Just wondered why people use a popular sire. You have those who were first to use said dog and therefore wouldn't of known what would be to happen in the future. But what about those who use a dog after its proven it's a well used dog.
Wondered what peoples reasons were.
Did you think about the lines and how this can affect some breeds which arent that numerically high?
Did you choose the dog because it was winning?

Ive had 2 dogs which have been sired by well used stud dogs, however they weren't when the breeder used them..
I've also got a dog sired by a top winning dog which could of been over used but the owner only allowed him to be used 5 times..

I'm personally not a fan of the popular sire due to the lines and also have watched many a bitch owner who's had a litter by a popular sire then struggle to find a decent match for the offspring!!

Just musing really as not saying anything is wrong and we all will have our opinions on this.
Looked on the KC site and for some of the popular sires in a few of the working breeds I have found this
142 puppies from 25 litters
152 puppies from 29 litters
131 puppies from 21 litters
120 puppies from 19 litters

These dogs are still alive and from I can see are still being used!! Should they?

Think it depends on the size of the gene pool, if small it could he a huge error but not such a problem with a large pool. However to over use a stud does seem to be asking for problems as some do not appear for a number of years by which time half a moderately sized gene pool could be effected by a late occurring problem, think this a very worrying situation when the dog is an import, however nice he is you do not know what he may pass to future generations.

It beats me. In my breed one dog has been used 11 times so now there are basically no bitches except mine that aren't his offspring. (I count my lucky stars I suspected from the word go everyone would want to use him so I decided not to -but I never even imagined this big number.)  Not very helpful in a minority breed. Sure there have been some fantastic pups as a result, but surely you need to look long term and not just to the next show. When I plan my next litter I don't just plan that one, but what I can do with the bitch pup I keep as well so effectively I plan the litter after also.

Where on the KC site would you find out this information? I can never find anything I want on that site.
Paula

It depends if a dog has been either hipscored or eye-tested; then the site tells you how many litters and puppies the sire and dam have produced. If none have been tested, however, you can't get the information, which is really frustrating.

I don't like to use the popular sire. I think it affects the gene pool ultimately. Maybe not immediately but for future generations it will do.  Which is bad enough in a fair sized gene pool but in a small one it could be disasterous.

This issue has been discussed on the Assured Breeder thread ( General). It is evident from my 'research' that most sires are popular due to success in the showring. I guess lots of red in the pedigree will impress puppy buyers.
Health test results aside, I think that over use of popular sires is a ticking time bomb in many of our popular breeds. Sadly, the owners of these popular sires know how lucrative the  stud business is and frankly don't seem too bothered about the potential damage this is doing to the gene pool. And is' resurrecting' popular studs from the past through frozen sperm and AI such a great step forward? These dogs have already made a huge contribution to the COI in the breed. Apparently. some countries set limits on the number of time a stud can be used in certain breeds. About time this was introduced here !

I know of a breed my mum had, Shelleys (died 17 years ago at the age of 10) dad was a well used stud dog, and he is in alot of lines now.(difficult to find a pedigree without his name in it)
The one thing I have heard since is that Shelley being Neurotic is actually a trait of Shelleys dad.
Now I know nothing about breeding etc apart from what I have read on here, but after talking to a few show people in that breed they all said the same.
So Prolific use is not always a good thing and can cause problems down the line
Lea :)

"Apparently. some countries set limits on the number of time a stud can be used in certain breeds. About time this was introduced here !"

Totally agree. I think it is shocking how many times some stud dogs get used, clearly their owners (and the bitch owners who use them) have no regard for their own breeds future, effectively turning a blind eye to the detrimental impact this will likely have on breed health.

Edited to say: a well known dog in my breed has been used at stud 125 times, resulting in 392 puppies!  :-(

Turn it on its head. Im trying to improve diversity and looking around for dogs which are not popular studs.

Then I bring out the offspring and win.
The rest of the country follow suit and Im now left with bitches who are half sisters to nearly everyone of their generation.

Not happy!!

The rest of the country follow suit

This is the same the competitive world over, remember a number of years back someone started stacking her Newfie like a rocking-horse and did some winning so you have guessed it by the end of the year the whole lot looked a right mess not a correctly stood Newfie anywhere.

