hi all,
i have had many people offer me advice about what age my dog should be before he starts his stud duties. but after reading the threads on here i have realised that there are quite a few knowlegable posters on here so i'll open it up to you all and see what you all think the best age for him would be?

Can you tell us what he has won so far, what his hip score is and why you think I would choose your dog over another?

Welcome to the boards.

hi jackyjat,
he hasn't won anything as yet but we hope to be doing some working tests and then trials when he has completed more training but we believe that with having good health and temperament are quite important to the breed rather than how many prizes a dog has won etc, he has a clear eye cert and a hip score of 0/0, he has a wonderful temperament and is very eager to learn.

The importance of 'prizes at dog shows' is ....
1/ if he is of working lines then wins in field trials prove he is capable and has the aptitude to do what he was bred for and hopefully he will then pass these on to his offspring.
2/ if he is  bred from show lines then wins at shows show he has the correct confirmation which bitch owners will want passed on to resulting pupppies.
Without either you are only likely to find 'Joe Bloggs' down the road will want to use him on his pet bitch and when there are many thousands off labs born andin rescue every year do you really want to add to these.
The only good reason to breed is to improve the breed....and although you have done all the health tests etc(for which you should be complimented) sometimes it takes a bit more.
There are many excellent show and working labs out there with excellent health test results and temperament who have proved themselves in their chosen fields.....why should your dog be chosen over them? You need to PROVE your dog is worth using
Archer

hi archer,
please can you tell me how you would begin to prove a young dog you would consider using

As a (hypothetical) bitch owner, I would look for a healthy dog with certificates to prove that status, a proven good working dog, i.e. Field Trial Championship status or similar OR a known excellent working dog.

When we looked for a dog for our cocker bitch we kept coming back to the same dog, recommended from all directions.  He wasn't a FtCH but was a dog recommended to us by many and varied members or our local shooting community.  We didn't know this dog personally (at that time) but it was obvious he was highly thought of and recommended from several sources.  Hence the owner of this dog didn't need to do anything about 'putting his dog' to stud, we came to him through recommendation.  We were able to see him work, saw some of his pups, inspected his health certificates and met the owners, and owners of his pups.  We also saw his pedigree, took it to more experienced breeders and met people who worked with this dog on a shoot and had seen him in action.  It soon became clear that this was an ideal dog for our bitch.

I am sure the same applied to show type dogs.  If he is good enough, they will come flocking to you.

labkite1st
exactly as Jackie has said...good health test results AND excellent results in my chosen field which ever that was...field or show.
Archer

When we agreed to stand our young dog at stud, he had already passed his Shooting Dog Certificate 'A' (the rough equivalent of the full Kennel Club Working Gundog Certificate) and had won two Any Variety Working Tests in good company, as well as quite a few good placings.    His hips and eyes were tested OK.   His temperament is outstanding.

He served his first bitch at 20 months of age, and the first pup has won best puppy bitch at Richmond Ch Show, so we know we produce beauty as well as the brains we knew we had!   He has become very aware of the ladies, now, however, but is too much of a gentleman to let it cloud his work!   We are lucky that he doesn't scent-mark in the house - others may not be so lucky.

Personally, I'd be a bit wary of too many FTCh's in the pedigree, as the dog could get too hot for many people to handle!

Hope this is a good sort of guide for using your dog for the first time.

Jo and the Casblaidd Flatcoats

The amount that a gundog gets used for stud has got far more to do with the skills of their trainer than the intrinsic quality of the dog. The number of times he is used as stud will very much depend on the success that you have in training him to work, and what he subseqently achieves either in the shooting field or competition.

If you have had the results back from your hip score, then he is old enough to be used now. However, whether you are able to continue with his training and get the best out of him after he has tasted stud work will depend on your abilities as a trainer.

The other thing to watch with a young dog, is the quality of the bitches that are brought to him. If he is used on poor bitches the resulting pups are unlikely to provide a good advert for his stud abilities. The more he has achieved, the better the bitches that will be brought to him.

Good luck.

