.com Forum · Lhasa Apso

I was recently asked to give breeding advice. I figured I would post it here. You can agree or disagree, or not care. I have been doing this since 2003 so it works.

Never breed more than 10% COI except to "lock in" a trait. Keep in mind that while you are inbreeding for that great "10" you are also inbreeding on every fault in the pedigree. Only keep the pup from that inbred litter which has the trait you bred to reproduce. FH the rest. If you didn't get what you were trying for, FH the entire litter. Try again. I once did the same brother-sister breeding 4 times before I got exactly what I wanted.

Never keep a pup that is not an improvement upon its parents. SOP is a great tool but I don't use it exclusively. I use my eyes too! A Sire(97.9 sop) with a 9.8 head, and a Dam(97.9 sop) with a 9.8 head produces a pup with 97.7 sop but a 9.9 head can be considered an improvement if you were trying to improve Head.

Don't breed 10.2 to 9.8 and expect to get numbers in the middle. It doesn't work that way

As I said above- FH them all if you don't get what you want. Don't settle for less than an improvement just for the sake of getting the next generation.

My goal is to keep my brood stock no closer than 10% COI.
My highest and fastest SOP increases have come from 0% to 4% COI breedings.

Stud fees are nice, but if you see your male get used more than 10 times in 2 weeks, take him off the stud board for the next 2 weeks. If everyone breeds to your male, you'll make a lot of money... But in a month when you go looking for a stud to use all the best ones will be sired by your male! Its Murphey's Law.

Never breed a bitch more than 4 times. If you don't get anything you call an improvement in 4 different litters by 4 different males... FH her, she's a dud. If you get lots of great pups from her and keep a pup out of every litter, you run the risk of inbreeding- And as nice as your bitch might be, Murphey's Law says inbreeding on her will make yucky puppies.

Don't throw out a pup just because the SS is not a perfect 20 if every other trait is an over all improvement on the parents. SS is the easiest thing to fix now that our breed has it in abundance. I was involved back in the day trying to get SS up to 20.. Boy, that was a challenge considering my original Starter Male had a SS of 9 and everything I had was down from him!

If I think of anything else, I'll post it another time. Happy gaming folks.

WOW some great advice thanks!
i compleatly agree with the SS part my mate who use to own this kennel would not keep any dog that wasnt 20 SS and would often FH some nice dogs because of it.

Back in the days before our breed had 20SS we had to breed that way too, in the effort to bring SS up. Now that SS is at 20 we can compromise SS every now and then.

I currently have a 98.2 SOP bitch with a 19 SS. She's great, and I'll be breeding the heck out of her! lol

The main issue I see many new breeder falling into is keeping pups just for the sake of getting 1 more generation into their own "line" regardless of the fact that the pups are a downgrade from where they started. Unless you are Source breeding, you shouldn't accept doing this at all!

My OP above just applies to breeding within established lines... Most of it doesn't apply to source breeding. Source breeding is SOOOOOO much more difficult to do completely from scratch. Which is why I decided not to exclude all current generation dogs from my source kennel.

Edit:
I am breaking my own rule and breeding a bitch more than 4 times. I can't help it. I've bred her 4 times, to 4 different males, and there has been a 98-98.2 in every litter. This bitch is the best producer I have ever had... These males haven't made 98's with other bitches... So I tend to think its my girl and the boys are just providing the neccessary ingredient to make puppies!
Here she is:
www.showdog.com/General/offspring.aspx?name=Norbu Footloose
How can I not breed her to every male in the house? lol
Murphy's Law is going to catch up with me... I just KNOW it!

wow norbu footloose has had some nice pups.

just noticed who the sire was

i dont worrie too much about COI, in my vallhund kennel ive had the last 8 top SOP's but ive found i get a good result when i breed two higher COIs like say a 14% and 16% that arnt that related to each other so the pups are about 0%-4% but vallhunds have more players so i can allways breed out if it gets too high.

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posted by princepompaid
wow norbu footloose has had some nice pups.

just noticed who the sire was

i dont worrie too much about COI, in my vallhund kennel ive had the last 8 top SOP's but ive found i get a good result when i breed two higher COIs like say a 14% and 16% that arnt that related to each other so the pups are about 0%-4% but vallhunds have more players so i can allways breed out if it gets too high.

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Yes, Footloose is making me eat my words when it comes to how many times I am breeding a bitch! And yes, her Sire has everything to do with the awesome pups she's making too.

And you nailed it with breeding high COI to unrelated high COI. It works really well. Hard to do in Lhasas since we're so small. I'm working on that with my color kennel somewhat, but not very well lol