Breeding Dogs

Breeding dogs is a fun thing that my family started a couple of years ago. We started with our family dog, named Mocha. She is a standard-sized, first-generation chocolate labradoodle. She looks a little like a grumpy old man, but is super sweet once people meet her. We originally got her to be my brother’s dog, but she and I bonded and have been attached at the hip since.
She was about two years old when she had her first litter. She has had three litters in total. She had six puppies in the first one, nine in the second, and two in the third.
There are many different opinions on when people should stop breeding a dog, but we opted for the shorter, 4 litter option. We only plan to let her have 4 litters, and then we will retire her and get her fixed. Some people believe that it does not matter how many times a dog is bred, but a majority of vets say that the more litters a dog has the more likely they are to have health problems.
In her first litter, the one with six puppies, we bred her with a bigger dog and ended up with Labradoodles between 65lbs and 85lbs. In that litter, there were four blond puppies and two chocolate puppies. When the chocolate-colored puppies grew up they ended up being more grayish-silver.
The next litter had nine puppies, which was a ton. For this one, we bred her with a toy poodle. This resulted in puppies between 15lbs and 35lbs. They were a handful, but we absolutely loved them.
The last litter only had two puppies. This concerned us for Mocha’s health, but she and both puppies are perfectly healthy and the vet said that it was just a fluke. For this litter, we bred her with another toy poodle. Both puppies will be between 20lbs and 40lbs. They were super easy in comparison to bigger litters in the past.
Taking care of the puppies is a tough task, but definitely worth it. They require constant cleaning up after. We typically set up a huge pen in our sitting area and they take over the whole room. They have a kiddy pool, kennel, blankets, toys, and food and water in their pen. Additionally, they must be weighed daily for about 4 weeks to make sure they are eating enough, and then we gradually weigh them less and less until it is only once a week.
We keep them for eight weeks before they can go to their new homes, because that’s how long they take to wean from their mother. For the first four weeks, she nurses them and then after that, they slowly transition to puppy food. At first, the food is soaked in water to make it safe for their mouths, but as they get more teeth, which happens during weeks four and five, the food gets less and less watered down.
We try to potty train the puppies a little before they go home. Labradoodles are a breed that naturally wants to please their owners, so they generally potty train pretty well. They are typically a very happy, friendly breed that loves everyone and everything. Labradoodles are usually very sweet dogs.
Breeding dogs has been a great experience for our family as we have learned to work together and have been able to love on so many precious pups throughout the years. We cannot wait until our next litter is here.