And it is not just dogs, I used to race slot cars and treated the tyres with some sort of liquid and I was winning, so the next meeting everyone had their version of the tyre treatment, TBH don't think it made the slightest difference.

You can't win Tooolz! :-(

Don't know what the answer is tbh.

At this moment in time it's speaking to owner of the dog and see their feelings on why they deem a suitable amount of litters for their boy to be used and hope if the answer is good then they stick to it..
I'd like to see a limit on the amount of litters a dog can sire in a period of time or a total amount in that dogs lifetime...

In 1963 a border collie pup called Cap was born, went on to do very well in trials (Int Sup Champion) and sired upwards of 184 litters.  Of the registered (ISDS/KC) border collies in this country I think less than .5% are now without this dog in their ancestry.  His impact is as yet fully unknown, but now we know that he was a collie eye carrier and probably this led to an increase in numbers of dogs with collie eye and also carrier of chocolate/red which is also a reason for the increase (well the ability to meet the new demand from owners who aren't shepherds) in the number of chocolate/red collies... thankfully he didn't carry CL, TNS or probably epilepsy or the breed would have been in big trouble in UK. 

I'd like to hear from people who have used a popular sire after its shown they are popular, the reason why they used him and whether they had any doubts in using him. So far it's generally been a negative response for a popular sire, so would like to even it up a bit :-)

I'd like to see a limit on the amount of litters a dog can sire in a period of time or a total amount in that dogs lifetime...
Quote selected text

Good idea but it would have to be decided breed by breed, a job for the breed clubs who would have to agree and their wishes accepted by the KC. In other words it would have to be something like a percentage of the litters registered the previous year although in our breed that would probably result in a fraction so each dog could sire point 34 of a litter. Difficult. But you can't say a stud can only sire one litter because that would also be a problem because until he has produced you don't know what he is passing on.

Think in breeds producing under a say 50 litters would have to be exempt no matter what sort of system was decided upon.

I used a maiden dog on a maiden bitch.  The dog is now a ch and the offspring from the mating are doing really well also.  I researched the ped of both dogs as did the stud owner.  to date he has only been used 3 times producing excellent babies :) The stud dog owner is very picky and will not let her boy go to anything and anything unhealth tested the answer is no.  some will over use their dogs and it can lead to a very small gene pool especially in my breed where a lot of line breeding and in breeding happens

In a numerically very very small breed a popular sire would only need to produce 3-4 litters so 15-20 pups before that could cause a serious problem down the line of limiting the gene pool.  Daft as it sounds I think the very low number breeds are probably less likely to have this happen unknowingly as they see the impact very quickly. (However one miscalculation makes one very big mess)

I think the worst ones are dogs used back to back in large number and large litter breeds that without really getting an honest figure from the stud owner 10 or so litters have popped out and probably by 6 months of age of first pups another 10 related litters.  So a bitch owner that thought they were doing a good pairing ends up just another litter from that line without knowing.  Some stud owners do seem intent on fertilising half the gene pool.  I think a limit placed on studs is the only way to go.

Personally never used a popular stud, always been a choser of an outsider or a new lad in my last breed, then PRA appeared just as I started moving away from showing them much and due to checking oldies in lines I managed to come out with only one PRA affected and zero carriers.

On the opposite note I bred mice for years, many many generations of inbreeding of only healthy stock lead to uniformity but no health issues as they had been weeded out.  So in one way the limit of a gene pool isn't always bad but only if the healthy and strong genes stay which in dogs is a lot harder than mice.

>many many generations of inbreeding of only healthy stock lead to uniformity but no health issues as they had been weeded out.

That's what many people forget; that if a gene has been bred out, no amount of inbreeding is suddenly going to create it.

Paula Dal, look on the KC's Mate Select site http://www.the-kennel-club.org.uk/services/public/mateselect

Then enter the name of the sire, click on "compare to progeny" and the top line will tell you how many litters and puppies have been registered sired by him.

So as an example, I input the details of my dog's litter brother, who is the 2011 top winner in our breed and is likely to do the same again for some time to come. He's just short of 3 years old and has already sired 75 puppies from 12 litters. Their sire has managed 80 puppies out of 16 litters. I should add that both of these dogs have been used abroad as well. And these dogs are not even the most heavily used. Here's a five year old that has sired 151 puppies from 24 litters. Ours is not a numerically large breed and if I ever decide to breed from my bitch puppy (health, temperament, performance in the ring etc all being of sufficient quality), who combines both these lines, I may have a hell of a time finding a suitable stud in this country. But that's a problem for another day.

