I have an 8 year old bitch that, for reasons I won't go into here, I am considering breeding one last time. I will be consulting with my repro vet about this, but I wanted to ask for information from those who have done this before, was your experience in whelping an older bitch positive or negative?

To throw into the pot, the bitch has free-whelped her past litters easily and been a great mom, loves every puppy she sees and is very fit.

I know some of you will think this is terrible. I am not entering to this hastily and will weigh my final decision carefully. Flames will not be a part of my consideration process. However, honest input, the positives and the negatives, from those of you who have traveled this road would be greatly appreciated.

I think you're going into this with your eyes open which of course, is good. I did it one time and I'll admit, I was nervous like you.

Full checkup; blood panels(I checked for many things, etc., and repro checkup as well. She was healthy and fit.

Same here, her other 2 litters went off with out a hitch. At 8+(actually) she whelped 9 well and raised them well. She's going on 10yrs old now and she looks fabo.

Good luck

My breeder friend bred her 8 year old bitch, that had no problem with the pregnancy nor whelping. She had a nice sized healthy litter.

Yes, I was at the end of my bitches. My youngsters didn't work out from previous breedings for varying reasons. So, I went on to breed 2 older bitches. I bred a bitch that was 9yrs old. Did full panel work up,thyroid, progesterone tested, and bred via AI with fresh semen. All labs and pre-breeding exam were perfect. Past 2 litters were fine with no issues. From the third litter, she had 2 pups that were tiny. One pup died a few hours after birth, the smallest pup (7oz) died 4 days later. I also bred another older bitch and had to do a c-section as it was a single pup. The single pup had to be euthanized as he was bleeding from the nose and wasn't breathing strongly. She was 8.5yrs old when bred. Her labs and prebreeding exam were fine. What we don't know is the overall health of the uterus internally as we can't visually see this w/o doing a c-section. My 8.5yr old girl was spayed during the c-section. If breeding an older girl is necessary because you are at the end of your line, then be prepared for the expense and heartache that comes with it. It was a very costly 2 breedings for me and no puppies to continue on with.

I bred a bitch who turned 8 shortly after her litter was born. I had not planned to breed her quite that old but for some reason she was very late coming into season. She was a good whelper with her previous two litters and a champion producer, but for various reasons it never worked out for me to have something to carry on with so decided before it was too late to breed her one more time. I did a complete physical and blood work and my vet said she was in great shape for a litter. She free whelped 9 puppies, one stillborn but the others fine and was a great mom as before. It did maybe take her slightly longer to bounce back than her previous litters, but I am so glad I did it as I love the bitch I kept. Afterwards she was spayed and is now enjoying her retirement.

I bred a girl that turned 8 years old during her pregnancy. I had tried to get puppies from her daughter from her first litter several times and had no luck. She had a big litter with no problems at all. She had a very nice litter and I'm very glad that I did the breeding.

First bitch was 8. She had two puppies, one was very small and died after a couple of days. The other puppy had a heart murmur and I gave him away. He lived to be 15.

Second bitch was also 8. We saw one puppy on the ultrasound. It did not survive to term, so she had no puppies.

I doubt I'd try a 3rd time.

I have a girl like you describe and yes I would do it.

My girl was 7.5 y/o..a green discharge and rushed to the vet a couple of days before she was due. C section and 3 tiny, hairless pups. A lot of work and 2 swimmers.

I've done this twice in the past 25 years, a third litter for each bitch. Both these bitches only came into season every 9-10 months, were free-whelpers and were fully cleared via bloodwork and vet-checked before breeding. Both came through with flying colors. As my repro vet says, some should be retired at 3, others have relatively young uterus and will handle it just fine. There is no hard and fast rule.

Interesting you say your girls seasons were 9-10 months apart. Hutch says that the health of the uterus declines with every season. Maybe that is part of why you had such good luck. At that rate, your 8 year old girls' reproductive age/health would have been equivalent to my girls when they were 5-1/2 and 6-1/2 years old.

Did this twice. First time bitch was 8 when bred and 9 when whelped. She had 10 pups in 2 hours fed them all never had to supplement. She was a wonderful mother and lived to be 14 1/2.
Second time bitch was 7 when bred and 8 when whelped she died during C section. She was healthy and fit and had pups natural before. At 2 AM with 10 pups and no mom I would have given all the pups back to have her back. That said she produced wonderful pups that greatly improved my bloodlines but what a struggle that was. Feeding pups around the clock. They all lived long productive lives. One of which just passed at 16 1/2 years old. It is a very hard and personal decision.

I just last year bred a 7 year old for the first time when her sister failed to produce a female in her last litter. The repro vet gave her blessing. She whelped 10 pups naturally and all survived. The only issue they've had is retained baby teeth. Daisy did get a uterine infection about a week after whelping that required immediate and serious intervention, but my repro vet did not think her age was a factor.

I've done it 3 times, all with my repro vets blessing. Once the bitch was nearly 9 by the time she delivered, she had 3 very healthy puppies by csection(she was never a huge producer, her litters averaged 3-5 puppies). The second was my foundation bitch and she was a bit over 8 years,she lived to be 16, she had missed the breeding before but this one was done by transcervical AI and she free whelped 6 puppies with all surviving, it was her smallest litter(she usually had 10-11).
The last was my foundation bitches daughter she had 11 puppies at 8 years old (by planned c-section) and was in the best shape as well and when the puppies were 4 months old she looked fabulous and even better than she did before her litter.She's now almost 11 and still looks like she's 5.My repro vet commented how great she looked and to wait a cycle before breeding her again, and I laughed when I said she would be over 10 and this was it, she laughed too and said well at least she went out in style!!!
My dogs tend to live long lives and aren't as "OLD" as some others that I have seen. I think that has alot of effect on it.Conditional Age is as important if not moreso than actual age. If your bitch is 7 and showing signs of being old I would say no don't do it.If on the other hand she looks like she's at the top of her game and super healthy than as long as you understand all the risks, which it looks like you do, than I would go for it.
I look at how healthy they are and if they are in top condition before I would even think of it. That said I have retired girls at younger ages because of lateral tears on their uterus during csections and wouldn't want to risk it, and I've lost a young bitch to an illness after she had her puppies that wasn't preventable or foreseable.

That's a good point about how fast a line ages. I also have bitches that live to be 14 or so and do not consider them to be old at 7 or 8.