping their best dogs at arms length from everyone else. Personally, I dont have that mentality, but people that are like that on an online game are probably not the nicest people in RL either.

I think another good suggestion is- if a kennel has been "abandoned" for more than 12mths, then put all the dogs up for public sale. I dont see this as ever happening, so frozen semen seems more likely.

I really hope that this discussion opens up some talk on suggestions on helping out the wider community, whilst some people are mega competent at this game, able to breed/raise/show mega stars litter after litter, avoid high COI and have mega bucks in their kennel, some of us are passionate about helping the breeds less fortunate, but the low numbers of active breeders is making it really hard.

I say no because I also think there will still be the issue of closed kennels not wanting to share their good studs. More than that, I honestly don't see Jeff putting in the time and effort to do it at this juncture, not with how busy he is and how unresponsive he has been lately. A lot of people have been upset that he hasn't even answered emails, so I highly doubt he wants another project to add to the site..

I see areas of the game where this would be beneficial, of course, but I also see a lot of people abusing the feature. So I think no/maybe.

I would like to have 100 responses to this topic and any suggestions people have to tweaking it before resubmitting it to Jeff. He is open to the idea, so lets get this right

From: admin Sent: 10/31/2015 1:18:12 PMMessage Viewed
There are four other new features with more responses to polls right now.

I ought to be able to get to it eventually but don't know of a timeline.

Thank you,

Jeff



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Thanks to everyone who took the time to respond and contribute to this discussion. Needless to say, this feature will eventually be rolled out- currently 5th in line :P

Bump so it doesnt disapear from our collective memories

Curious what the 4 other new features are?

Yeah Dead, I've been thinking on it. I know one is implementing selects, etc. But have no idea what the other 2 are. Either way, this was from what? October/November? I still havent seen any new features in the intervening months. We have a hard time getting bugs fixed about half the time.

Oh, quit complaining, you guys have it good compared to ShowHorse!

www.showhorse.com/forum/read.aspx?id=18832

Perhaps we should have asked the 1st of which month in which year . . .

Sigh....just sigh. Why am I paying for this again? Oh yeah, cause Im like an addict..