There's a dog in our breed (who has now passed away) that has sired 115 litters or 479 puppies . There are very few pedigrees where he doesn't feature!

anyone care to guess how many litters and puppies Yogi has produced :-)

> Good idea but it would have to be decided breed by breed, a job for the breed clubs who would have to agree and their wishes accepted by the KC. In other words it would have to be something like a percentage of the litters registered the previous year although in our breed that would probably result in a fraction so each dog could sire point 34 of a litter.

Actually the FCI already advise (and some countries KC's/Breed Clubs have made it a rule) that no dog should sire more puppies than 5% of 5 years registration statistics.

For our breed that worked out at 25 puppies taking 2006 - 2010, it would be even less now as there were only 42 KC registrations in 2011.

That would equate to around 4 litters and interestingly is in lien with what any bitch can produce under KC rules.

Perhaps male dog owners should consider just because a male can be bred from more than a bitch, that perhaps mentally they should set limits.  I know some do, and are careful that their dog is not used on bitches of too similar pedigree

I'd hate to see a hard and fast rule and perhaps the number of litters limit could be relaxed in at least one from each previous litter had not been bred from by 5 years of age.  Of course it would make the position of a bitch owner very hard too, as where would they find the studs when each had already sired it's quote and the most suitable dogs became unavailable.

would we end up with stud dog bidding wars? Gazzumping???

> anyone care to guess how many litters and puppies Yogi has produced :-)

I looked it up last year and even though it was a lot, it was still less than 5% of the previous 5 years registration totals.

>sired 115 litters or 479 puppies  

in my breed the one dog had 193 litters and 894 puppies registered.
Another popular sire had 249 litters and 1122 puppies registered.
Another 171 litters and 802 puppies registered
Another 139 litters and 660 puppies registered
Another 147 litters and 681 puppies registered

Another popular sire I couldn't look at as his progeny had no health tests therefore no data on mate select.

Good points made Brainless but surely you mean GazzHumping !

>Paula Dal, look on the KC's Mate Select site http://www.the-kennel-club.org.uk/services/public/mateselect
>Then enter the name of the sire, click on "compare to progeny" and the top line will tell you how many litters and puppies have been registered sired by him.

Jay, that only works if the sire has been hip-scored, elbow-scored or eye-tested. If he hasn't then the information doesn't show. If any of his progeny has had any of these tests (other test results aren't recorded so don't make any difference), clicking on 'Progeny' will show the number of litters/puppies the dog has produced - but if those tests aren't breed-relevant so not done you're scuppered.

Yes tried it and it didn't work. I really think that BAER results should be recorded and be a KC health test requirement for registering a litter. I cannot see one single reason why they don't?
Paula

When I last asked them I was told it was because there were so few testing centres (only one in the whole of Scotland, for instance) that it would be very difficult for breeders in more remote areas; all vets can do x-rays and post them off, for instance. That said I do wish they'd record the results officially.

>> sired 115 litters or 479 puppies&nbsp;&nbsp; <IMG alt=eek src="/images/eek.gif">

WOW thats quite an impressive income of stud fees!  Bet the tax man was pleased (if I could do a raised eyebrow thing I would !).

In my own breed we have 3 males responsible for 60% of the litters over the past 5 years.  Of those litters several offspring have gone onto produce litters (cousin to cousin matings) making the gene pool even smaller.  No health tests are required for the breed though some of us do eye test and a couple of other tests as a matter of course, the KC will not put the results on the Mate Select programme.  Of those 3 males, 2 are owned by the same person who has let them cover anything that will fog a mirror.  1 of those two has an COI of 48% !!!  And they wonder why the offspring are turning out with noticeable problems.  I do wish the KC would bring in something like the AKC Frequently Used Sire ruling requiring DNA of parents and progeny.  Apart from anything else on of the latter two males supposedly sired a litter 2 years ago but the colours of the offspring are nothing even closely possible by that dog but strangely identical to the owners other male (and genetically impossible for the registered sire to produce these colours!).

