OK.... here´s my question. How many of you think it is a serious fault if a stud dog or a brood bitch is missing some of the teeth and how many teeth do you think is OK to be missing??
Just wanted to know since I have a young male who is missing two premolar 4 and one of my fellow breeder friend thought that I should tell my puppy buyers that he is missing teeth!
Thanks in advance!
The all breed judges may tend to judge it more harshly than breeder judges.
Full dentition is obviously preferred, but two missing premolars does not affect the dogs ability to carry a bird, or anything else, so I don't look at it as a serious fault; nor do most breeders. (I know the standard calls it a serious fault)
The slippery slope is, how many is too many. I don't have an answer. For me the real answer is, "when the missing teeth affect the dogs ability to do his job, or eat.
I may not dump a dog with three or more missing teeth if the rest of him/or was outstanding. I would make sure that I didn't double up on missing teeth when I bred him/her.
I don't see it as a big issue with puppy buyers, unless they are breeders who are trying to breed away from missing teeth. For pet buyers it should be no issue, unless you make it one.
We have a Champion, Junior Hunter that is missing two pre-molers. It mattered to some judges, and not to others.
Thank´s MikeM for the answer! Do you ever breed a male with missing teeth to a female who is also missing teeth or do you try to have one of the parents with full dentition? And when you are talking about trying not to double up on missing teeth.. how far back in pedigree do you take notice for that? Is it just parents or grandparents that have all their teeth or is it further back in the pedigree that you look for when not trying to double this fault?
I have a friend who has been breeding Rottweilers for many years. When she saw one of my dogs was missing a couple of teeth, she told me not to double on that as they tend to multiply.
How far back would you go? Not sure about that, but it could be hard to find out.
I would not be concerned with telling pet owners that your stud is missing 2 pre-molars. There is not any good reason to tell them, the offspring could all have full dentition. If you are planning to keep any to run on then you will always have to worry about missing teeth popping up later.
If I had a bitch that was missing teeth, I would be inclined not to breed her to a dog who was missing teeth. I'm not saying I woud never do it, but I would have to think that everything else about that dog was perfect for my bitch, and then I would think hard about it.
I think you need to look at the whole dog, not just parts.
A couple of missing teeth in a dog doesn't bother me, but I don't want to breed a line of toothless dogs.
There is no correlation between missing teeth and cleft palates. In fact my bitch that has a cleft palate has full dentition-go figure! However, missing teeth IS associated with bad bites!
