Breeding Dogs for Sickness and Early Death

"The rarest 50 AKC Breeds total just 3 out of every 2,000 U.S. dogs."

If you compare the UK Kennel Clubs 2004 breed health survey with their 2014 survey, you find that the deleterious effects of inbreeding and selection for defect continue unabated.

As Jemima Harrison notes over on her blog

Across all the breeds, median longevity has dropped by 11 per cent in a decade. Kennel Club registered dogs now live on average to just 10 years old - down from 11yrs 3 months in 2004.

Terrier breeds with special tumbles on health include Bull Terriers, which now die at age 7 instead of 10, and Border Terriers which now die at age 12 instead of 14.

The Labrador, Americas favorite dog, is now dead at age 11 years in the UK, as compared to 12 years and 3 months in 2004.

To be honest, within individual breeds, sample size is small, and reporting variances can move a number.

That said, when looked at across ALL breeds, it is very clear that the Kennel Club has woven the basket that makes "basket case" dogs.

Breed-blind show idiots will protest as they always do.  Let me see if we can get out in front of that and summarize their position:

I love my doggies, and you are being MEAN by asking questions based on "data" which I am sure is totally biased, or maybe a complete lie put together by "AR" people who hate doggies and are trying to force us to eat wood chips. Doggies forever and ever!!

Dysplasia is not a problem, but a FEATURE, as so many people are old now, and crippled dogs cannot move fast or pull down their crippled owners as easily since it is CRUEL to train doggies. Same with Bulldogs for people with that awful cellulite and diabetes virus. Doggies have to change with the times, and you are wrong, mean, and probably a liberal for even asking about canine health. Doggies forever!!!

Doggie training is cruel, because if you train a dog to obey, you are going to be mean and then you are NOT a doggie lover, but a fascist worse than Hitler.

Why do you admire Hitler?

Why do you hate doggies?

Why do you want to force everyone to eat wood chips?

Does that about cover it?

Ah well, carry on! 

The American Kennel Club continues to tumble down the rat hole, with a 75% decline in total canine registrations over the last 35 years.

In fact, AKC dogs now represent less than 12 percent of all the dogs in the U.S., and that number is continuing to decline as Americans are acquiring more dogs than ever.

More than half of all AKC dogs are in the top 10 breeds, with the bottom 50 breeds summing to 1.2 percent of all AKC-registered dogs (which is only 12 percent of all dogs) .

|To put it another way, the rarest 50 AKC Breeds total just 3 out of every 2,000 U.S. dogs.

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Dog Training with a Remote Ecollar

Like any other type of dog training, Remote Ecollar Dog Training is just that... Training.

Dog training itself is about teaching words to your dog with actions associated with them. You can continue telling your dog No! No! No! with little effect on their behavior or you can teach words with actions that instruct your dog on what To Do.

"Lie Down" or "Go to bed" instead of demanding attention.

"Sit" instead of jumping on guests. "Off" to interrupt your dog before its steals your lunch. "Come" to call your dog back before it gets to the busy street. These are all instructive commands that once learned lead to a better behaved, less stressed and anxious dog.

The modern use of the Remote Ecollar is to use the tool as an association to help teach your dog what To Do, NOT what not to do. It can, of course, be used as a correction once training and understanding of commands have been learned but for our purposes we use it as an association.

Outdated models, yes, gave quite a jolt of a correction but modern models made by reputable companies like Dogtra and Tritronics have a wide range of levels and some start at such extrememly low levels that they are undetectable by most humans. This gives us the ability to tailor our training to even the most sensitive dog by finding the just right level that works comfortably with the dog.

Walk up behind two people engaged in a converstaion and at the same time tap each on the shoulder until one turns around. They may both turn at the same time or one may not feel your tapping until the others attention has been drawn away. Everyone feels sensations on the skin differently. The same with dogs. There is no magic working level.

Once weve found the dogs working level training begins. This means teaching the dog what action we want. We do this by molding or luring the dog into the correct possition. As we teach each new command we build duration of maintaining the command, add distance from the handler/owner while maintaining the command, and begin generalizing the commands to many different places and situations. This gives us a dog that understands "Sit" at home when the doorbell rings as well as "Sit" while you are talking to someone youve met while out on a walk.

