How can i tell if my esspaniel is straight field bred?

[meathunter]

I was thinking about breeding my english springer spaniel and had seen some stud dogs that are straight field bred does anyone know what straight field bred means and how can i tell if my dog is? She is not registered yet but i will be sending in soon. Will a pedigree tell me this? Also my dog is tri color black and white if i breed her with a liver or black and white will she put out tri color pups? What would happen if i bred her with a black and white tri would the all be black and white?

[SpringerGuy]

A field bred and a bench (show) bred are genetically the same dog. Over the past 80 years or so, breeders have been breeding for 2 different reasons or out comes. A bench breed will have longer ears set lower on the head, droopier looking eyes, and will be larger in size, usually over 60 lbs. Also the hunting instinct has been mostly breed out of the bench bred dogs. Google it and it will show you photos of the 2 standing side by side. You cannot tell by the pedigree.

Before you breed, your dog should be at least 2 years old, and at a minimum, have had her hips checked and certified by the O.F.A. Along with whatever stud dog that you use. Consider having the eyes checked as well. Also how close to the breed standard is your female? Everyone thinks that they have the best dog out there. So research it and make sure that you do.

As a springer breeder I can tell you that raising a litter is very time consuming and expensive, with stud fees, tail docking, dew claw removal, shots, advertising, and whatever else that you need to do. And that is before you may have any health problems to deal with. It is not easy selling pups if you are not an established breeder. I've been there.

As far as getting a tri-color pup, you should get some if you breed to a tri-color male. Everything else is a shot in the dark. I have 2 tri-colors that have never had a tri-colored pup yet.

Don't take me wrong, go ahead and have a litter. Just do everything that you can to have a healthy litter and to improve the breed.

[Rick]

My advice is if you don't know what you are doing you are best off not breeding.

Get an education in the animals you are breeding before taking it on.

You can typically tell well bred Field Dogs by looking at their pedigree. You should note a number of FCs, AFCs, NAFCs, NFCs in the Pedigree. Another tell is the MH or SH designation-usually less of a tell though. Now this is for American trialed or hunt test dogs.

Britain, Ireland, Other Countries and Canada will have differant abbreviations but almost all will have an FC in it. Some lesser ones will have FTW.

[springerspeed]

I think what is meant by straight field bred is that the dogs in the recent pedigree are all field bred springers. They either have a field title like an FC,AFC,NFC,NAFC,CFC,NCFC or for the hunt test titles such as MH,SH and JH. The hunt test titles are a little more unreliable when it comes to this because I have seen many bench bred springers in all of these levels. Other then that you would be going on their word. Like the others have said, if you are looking at breeding you should do your due diligence and have the health of both dogs check. At a minimum you should have your dogs hips OFA certified. CERF (eye cert) is the other one that most springers will have done. These do not garantee that there will not be any health issues but, certainly raises your odds of not have any issues. As for the color question, you can sit down and figure out the geniology and come up with you odds of getting any particular color but, these are odds at best. Even with a tri-colored dog you may not get any tri puppies. The dominant color is either B/W or L/W, I can't remember. In order to get tri colored puppies you would need to have the 2 tri colored genes to be paired. If you have one tri and one L/W or B/W you will get a L/W or B/W pups. This is really simplified but I think you get the idea.

Many people will tell you not to breed if you do not know what you are doing. They are correct to a certain extent. If you educate yourself and ask questions to people like your vet you should be fine. In fact have your vet on standby incase there are any complications. Like Tom said as well, it is not all fun and games. Right now you have to clean up after one dog. With a litter you will have to clean up after anywhere from 5-10 puppies at least twice a day for roughly 6 weeks. Not to sound discuraging but, trying to give you some idea about the process.

All breeders had have started with their first litter. I do not know of one yet that has started on number 2.

Good luch in your decision.

[FCspringer]

You can in fact tell or get a good idea from a pedigree... One more thing is that Tri color genes are more predominent in the show lines, there are not that many running field trials. There are some however, and some very good ones. You can follow pedigrees back to see what they came from. CH is for bench or show.

You will not see any show bred dogs winning Field trials, or field bred dogs winning shows.

If you look at the #'s of show style dogs that have a tri color and the number of field bred dogs, theres a big differance. People have claimed that the tri color dog is rare, when in fact it is not at all. But you can get good info off pedigree's, they show you the decendents of the dogs...You may have to go back many generations, but you can.

It is up to a person to research the breeder and go with thier gut. The breeder that advertises field bred dogs should be able to prove it in some way.

Also taking on breeding is something that should be thought out, and as said have the dogs looked at for things like OFA,PFK,CERF,PRA ect. Ask your vet if the dog can even breed successfuly first by examination. Be well informed and and prepaired for warning signs. Find out if what you are breeding is what you even realy want to pass on to future hunters. The mistakes we make now have to be cleaned up by others down the road. Good luck to you and do ask ?'s, thats the right thing to do for sure.