> anyone care to guess how many litters and puppies Yogi has produced :-)

>I looked it up last year and even though it was a lot, it was still less than 5% of the previous 5 years registration totals.

At a seminar I went to about 2 years ago, Jeff Sampson said that dog was the sire, or grandsire, of about 60% of the breed. I suppose that's how it works its way through.

> in my breed the one dog had 193 litters and 894 puppies registered.
> Another popular sire had 249 litters and 1122 puppies registered.
> Another 171 litters and 802 puppies registered
> Another 139 litters and 660 puppies registered
> Another 147 litters and 681 puppies registered
>
> Another popular sire I couldn't look at as his progeny had no health tests therefore no data on mate select

Know all but the 147 (pm me) - ETA i figured out who it was!

Can't actually get over the amount of litters these dogs have sired, well actually I can but never really thought about it! Crazy thing is they pretty much are all related in one way or another................

Mate select should be updated the include these figures regardless of health tests then anybody can take a look at the figures.

> Mate select should be updated the include these figures regardless of health tests then anybody can take a look at the figures.

Exactly !

249 x £? Stud fee......that male is earning his keep.

I was thinking about this subject in the shower this morning and pondering on how as a organisation of breeders the kennel club could stop this or what could be done to help prevent these increasingly narrowing gene pools that are around.  I would add that I am a none breeder.
The only thing I could think of would be to make it possible to allow selective out crossing where both parents are health checked and kc registered etc but not of the same breed.  The thing that gave me the idea was trying to think of a more biddable beagle - it is the bane of my life lol!  So what I thought was to look at introducing a more biddable breed for instance a small Labrador (just picked off the top of my head) Obviously this would have to be done with special permissions and a full plan for the future.  Breeder then keeps 1 bitch pup, 50% beagle 50% lab, at 2 she is then bred to an unrelated boy beagle to produce a litter of 75% beagles again keeping 1 bitch pup to breed to a further unrelated beagle boy to give pups who are virtually 90% beagle who at this point perhaps could be eligible for registering as beagles (or perhaps their pups) as all parents have been registered and all have had full health checks right the way down.  If a few breeders did this and were always careful about how this was done - hence the special permisssions from breed clubs and kennel club could it be a viable way around the narrowing gene pool?

>Mate select should be updated the include these figures regardless of health tests then anybody can take a look at the figures.

I couldn't agree more. It's not as if the information isn't already in the public domain, because it's published in the BRS. It'd be an incredibly useful tool in avoiding popular sire syndrome.

> 249 x £? Stud fee......that male is earning his keep.

That male is no longer here, maybe at the time it would of been £250 for a stud?

The sire of 249 litters lived til his teens (14) which for a Boxer is a fine age.
Not sure at what age he sired his last litter as he passed over in 2005.

>The sire of 249 litters lived til his teens (14) which for a Boxer is a fine age.

The genes for a long life would be a benefit to the whole breed, I would have thought.

One Boxer which I'm sure would be used a lot clearly isn't showing on Mate Select, I thought Boxers were hip scored?
The extent that some of these Boxers have been used is absolutely ludicrous, sorry but it is.. I do wonder of the tax man has been notified?

> One Boxer which I'm sure would be used a lot clearly isn't showing on Mate Select, I thought Boxers were hip scored?
> The extent that some of these Boxers have been used is absolutely ludicrous, sorry but it is.. I do wonder of the tax man has been notified?

No boxers aren't hip scored

Forgive my ignorance, but who is Yogi?

Yogi is the Vizsla that won Crufts last year

Seems like madness to me to not hip score Boxers when the highest score recorded is 75 and the BMS is 16......We certainly hip score Malinois, highest ever was 60, BMS is 9.

2010, 11 was the FCR

Was it I thought it was the vizsla last year

Thank you LJS :-)

> Seems like madness to me to not hip score Boxers when the highest score recorded is 75 and the BMS is 16......We certainly hip score Malinois, highest ever was 60, BMS is 9.

Ditto my breed with range 0 - 61, mean 13, all breeding stock is supposed to be scored.

Hip scoring and eye testing should be the basic for EVERY BREED as all breeds can have HD (the effects are simply more noticeable/worse in larger breeds).  Also eye conditions are found when looked for

According to US data the worst breed statistically for HD is the bulldog, yet very few are here are scored.