As your dog gets more freedom from training, your Remote Ecollar gives you piece of mind that if your dog is out of earshot or too caught up in what they are doing, you can always reach out and touch them to get their attention back.

So remember, Dog Training is about teaching and once you have a proper foundation training possibilities with your Remote Ecollar are endless.

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Adopting a new Dog

A common mistake adopters make is giving the new dog too much freedom too soon. Freedom should be earned slowly as the new dog becomes more reliable with housetraining and the new owners have some basic control of the dog. Investing in a crate is the fastest and safest way to housetrain the new dog/puppy. Even if the dog was reliable in the previous home, accidents happen. Use the crate to get your dog on a routine and stick with it until you know he is reliable.

The crate will also give the dog/puppy a safe place to get used to the new surroundings. After a long walk or playtime let him rest in his crate and observe his new family as they go about their business. Let him sleep, chew on a toy or just hang out. This will help him learn to chill out while the family is in hectic mode and that he doesnt have to be involved in every activity.

Try not to go overboard with the doting. It is best for his development to give him some space and time alone. Ignore him occasionally. We want to create a dog that can handle being left alone when the owners are out and not be totally dependant on humans for emotional support. Do your little dog (this goes for puppies too) a favor and put them on the floor. Let them be a dog and experience the world at their own eye level most of the time. You can cuddle when its nap time.

Make sure children in the home understand how to properly interact with dogs and puppies before bringing one home. No tail grabbing, ear pulling or surprise attacks on the sleeping dog. Play games with puppies that dont encourage grabbing at hands or chasing pant legs. Even most adult dogs like a good game of fetch. Toss one toy and have another ready so you can get him to drop the first toy as you toss the second one. Have the family or the kids stand about 10 feet apart and encourage the dog/puppy to come to each person in turn and reward with a tiny treat. Check out the internet or book stores for more games to play.

Introduce the new dog to a resident dog on neutral territory like a park or just down the street. If possible take your dog with you when choosing a second dog. Make sure the dogs are compatible in energy levels if you are looking for a playmate for your dog.

If you are looking to get a second dog with an adult or senior dog in the home dont leave it up to the old kid to show the new kid the ropes. You dont want to pass on any bad habits. Seek out a dog trainer to help with questions and concerns before you adopt, to help you pick out the right dog for your situation, help transition the new dog, and get you started on training your new dog to prevent misbehavior in the future.

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New Zealand Farm working Dogs 9 Basic Nutrition

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By Dr Clive Dalton 

Theres a mountain of information available these days on the nutritional needs of dogs.  And yet, there are still far too many dogs that are not properly fed – not through intentional neglect but through ignorance. 

Unfortunately nutrition is not an easy subject, and you can easily get lost in the technical detail.    

The important point to remember is that your working dog is an athlete and deserves more than a leg of frozen mutton at the end of the day.

What a dog needs from its feed?

Carbohydrates

These are compounds made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen and provide the "energy" part of the diet.  They contain such things as sugars and starch.  The most complex carbohydrates are broken down in digestion and end up as sugars before final absorption.

Glycogen is carbohydrate stored in the muscle ready for action.  Marathon runners have to build this up days before the race so they dont have to wait for digestion to take place before energy can be used.  Working dogs as athletes need this in a big way too.

To get the energy out of the carbohydrates the animal needs oxygen from the lungs via the blood stream.  This burns up the carbohydrate releasing carbon dioxide and water which is then excreted.  Excess carbohydrates are stored in the body as fat. 

True carnivores dont need carbohydrates - but dogs need them in a properly balanced diet.  Carbohydrates should not exceed 60% of a dogs diet. 

Dogs cannot digest large amount of fibre, so cereals should be cooked before feeding or the dog will suffer from diarrhoea.  Too much lactose (milk sugar) will also cause scouring so dont add large amounts of dried skim-milk powder to the diet as it is 50% lactose.  Fresh milk contains only 5% lactose.

Proteins

Proteins are used for muscle building and come from both animal and plant sources.   The building blocks of these proteins are "amino acids".  The dog needs 23 amino acids but can synthesise (ie make its own) only 13, so 10 must be supplied in its diet to prevent deficiency diseases.

The "complete" proteins that contain these essential amino acids are found in eggs, milk, soybeans, peanuts, yeast, as well as muscles and glandular organs.  So the best way to make sure you have covered all the essential amino acids in a diet is to use both animal and plant proteins in a diet.

