Breeding Your German Shepard Dog?

Five years ago, my wife and I had bought a female German Shepard, mainly for a family pet, but, since we were buying a dog, one that we could breed and make some good money with.

When our first dog turned two years old, not a day less, we scheduled her at the vet to have an OFA test done on her joints. Results were good, and upon presenting the results to our breeder, we were given the go-ahead to start a litter of pups.

This was my first experience with dog breeding from the very start, though puppy sales. Right from the start, our breeder charged a flat $2500 stud fee. Secondly, after the puppies were sold, he took half of the profit. I've had many people tell me that that sounds pretty steep, but after thinking about it, I think it's a fair deal. The other option we were given was to not pay the stud fee, but then the breeder would take the two best dogs of the litter for himself. He sells the pups for anywhere between $500 to $5000 a dog. So if you do the math on a four pup litter... If two of the pups were $5000 dogs, I'm already out $5000. Remember, he gets half the profit. If I paid the stud fee, I would have made $2500 profit on those two dogs. $5000 minus the stud fee. There's really nothing for us to do while the bitch dog is pregnant. Where the work comes in, is after they're born. For the next eight weeks, until we deliver them to the breeder for sale, we make sure the puppies get fed when the mother weens them from her milk, and the first set of shots from the vet. That's it. The breeder has to feed them, keep the living area clean, and their shots up to date until they're sold. Sometimes it can take as long as six months, depending on the demand at the time. My wife and I profited $5000 for the first litter, and $8000 on the second litter. It's more money than we had at the time, so it works for me.

On the day I took my dog "Dakota" for the "dirty deed", the breeder put on the latex glove and checked her fluid color. Basically looking to see where she was in her heat cycle. He told me that she wasn't quite ready yet, and told me to come back in a couple days, or when her fluid has turned from blood red to clear. The second time I went back was the day it was done. Dakota wasn't very interested in the male that was REALLY interested in her. She kept snapping and snarling at him. The breeder told me that he had to muzzle her, and that I had to hold her head to allow the male to mount her. He said that it was equivalent to assisting in a rape. I didn't like that much, knowing I was an accessory. The process took roughly 20-25 minutes, and after they separated, I was told to walk Dakota for a while, not letting her stop to urinate or lick herself. After about another 20 minutes of walking, we were allowed to go home. I remember the look that Dakota had. She looked underly depressed and violated. She wouldn't even look at me, but rather shoved her head in between the cracks of the seat cushions. Several weeks after, and several weeks of worrying if she was pregnant or not, she seemed to be gaining noticeable weight. That in addition to panting a lot more than usual, then her nesting activities on the couch confirmed that she was. When she laid on her back with her legs sticking straight up in the air, we could see little areas of movement on her belly, and actually feel puppies moving around in her womb. By instruction of the breeder, I had set up a large cardboard birthing box from a large freezer. I even put on "bumper" inside to protect the puppies from getting rolled over on. The second litter showed me that it wasn't as critical as I had thought. The puppies seem to crawl under Dakota and get stuck on their own anyway.

As the weeks went on, Dakota would go to her "box" in the kitchen knowing that that was were we wanted her to have her puppies. We could hear her out there balling up all the blankets in the box, making a "nest".

Occasionally, I would take a thermometer, and check her temperature rectally. When a dog gets to a certain temperature, you will know that she is very close to giving birth to within a day or two. One morning, my oldest step-daughter was home alone. While in the shower, she could hear Dakota barking "differently" in the kitchen. She went out to check on her, and found a single puppy laying in the box, and Dakota standing over her not know what to do with it. When my step-daughter started cleaning up the puppy and encouraging Dakota to take over, it finally clicked to her that she was supposed to be doing something with them. The motherly instinct kicked in and she then took over. When she was done, I had a recipe for a drink from the breeder for Dakota to drink. After reading it, I asked the breeder if he was serious! It was a mixture of milk, a raw egg, a little butter, and.... WHISKEY! He said that it was to help her relax after the ordeal, and to my surprise, found that it worked well.

Dakota was in labor for about 15 hours. She had a total of nine puppies. Two were still born, one died within hours, and the fourth died two days later. There was one puppy, a female that was so noisy. I think it made Dakota very nervous, and I think she would've "offed" her if we weren't watching. Though sometimes it was hard to do, I remembered the breeder telling us to let Dakota be the mother. But we weren't about to let her eat a potentially $5000 pup!

Within a couple of weeks, the puppies started opening their eyes. and it wasn't long after that, that they started crawling out of the box and running around the kitchen. I'd say that puppies are worse than little babies. They would wake up every few hours, even throughout the night, to eat. We made sure before we went to bed for the night that we had a fresh bucket of puppy food soaking in water to be mushed up for them when they woke up to eat. My wife, wanted to make sure that they had a light on in the kitchen for them at night. BIG mistake. After I turned it out and left it out, they were quieter and slept much longer at night. At about six weeks old, we were taking them outside in the front yard for their breath of fresh air, and to do a little exploring. At about seven weeks, we started weening them off of mushed food, and started to make it a little more solid, working our way towards total dry puppy food. Plus with dry food, they didn't urinate as much. Our floor steamer got quite the workout for two months. We should have bought stock in floor cleaner!

The puppies look like little rats. All black, can't open there eyes, and small enough to fit in your hand. but enjoy that when you can. Unless you have the PROPER facilities for breeding, you're going to be very busy! When the eighth week came, the breeder said that he was ready for us to bring the puppies to him. We brought the one female we decided to keep with us, just to show everyone how pretty she was already. Three months later, we received a check for $4900.

We've learned a lot of lessons with that first litter, and by the time we started on the second litter, we could relax a lot more! Dakota is retired now after her second litter. Our breeder told us he won't breed a dog more than twice. After the second one, I can see why. It was so much harder for her the second time through, that I couldn't think of putting her through it again. She did what we asked her to do twice. That's enough. Her daughter, our second female, is now over two years old. She's ready to go. She has NO idea what we have planned for her! Maybe she'll settle down if she gets pregnant. We tried to expose her to the second litter as long as Dakota would allow it. We couldn't let her get too close to the pups though of Dakota would have a fit. It wasn't until about the eighth week when Dakota would let Abby "play" with them a little bit. Abby was humorously scared of them though for a while. But, I think that time with the pups is going to make her a much better mother than Dakota was. She'll at least know what that first "rat" is when it comes out of her!