http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/item/478

Thanks for picking that up and posting the info. I think it is quite a good policy.

Of course what happens on paper is one thing..........ah hem.

Anyway, it is a feasable thing to drive your girl over hill and dale because it can be done quite expediently throughout Europe...size DOES matter in this case...my friends drive hundreds of miles to show!...I was in Italy and we drove from Milan to Venice in a couple hours.......France was 3 hours in the other direction and Switzerland 3 hours north..........imagine having to drive the THOUSANDS of miles from Miami, Fl to Anchorage,Ak.........not in this lifetime! What would poor Hawaii do? My goodness!

It was not so long ago, 15 years?, there were no chilled, little alone FROZEN breedings.

Let us be thankful we don't breed Thoroughbreds! THAT is a nightmare.........madatory live cover!

How silly... The donor dog must have produced at least one litter naturally? And you can register a litter from a maiden bitch that was AIed, but not one of her female offspring if the offspring has not produced a litter with a natural breeding? And the exception for Irish Wolfhounds? With DNA analysis, who cares whether it was AI, natural, or the stork?

Not silly at all. It is the Kennel Club's way of ensuring that all pedigree dogs can naturally reproduce themselves without the artifcial aid of an AI kit.

I know of a BISS winning Labrador stud dog in my locale that cannot mate a bitch naturally (due to temperament problems he is permanently on an anti-anxiety drug). A high percentage of his progeny (from the AI's) also exhibit these strange temperament tendencies and many of them are reluctant to mate naturally. If you extrapolate this problem over many succeeding generations you are going to end up with a big problem.

Fair enough that AI's are performed when the bitch lives too far away to effect a natural coupling but there is no reason on this earth why a stud dog should not be expected to mate a bitch all by himself if she is local. It amazes me how some breeders cosset their male dogs and do not allow them to demonstrate natural mating behaviours. A healthy, vigorous stud dog is more than capable of naturally mating several bitches a week. How do people think that the famous Sandylands, Poolstead etc stud dogs managed to mate so many bitches? Well, it certainly wasn't with AI kits I can assure you! They were normal, lusty , healthy boys and I doubt very much that any of them were physically or psychologically harmed by being allowed to peform their natural sexual function!

Lots to be said about the benefits of AI - avoiding STDs or injury in a valuable stud dog being big ones. The rules still seem quite silly, especially the exclusion for the Wolfhounds. But of course, it's not the USA where we have the freedom to prioritize what we are breeding for. At least so far.

Quote: ""But of course, it's not the USA where we have the freedom to prioritize what we are breeding for."""

Of course, you also have the freedom to call the British Kennel Club, the FCI, many reproduction specialists, sundry veterinarians and countless breeders "silly".

However, it may pay to remember La Fontaine's wonderful fable "The Wolf and the Dog" written in the seventeenth century. For those of you who have never read it, or can't be bothered to Google such trivia, here is the much abridged jist. A skinny wolf meets a robust heavyweight watchdog. Not daring to attack, he showers the dog with compliments on its portliness. The dog then exhorts the wolf to adopt a similar life style and the wolf is so tempted by the attractive picture of leisure and abundant victuals that he is about to accept... until he spots the bare spot around his negotiator's neck, left by a collar!!! Understanding that comfort always implies loss of liberty, Master Wolf fled... and is still running.

Where an obsessionn for sterilised comfort and security have saturated the very pores of our society, is freedom more than a vain word? Personally, I think of liberty as an illusion... maybe because of my collar(s). Never has the word been so liberally brandished, yet never has man felt more naked without his collar. As long as we voluntarily seek limits and obligations, will there always be a wolf left to even notice our bare neck?