Proteins like carbohydrates and fats are made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.  But they have one important difference - they contain nitrogen.  Proteins are insoluble in water so have to be broken down by enzyme action into amino acids, which are then soluble and easily transported around the body.

Animals can break down protein for energy but this is not a very efficient process.  Surplus nitrogen produced in the process is excreted as urea in the urine.  To avoid this, make sure dogs are not fed high protein diets over long periods, and there are enough carbohydrates and fats in the diet to balance things up.

A dog should be fed protein daily as it is not stored in the body in large quantities like fat.  It should make up from 20 - 25% of the daily diet.

Fats and oils

These are made up of chains of chemicals called "fatty acids".  They contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen just like carbohydrates, but they differ by having a greater proportion of carbon in them.  They also contain more than twice as much energy on an equal weight basis. 

So nature has designed fat depots to be highly effective energy stores for times of need.  You get a lot of energy into a small bulk!  Putting fat on is a very efficient process, for example the energy in 4 kg of starch to can be stored as 1kg of fat.  Taking fat off is harder, as you only get 2kg of starch energy from 1kg of stored fat.  Remember this when trying to slim down an obese dog or to lose weight yourself!

Fat serves as important body insulation, as well as helping to transport fat-soluble vitamins around the body.  It also improves the palatability and texture of dog foods.   A shortage of fat in a dogs diet can cause an abnormal skin and hair condition and may increase susceptibility to skin infections.

A dog needs a minimum of 5% of fat in the total dry weight of its diet.  At least 1% of the fatty acid called "linoleic" is needed for skin health.  If you feed the recommended maintenance level of 20% fat, then enough linoleic will be present.

If you boost the fat level to 40% or more this will provide all the dogs energy needs, but youll risk problems with rancidity.  This can then impair the utilisation of Vitamin E, cause deficiencies in the B-complex vitamins and generally depress appetite.  If the dog doesnt eat, then it stops thriving.  So don’t expect top performance from all that fatty mutton - put it down the offal hole and buy a decent balanced feed.

If you feed these high fat diets, then you must readjust the mineral, vitamin and protein levels to keep the diet balanced.  You may also have to add an "antioxidant" to preserve nutrient quality and stop the fats going rancid.  Avoid these problems by feeding lower fat levels in the diet.

Vitamins

Vitamins are essential to growth and health.  They help the body to resist disease and body cells to function properly.   We have to consider two types of vitamins - water soluble and fat soluble.

Water soluble vitamins

The B-complex and vitamin C are water soluble. They cannot be stored in the body in large amounts so must be supplied regularly in the diet.

When a dog loses fluids by vomiting or diarrhoea, its vitamins must be replaced..   Overfeeding these water-soluble vitamins does not cause toxicity as excesses are lost in the urine.

Vitamin B1 (thiamine)

·      This is very important to dogs.

·      Dogs differ genetically in their need for thiamine.

·      Metabolic disturbance, exercise and cold housing may increase demand.

·      Only small amounts of thiamine are stored in the body. 

·      Treating meat for hydatids (freezing and boiling) reduces thiamine - it is lost in the       thawed water and boiling juices. 

·      The heat of cooking will destroy thiamin.  Commercially prepared dog feeds have extra thiamine added to their diets to compensate for cooking losses.

·      If you are cooking your own feed recipe, add some yeast tablets to it.

·      Feed a dog supplementary thiamine 2-3 times a week.

·      Brewers (not live) yeast and wheat germ are valuable sources.

·      Meat and cereals are also good sources.

·      A high fat diet contains less thiamine than a high-carbohydrate diet.

·      Never feed dogs raw fish as some species contain an enzyme (thiaminase) which       will make thiamine unavailable.  Nervous symptoms may develop leading to       paralysis.  Cooked fish is safe as thiaminase is destroyed.

Other vitamin B-complex

·      These include riboflavin (Vit B2), niacin pyridoxin (Vit B6), pantothenic acid, biotin, folic acid, and vitamin B12.

·      The best supplies are in wheat germ, brewers yeast, liver and the organ and muscle meats.

·      Under normal feeding there should be no problems, but egg white and sulpha drugs can make them unavailable.

·      "Black tongue" is a defect of the mucous membranes caused by a niacin deficiency.

·      Poor blood clotting can be caused by folic acid deficiency.

