Ive recently had a hell of a time with a litter of gordon setters i bred, i had to hand rear one little girl, who was very weak and small,i stayed up all night every night for 3 days feeding her, but we lost her, it was awful,  she was just too weak.then we lost two of the boys, we dont know why, they were just found dead.
so we had 6 pups, in total. i kept one bitch - bella
So a week after the birth i rang the three people, who would have had the pups, to explain what had happened, I came off the phone in tears, these people made it out that it was my fault the pups died, i did all i could for those pups!! 
It really hurt me.

when the remaining pups were 6 weeks old, we had people up to choose, i thought these pups were beautiful and in great condition, but 2 people walked away saying the didnt want to purchase a pup anymore! No reason given, just simply walked away!

what did i do wrong!  Am i a bad breeder!?

The pups are now in their new homes and are doing well, bella is great.  :)
Ive had the worst time, and some people are just so insensitive!! :(
luckily everything is good now though, i dont think i could deal with anymore heartache!

Sarah Turner

Don't think the general dog buying/owning public have any idea what goes into producing a healthy well bred pup. The months of research, the care of an in whelp bitch and the trauma of the birth and then the effort of looking after the pups and heart break of loosing any. Sure you did every thing you or anyone could, don't beat yourself up just enjoy your new baby.

I am sure you did do all you could.  Unforantly things happen when pups (kittens babies and any other baby creature too!) are born.  I know people who have had mnay litters over many years that have all been very healthy, then all of a sudden they have one litter and they lose some.  Its sad and the public don't always understand and don't realise that breeders are normal people!!!!!  WE ARE!!! honest!!!

I think of it as mother natures way!

Rox

one of the first litters I bred many years ago was a lab litter my bitch had 12 pups 8 blacks four yellows the for yellows were two dogs two bitches they were are spoken for but one yellow boy's prospective family were going on holiday and I said I would keep him for them well at the time I could have sold him ten times over but these were friends so I was happy about the home,anyway the day they were due to come home he died he was always greedy but he had bolted down some milky feed and been playing and died I had a post mortem done and the evt said it was a million to one chance he would die apparantly he fell and vomited and all the milk particles clogged up in his throat and he choked.
Anyway when I told the people I dont think they belived me they asked me to keep his body till they saw for themselves :(
The stupid thing is that I had a cancellation on a black pup and they took him instead but I ended up taking him back off them they nevr cared for him always preffering a yellow needless to say they never got another.
Breeding is not easy and its rarely very profitable well if you are me anyway.
In 22years I have bred  ten litters  the first two litters were easy but hard to get the right owners for the pups,the third was a c section, one litter I nearly lost my bitch she had 17 pups half were dead the last two were not easy I lost two stud fees @ £250 each and the litter she did have was a C Section and resulted in two dead pups I mated my beloved minnie last year  aged two and  a half and she died
of  Pyometra we had no idea how ill she was .So dont think ill be breeding again.
So people thinking of breeding think again and weigh it all up if I  could put the clock back i wouldnt have mated Minnie and she would have still been here with us.

edited to say: you are not a bad breeder quite the contrary you sound a very caring person

your not a bad breeder, you did all you could of, just be thankful for the pups that survived and your new girl.

these things happen, we cant stop them, but we can find ways to get through them :)

I don't think you are a bad breeder.
At least you can hold your head up high knowing that you gave it your all
Your conscience is clear!!
I too lost a puppy at 3 days old - I'd been on an emotional rollercoaster with
this pup whom I called Steffi. I revived her kept her going and then she kept going
blue with this awful cry, I got her going I don't know how many times.
In the end I knew that she wasn't going to make it and I could not bear to see the distress
it was causing her mum, nor the pain she must be experiencing. So I took her to the
vet to have her PTS. I cried so much, I was inconsolable. My vets were very good and said
they knew I'd tried everything, and that Steffi was just one of those pups not destined to
make it.
Life is such a miracle to produce healthy normal pups, when you consider how many changes/processes
that have to take place when the bitch becomes pregnant, the pups being born etc

Some people can be fickle, and even though they have wanted a pup, got photo's of pup, and
been to see pup, they still don't want pup and give a seemingly stupid reason or no reason for
not wanting the pup. Don't worry I'm sure plenty of breeders get this happen to them, you certainly
won't be the first or last to experience this phenominon (sp?).

This is why breeding is not for the faint hearted - I don't know how 'experienced' breeders cope
with all the stress, it must put years on them! I certainly felt like I'd aged and this was my first litter.

Enjoy Bella and look forward to your future together with her dam.
Pups grow up all to quickly as I can vouch as the pup I kept is now in her 3rd year of life and I can't
believe where all the time has gone!

Sorry about your dilema but you can not control nature and if people don't understand that then they need to wake up.
I actually think it is a good thing they walked away then as to if they took your pup home and then changed their minds or ill treated the pup ...so they did you a favour actually..think of it that way they are not good dog owners if they are so unsure..when I called my breeder and located my pup I was so excited . I had to wait a week to see her then when I went dear h gave me the eye 'you want her  ' and I was like Of course YES and we had to wait a month for her to bring her to us I could not sleep I had butterflies ..never in a million years would I have said I did not want her again..if these people do not feel this way about your pups then good riddence to them!

I think you've done everything the way most of us would have done so don't worry. Maybe the people who wanted a pup then changed their minds hadn't really realised what having a Gordon Setter was all about and saw a healthy litter of bouncy puppies and it put them off (for the good!)
Enjoy Bella.

Jesse

Hi Sarah,

No, you're not a bad breeder, you've just been very unlucky.  I've been in this situation but the other way round.  When I was looking for a new pup about a year ago, I did all the checks, visited various kennels, and generally got a really good 'rapport' with quite a few breeders.  My whole family visited the breeder that I particularly liked, and it just confirmed what I already knew, that this was a great kennel with lovely dogs.  I had originally 'booked' a pup from a  yellow bitch but after meeting a couple of the other bitches and taking advice from the breeder, I decided to swap list and have a pup from a stronger 'working' line instead.  I booked my pup, and spoke to the breeder several times (and e-mailed her!) at the time of the birth and in the weeks afterwards.  The week before we were due to pick our pup up, the breeder phoned us, obviously extremely distraught, to tell us that her vet had found a potential problem with the pups.  This couldn't have been expected, all the dogs/bitches concerned had all the relavent health checks done and it  was not a 'first' litter for wither the dog or the bitch.  We were the first people that the breeder rang as we had built up such a good relationship with her, and when we found out that we couldn't have a pup we were gutted, BUT I felt so sorry for the breeder and so grateful to her for being so honest.  It is awful being told that there is no pup for you, but it must be worse for the breeder.
Luckily for us, it all turned out ok, and we found Kester,(we were recommended by the original kennel) but I'm still in touch with the original breeder and she says that some of the people who booked a puppy were really quite nasty about it.
It's always a potential emotional minefield when you breed pups, (I couldn't do it! I'd keep them all!), but you sound like you did all that you could for your litter so don't beat yourself up about it.

Ali :)

In the last 24 hour my girl has had a litter of 13 we lost 3, 2 were decomposed and we knew that we could have done nothing she stopped for 6 hours and then produced another puppy that was limp and motionless my husband said that he had gone but I just could not accept it as he was a perfectly formed puppy we got him going  and you cannot tell him for the others to day, after 8 hours she started to contract again and a beautifull black puppy was produced the largest of them all but there was no hope, today I feel that if we had called the vet in to make sure that she was finished we would of still had that puppy with us it has plagued me all day, but she was not contracting and showed no signs of any other pups but I cannot get over that there might have been hope for him