THE BEST OF YESTERDAY WITH THE BEST OF TODAY

So this couple goes to divorce court to have the judge decide how to divide up their assets. She says that she couldn’t live without her Waterford glasses. He wants his Sears ride on mower. They owned a breeding and boarding kennel and some show dogs. He said he wanted a few of the younger champions and she said she’d take some of the younger breeding bitches. For his last request he tells the judge, “Your honor, I want my dog’s frozen semen! Well you probably could hear a pin drop from the shocked expressions by those in the court room. The wife shakes her head in disagreement. In all the years that this judge has resided over his court room, he has never heard of such a request before. So the judge looks at the man a bit quizzically and with a bit of a smirk on his face he asks the man, “Did I hear you correctly Mr. Smith, you want some frozen semen?” “Yes sir, I do. I want my dog’s frozen semen!” There was some nervous laughter and people shifting in their seats as they whispered among themselves. Who ever heard of such a thing as people fighting over a dog’s semen? Well if you are a dog breeder, you wouldn’t think this was such an unusual request.

How come some dog breeders have their dogs’ semen frozen? Some breeders who own some top stud dogs know that there are only a certain amount of years that their dogs will have a chance to produce. When they get older, many of them can no longer produce a litter. Then the dog passes away and many times, the breeder wishes they could still use their stud dog on their bitches. So some of them opt to collect the semen from their dogs and have it frozen so they can use their bloodlines at a later time.

Now on the other hand there are those breeders who don’t want to breed to a dog that is no longer being used in the gene pool. They feel that they are old blood lines and why use them anymore. It’s time for new blood so they move on. They feel that there are many good dogs available today, so why go back to the past.

My feeling is that I think it’s a wonderful idea having some of the “Greats” of yesterday still available to us today. I only wish there were more dogs that we had frozen on that were available to us. Was there ever a dog that you wish you could have bred to and didn’t? I know that I would like to have been able to have bred to Lance, Mannix, Bear, and so many others. Unfortunately, many of these top producing dogs are lost to us forever. Frozen semen wasn’t available at the time.

I think being able to use some of the older bloodlines would be a good idea with the gene pool being so concentrated with the same bloodlines. Practically the entire top producing bloodlines now days goes back to Dallas. Look at the top producing dogs and many of them are sons, grandsons or great grandsons of Dallas. The pedigrees become so overloaded with one dogs genes that after a while there’s no place to take your bitches to. This is what happens when a dog becomes a popular stud dog. Everyone runs out to breed to him and that’s all you see in today’s pedigrees. We need pedigrees to out cross to when the gene pool becomes this saturated.

For the newer students of the breed, introducing older pedigrees into their breeding program requires much studying of the bloodlines. One must get familiar with these lines to know what the temperaments, health and other faults of the lines are. Without being able to see these dogs in person, one is left going only by their pictures and if you are lucky maybe seeing a video tape of the dog. But more times than not, that’s probably not going to be available to you. So I can see the breeder that has been in the breed for some time doing this type of breeding before the newer breeder might.

Why would anyone want to breed to an older dog anyway? Well besides bringing some new (older) blood back into their breeding program, perhaps there are things that this bloodline can add to their breeding program. Perhaps this bloodline has great shoulders, wonderful hindquarters, super top lines, great temperaments, good hips, etc. It would be for all the same reasons you would breed to a dog that is living……hopefully to improve in areas that you need to improve on in your breeding program.

So if done with much research, incorporating the best of yesterdays bloodlines with the best of today’s bloodlines could prove very beneficial to the breeder and for future generations of the German Shepherd dog.

For a list of some dogs that have frozen semen available, check out Gerald Roaches website at www.geransgermanshepherds.com


My rating: frozen semen breedings: (4), incorporating old bloodlines with todays: (4)