·      Riboflavin shortage can cause slow growth, poor appetite and low fertility.

Vitamin C

·      Plenty of this is synthesised by the dog to meet its needs.

Fat-soluble vitamins

These vitamins (A, D, E and K) need fat to be transported and absorbed by the body.  So if the fat metabolism of the dog is upset, then a vitamin deficiency may occur.

Get veterinary advice when supplementing fat soluble vitamins as excess builds up and is stored in the body fat and can lead to problems.

·      Liver, kidney, muscle fat and fish liver oil are good sources.

·      Handle fats with care - the vitamins are lost if the fat goes rancid.

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Get Rich By Breeding Dogs!

O.K., the title is a joke. 

But only barely. 

Though show dog breeders may not be getting rich, many show dog people breed dogs to defray their show ring expenses -- payments to professional handlers, payments on motor homes and hotels, veterinary expenses, etc.

With "hobby" expenses of several thousand dollars a year, selling puppies is a significant part of the economic engine driving the show ring model.

The need for uninterrupted puppy sales is one reason the show dog world is so resistant to change.

If show ring folks could not sell their current crop of dogs because an AKC standard had been changed in order to improve canine health, that would be a serious economic hit.

There is another reason breed clubs are resistant to breed standard changes, and an increased focus on canine health issues; it is a negation of their own life and their own expertise. 

What does it say about the breed club, and its breeders, that the dog they claim to love so much is now in such dismal shape?

Dogs are not dying young and in pain because they are committing suicide.

Entire breeds have not been wrecked by accidental vehicle impacts.

No, the story here is quite a bit sadder than that. It is a story about a lot of people with misplaced priorities intentionally breeding dogs, and the horrific results they have achieved despite decades and decades of putative expertise "in the breed."

For these folks to admit that the results achieved have been a collective disaster, has a huge emotional cost attached to it.

They are in the same position as the person who has given this or her entire life to a company only to be fired in humiliation, or the wife who has been married for 25 years who comes home to find her husband in bed with another man. Was the whole thing a joke? A charade? Did this investment of my life mean nothing?

Little wonder that a lot of people are willing to do almost anything not to have to face those questions!

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Dog Breeding

You may feel awkward or uneasy when breeding your dog and I know it is a serious decision one dog owner has to make. But here are some good tips that will make the process easier for you and your dog.

You should choose the right partner for your dog – this is one of the most significant things to do. Bear in mind that the puppies carry with them the genes of their parents, so you should choose a partner that is healthy, attractive, and other positive qualities you like your dog to possess.

The female dog should be very healthy so that giving birth and pregnancy is very easy. Before the breeding process, she should be well fed with supplements and the right amount of nutrition to have all the energy and boosts her body for the pregnancy.

Knowing important records about the male and female dog can give a success to the breeding process, but you should focus more on the female’s records. You should know medical issues and background of the female, time of the year where she is in heat, and any important changes in her behavior.

You should also establish a firm foundation to your veterinarian. Having a good relationship with your vet is very essential since he/she is there all throughout the breeding process. You might want to ensure that the vet is doing his/her best for the process to become successful.

We cannot avoid the fact that dogs also possess reproductive problems. Usually, female dogs have more reproductive problems than the male dogs. But problems for the males are more difficult to solve. Low sperm count, anatomical defects, and reproductive organ infection are very common problems. Male dogs may also less or no interest whenever they have Brucellosis, arthritis of the spine, and hypothyroidism.

For the female, the right timing is needed in order to have a successful breeding. That right timing is when the female dog is in heat. But, that heat period is usually hard to tell with the proper hormone tests. Fortunately, veterinarians have all the ways to know when the best time to breed is. Heat period for females occur every 6 months and it starts when they reach 1 year. It is also advisable that the female dog is fully grown, as to avoid any complications during the pregnancy.

Once a female dog is in heat, it will show signs like changes in temperament, the way she acts, etc. There are many different signs but they blood discharge is the most common. You will also know that the female is willing to breed once she is in heat. Blood discharges are usually from dark red to a tan color. You will then have to let the male and female spend time together, like a couple of days and let them do their process.

Be sure to watch and study the changes in your female for once the heat period is over, you’ll have to wait for the next 6 months. The vet will then be able to tell if your dog is pregnant 22 days after the breeding time.