Havoc - don't agree with your bit about the skills of the trainer -There are many far better trainers around than myself -

This is a case of 'if the dog can do it in spite of the handler, he must have a fair bit of natural ability' :-)

And it's natural ability that we need to acknowledge.    The only way that I know to prove this is in competition.

Jo and the Casblaidd Flatcoats

Jo,

I should have said "labradors" rather than "gundogs" as the situation is rather different between labs and flatcoats.

A labrador stud dog that is used "a lot" will probably sire almost as many litters in a year as all the litters of flatcoats combined. He will most likely be a Field Trial Champion, and with the level of competition around it is very unlikely that he would be 'made up' without being in the hands of at least a competent trainer.

In the hands of a poor trainer, a labrador is unlikely to attract much attention from bitch owners. The bad trainer is unlikely to keep his dog  in a competition long enough to contend against the 'decent' dog being run by a skilled handler. Most of the working labrador "breeders" (i.e have one litter from a shooting bitch) have far less knowledge of the available dogs than most of the flat-coat enthusiasts I have come across. They will tend to either use a fashionable FTCh sire or a dog on their shoot that has caught their attention, or that of their friends. 

My point is that with labradors, a good dog in the hands of a skilled trainer would end up being used far more than if he was owned by a poor trainer.

My understanding of flatcoats (from knowing people involved with the breed) is that finding a stud dog with proven working ability is not easy. This difficulty is increased by the breeders desire to maintain dual-purpose stock. Consequently, a dog with some show and working test / trial awards is likely to be sought after.

Agree about the situation in labs - it frightens me how many flock to their nearest FTCh with little more thought.

I'm not sure about the 'wastage' rate with professional or semi-professional trainers - how many dogs do they 'get through' before they short-list their potential FTCh?

And, as I said before, many of the dogs which make the grade in trials would be far too hard going for your average handler, but succeed well with a professional.

Jo and the Casblaidd Flatcoats

With regard to 'wastage rates', I think this has quite a lot to do with the availablity of field trial runs. Realistically it is virtually impossible to get enough runs to keep more than a couple of dogs occupied. So in general I would expect that the wastage rate will depend on the number of dogs in training.

If a trainer trained 8 dogs in a year then I would expect that 6 would get sold on, virtually however good they are (unless kept as brood bitches) Whereas if only a couple were trained, then they may both be retained. The demand for part and fully trained labs certainly encourages trainers to move them on rather than making the best out of the dog.

"And, as I said before, many of the dogs which make the grade in trials would be far too hard going for your average handler, but succeed well with a professional." Agreed, although the ones that are starting to worry me are the overly sensitive ones. To be honest, I'd personally rather see a bit more "fire" in labs. I fear that rather too many dogs with a bitch temperament have been used at stud.

so havoc are you saying that a labrador is old enough start mating when hes a year old??? would this have an effect on quality of litter or the size of litter and anything else you could add

Labkite1st,

Depending on the breed and the individual, a dog could be fully capable of siring a litter at 6/7 months, however that doesnt mean that he SHOULD sire a litter.

Realistically a dog is unlikely to have had his hip scores back from the KC until 13 or 14 months, so i would consider that to be the absolute minimum for a lab.

If I ran dogs (rather than just bitches), i would personally take the following approach (for a working type Lab) :

I would really want a dog to have proven itself fault free on a number of shooting days before I would want someone to use him at stud. (i.e no noise, no evidence of hardmouth, no fear of gunfire etc) Whilst it is likely that these things would come up in training, I would want to know that the dog is sound from a working point of view.

I would want to know that the dog is good enough to be trialled. I dont do a vast amount of trialling, but I have run dogs at open stake level so know the standard that would be required. I would not use a stud dog that I didnt think capable of running, and being placed at field trial level (in my hands). To have got to this stage, it is likely that I would have run him in a few working tests and at least been placed in a few tests.

I would doubt that I would have got to this level with the dog much before 18 months old, at this stage I would probably be happy to use him on one of my bitches. However, I wouldn't expect much in the way of stud work until he had actually won a trial. (Other than possibly one or two of my shooting friends).