I have a patterdale female 8months old, would like to know at what age i should concider letting her breed.

At least a year old I would have said.  I normally recommend consulting the breed club code of ethics but I am not sure if there is a breed club.  As you are a novice I would expect you will need to consult with your bitches breeder as to her suitability for breeding, any health tests that are beneficial to carry out and guidance is choosing an appropriate stud so I would ask them about age of maturity too.

When my friend got one of these a year or so ago I think it turned out they aren't actually KC registered, I could be wrong though?

No, that's right they are not KC registered but are one of these long established working breeds with a devoted following, particularly in Cumbria.  Pedigrees will be just as concientiously recorded and type carefully maintained certainly all the ones I tend to see in the Lake District are very typey.  For that reason I would say it is just as important as any KC registered breed that Karen does her research and speaks to her bitches breeder to make sure she is helping maintain the quality of these little dogs.

I would suggest first reading The Patterdale Terrier by: Sean Frain (ISBN: 1904057578 Published: 24 September 2004 Publisher: Swan Hill Press)Brilliant book writen by soemone who lives & breathes PTs He training is a bit out of date but his knowledge about the breed is awesome

Ah, I see. Seems a bit silly for the KC not to recognise them if they're so long established!

The will only recognise a breed if the are asked to.  With some breeds the enthusiasts see KC recognition as a positive disadvantage leading to loss of working ability and a certain drift towards breeding primarily with an eye to the conformation classes. 

Good point. Like the working and show cockers and springers are so different. I love Yankees but no way could most of the winning ones do a day's work as a gundog!!

Oh I don't know! I agree the coat on a modern day Yankee would be prohibitive but I think that with the correct training I'm sure some could work quite successfully. There are two kennels that I know of that work their American Cockers, the Ironside's Belcrum kennel and more recently the Rix's Cottonsocks kennel. I think that working instinct is not always that far from the suface, in a show dog.

There are a number of Irish Setter full champions too.

Dawn R.

Some of them look awfully small and finely built though. My boy isn't any good for show, poor thing, but he would be good (with lots of training!!) in the field as he's quite big, an inch over the breed standard, has a natural short but fluffy coat, and is very stocky - almost a throwback to the original field spaniels!! :-)

A YEAR??????? A bitch should be at least 2 years old before a litter is even thought about she is not fully mature until this time and her un developed body will struggle to cope with the demands of puppies. You should really do your research before giving out unsuitable advise!!!!!

Generally smaller breeds mature faster and certainly 18 months would not be considered too young to breed from a terrier, though can't see the hurry.  There is certainly good reason to breed from some toy breed bitches before the bones have become to set because of the relative large size of pups, especially the heads in these breeds.

American Cockers are an ideal size for small game and the type of cover.  Modern Fields are not that far from the original ones, just the breed went through a lot of changes in the middle, however before Fields with a captial F spaniels were all land /filed or water spaniels, big black ones were Fields and little black ones Cockers and the brown ones called Sussex, all in the same litter.

this post just confuses me... :)

Me too...and the original post (about Patterdales, not Am Cockers) is from August

i would never breed a girl at 1 my breed tend to cope better at 3 but can be bred at 2 (i do it at 3) . At 1 years old she is still a puppy she still wants to spend her day bounding around not worrying about puppies also the body has not fully grown it is dangerous and you will most likely end up bottle feeding and loosing some if not all out of the litter.
Also she would being a first litter more likely to get eclampsia and the younger they are the higher the risk of that it is not worth it wait another year or two