Breeding occurs naturally without help from humans, but if you want to accelerate the process, a little help won’t hurt the dogs. Hope these tips will bring you joy and success in dog breeding.

Check Dog Breeding for more of the exciting thoughts! 

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How to Teach Your Puppy not to Bite Part 4

By Joan Orr

This is Part 4 of an ongoing series. We recommend that you read the previous articles since we are not going to repeat anything here. Here is a link to the other articles in the series and some related articles:  Puppy Biting series

Teaching your puppy to control his mouth and to keep his teeth to himself requires a multi-faceted approach which is a combination of management and training. In this article I will talk about the first of two very effective training approaches that you can take to help your puppy learn not to bite. These are as follows:

1. Teach the puppy to give kisses instead of biting.
2. Teach the puppy the meaning of a cue that means "take your mouth off" and subsequently "leave your mouth off".

How to Give Kisses

Most puppies are generous with kisses and you can encourage this by saying "kisses" and welcoming the kisses when the puppy offers them. Of course if you dont want the puppy slobbering all over you, then just ignore the kisses or move the attractive body part out of range. Your puppy will soon learn that if you say "kisses" you will welcome his licking you and otherwise you will not welcome this. Never scold or punish or take away your attention altogether from a kissing puppy.

A great way to encourage kisses instead of biting and to help a puppy learn to take treats gently is to put something like cheese spread or peanut butter  on your hand and fingers (dont use peanut butter if your puppy is going to be around children though in case of children with peanut allergies). Let the puppy lick this off, while you say the word "kisses" over and over. This helps him associate the action of licking with the word "kisses". If he is really frantic for the yummy stuff on your hand he may not be paying too much attention to what you are saying, so it could take a while for the association with the word to sink in. For some puppies this exercise is all that you will need to do teach him what "kisses" means, but others may not seem to catch on.


A better way to ensure that the puppy is thinking about what he is doing and not just madly licking is to set up the situation so that he offers a lick and is then reinforced for that so that he will repeat it with the conscious thought of doing it. To do this you need some kind of marker sound that tells the puppy he is doing the right thing. I use a clicker for this, but you can use a ball point pen or something else that makes a short sharp sound. You can also use a marker word such as "yes" or "yip", but this does not work as well as using a  clicker. Here is a video that shows how to do this. The puppy in this video was the nippiest puppy I have ever worked with and she rarely offered spontaneous kisses - she had much more fun nipping!



Offer a treat that leaves a tasty residue on your hand (put a dab of cream cheese under the treat if necessary to get things started). Click when the puppy licks and give another treat. Create the cycle: lick - click - treat - lick - click - treat. At first the puppy is just licking the treat residue of my fingers, but after a few tries she is offering a lick on purpose. Add the cue "kisses" when the puppy offers a lick when you hold out your hand. Use this cue from now on when offering treats. Gradually move from a more open hand presentation to holding the treat between thumb and forefinger. Click when the puppy licks and release the treat. Eventually the puppy will learn that the offering of a treat is the cue for "kisses" and he will lick to get the treat rather than snatching it. Practice with different people in different location.  If the puppy makes a mistake such as biting at your hand or putting his paw on you, just ignore this. You dont need to say "no" or "ah ah" or "oops" if the puppy makes a mistake. It is best just to be quiet and let the click be the only communication during this training session. The training session in this video was about a minute and a half - this is plenty long enough. After training, play for a few minutes and then do another short session. You will get much more out of five 1 minute sessions than out of one 5 minute session.

Next time I will talk about teaching your puppy the cue "off" so you can tell him you want him to stop biting or not to bite in the first place.

Read the rest of the articles in this series:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

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New perspective on dog breeding part 1 puppies conditioning in the womb

This article by Larry Mueller was published in Outdoor Life 15 years ago, in 1998. Since then the science of genetics and epigenetics have advanced tremendously but the conclusion has not changed that much. If you want to breed superdogs, youd better start really, really early in a dogs life. The next installment will present a current perspective on the points raised in Larrys article.

Building The Superdog

Beginning Before Birth

The where, when, why and how of starting a superdog

Larry Mueller

Hunting Dogs Editor, Outdoor Life, 1998

     The new century for dogs is now. Modern science has poised the dog world for a fastforward of unprecedented proportions. In the past, superdogs were rare accidents of nature - naturals that made even first timers believe they were great trainers. And now we know how those accidents happen. We hold the simple secrets to building our own superdogs from scratch.

