Hello from Michelle and Zoe!!!
-Mish and Zoe! |
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| Welcome!! |
| oh how nice you joined.
Welcome to the forum!!! pics soon please... |
| Welcome to the forum.
Looking forward to pics and hearing more about you and Zoe. |
| Hi, Mish.
Welcome! Yes, you're wise to assume he can breed her. Even though he's very young, he's also a mix of small breeds which tend to mature faster than the larger breeds, so you just never quite know. Where there's a will there tends to be a way.  Never mind that she's just a baby herself.
Breeding a dog takes a lot of homework. Fortunately you're in college (yes?) so that concept shouldn't be foreign to you  And you have a couple of years till she'd really be old enough and you've had time to get all of her health testing done.
The Old English Sheepdog Club of America's code of ethics spells out some of the responsibilities involved in breeding a litter, so that might be a good place to start: http://www.oldenglishsheepdogclubofamer ... s_2000.htm The Orthopedic Health Foundation (OFA) will be a valuable research tool as you're deciding on an appropriate stud dog and ensuring he has had the applicable health screening done as well: www.offa.org The Canine Health Information Center (CHIC) offers advice on which health testing is important for this breed in order to improve your odds of producing healthy puppies: http://www.caninehealthinfo.org/brdreqs.html?breed=SD Typically you screen for hip and elbow dysplasia (dogs need to be a minimum of 2 years old to be eligible for a final screening), inherited eye diseases (the screening itself is called a CERF exam - unfortunately things like progressive retinal atrophy (PRA) and inherited cataracts often don't show up until a dog is older than two, so you need to ideally screen annually) and hypothyroidism (hip dysplasia and hypothyroidism are big problems in the breed - hypothyroidism is another thing you should repeatedly test for since it also tends to show up later than 2 years old in many dogs). Too the breed is prone to deafness, so you should BAER test - a dog can be deaf in one ear and you may not be able to tell without this special test. You'd never want to breed such a dog as the odds of her producing deaf puppies is much greater than a dog whose hearing is fine. And finally we have an assortment of inherited cardiac conditions in the breed. Though they are not as common, they do occur, so if we don't screen for them, chances are their frequency will increase. The OESCA Health website - www.oeshealth.org - covers some of this and also has much more information about the many inherited conditions we don't necessarily have the ability to test for such as autoimmune diseases (in addition to hypothyroidism), epilepsy, cerebella ataxia (the open health registry can be helpful in this regard: http://www.oescahealthregistry.org/) and others. Perhaps your bitch's breeder has already bombarded you with this information?  Otherwise, please feel free to peruse to the health section and so on and ask lots of questions!
What's your major? Pictures!!! (of Zoe, not major )
best, Kristine |
| She is so pretty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
| Welcome Mish and Zoe, from MN. |
Thank you SOOOO much for all that information! I am so thankful for this website. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Poor Zoe has to stay home today because, well, she is in her cycle and, although her diaper looks WAY cute, my aunt isn't one for female dogs in heat in her house. As for my pictures, I believe some are up in my photo album, but I can't figure out how to do a little avatar pic like all of you have! It keeps telling me my pictures are too big, and I don't know how to make them smaller.  Any suggestions??
Hope you all have a great turkey day! God bless!! |
| She's such a little cutie.
Instructions on picture posting in FAQ's http://forum.oes.org/viewtopic.php?t=1119 |
| I did it! thanks so much! |
| Welcome from Alberta, Canada. |
| Welcome from St. Louis!!!!! I love the black and White bow in Zoe's topknot!!! Can't wait to hear more about this cutie!!!!! |
Hello and welcome from the UK  |
| Hello--welcome to the forum! Zoe is a cutie! |
| G'day to you and Zoe |
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