  

How early can we begin the conditioning which could lead to a superdog? Five months? Eight weeks? Ninety days? Would you believe… in the womb? Its true. We have scientific evidence that the fetus is not sealed in isolation. It lives in its mothers world.

Interestingly, before Mendel discovered genes, breeders were hunting pregnant bitches to produce superior pups. After Mendels theory caught on, that practice was called an old wives tale. Genetics allowed us to break breeding down to numbers and predict a few traits like coat color. So, we assumed that breeding is a crap shoot of many-sided gene dice. All traits, behavioral and physical alike, were thought to be locked m place at birth. It was a neatly packaged theory that shrank nature to fit our head size. To believe it, however, required ignoring all the loopholes and protecting our ignorance against obvious evidence to the contrary.

  

But this is for the future. For now, were conditioning fetuses to become great hunting dogs: Proof that its possible comes from the Universityof California, Berkeley. Dr. Marion Diamond, professor of anatomy, divided laboratory rats into two groups. In one rats were housed singly in boxes with just food and water. In the other, groups of rats lived together and enjoyed toys which were changed periodically - a mentally challenging environment.

  

At maturity, Marion Diamond sacrificed some of both groups and physically measured the cortex areas of their brains. The cortexes had actually grown thicker in the challenged rats. For the first time, it was proven that the anatomy of an animal brain could be changed by experience. Subsequent maze tests m other laboratories proved that rats with thicker cortexes were smarter and quicker to learn.

     

In a second study, Professor Diamond placed pregnant rats in both deprived and challenging environments. Again, the challenged rats had the thicker cortexes. But get this: So did their offspring! Somehow, the mothers experiences had improved their babies ability to learn.

  

Can this happen in dogs as well as rats? Of course. As Dr. Diamond points out, the number of neurons in a single column of cortical nerve cells is the same in rats, dogs and man. The number of dendrites (branchlike extensions) and the resulting complexity of circuitry is what creates some of the differences between species.

I asked Professor Diamond whether given the olfactory propensity of dogs and the fact that scent is tasted as well as smelled - there might be a biological connection telling the fetuses that their hunting mother is excited and what odor is responsible. Sound reasonable? "It does," she said, cautioning, however, that she believes everything is possible until proven otherwise.

  

How might the fetus be conditioned by the mother s experience? My own theory is that tasted odor, like medicine held under the tongue, quickly enters the bloodstream. At the same time, excitement releases adrenaline into the bloodstream. Brain chemicals such as seratonin fire into the gaps between the dendrites. A percentage of those chemicals are recycled to be used again by the brain. The remainder enters the bloodstream, which, in a pregnant bitch, also flows through the unborns brain where it reproduces sensations much like the mothers.

  

Whether my theory is right or wrong (veterinary neurologist and Auburn Universityprofessor Larry Myers says Im close, if not dead on) were certain that challenging the pregnant bitch will enlarge the offsprings cortex. Training will be easier. And if my theory is right, the pups will likely have a strong preference for the scent that excites their mother. Deer chasing should be minimized.

  

I believe that the time to make the greatest impression on the fetus is the last 21 days of gestation. (Since this was published in Outdoor Life, NBC reported that Dr. David Min used ultrasound to track heartbeats and movements of human fetuses. They began responding to parents voices and music at 26 weeks, verifying the third trimester as the time of greatest opportunity for influencing the unborn.)

Additional support for hunting the pregnant bitch comes from Missourieducator, Red Setter breeder and trainer, Bruce Ludwig. Except for heat-of-summer litters, Ludwig hunts his bitches until the last week. "Ive definitely seen more pointing intensity in pups from hunted bitches, Bruce said. And as an educator I see a parallel in children. From all walks of life and degrees of intelligence, those mothers who are physically and mentally active during pregnancy bear children who react noticeably better to sight, sound, and touch. Its most apparent before learned responses form, but it carries over to superior grades later."

  

But will breeders hunt their pregnant bitches? Should we risk hunting ours? Weve always pampered them. I can only answer with more questions. Have you ever known a coyote who took off two months from hunting to have her pups? Have you ever known a young coyote that wouldnt hunt? Not hunting the pregnant bitch may well be the first step in producing all those worthless dogs we see.

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