Are We Having TRT Puppies?

So, a while back I wrote a post about Yaddle, seeking a "friend with benefits" relationship from a respectable Teddy Roosevelt Terrier male, indicating that there were three males in the running for the privilege. All were stunning and all had amazing pedigrees. She stayed in Texas for MONTHS, without the suggestion of coming into season. I had wanted her back for the Open Show in June, as I had retired Diva from competition the year before. Yaddle was my only other female TRT, because I purchased Steele instead of the female puppy I had planned to get in 2023. If my males were going to have any shot at a Winners competition, they needed a female Winner to compete against. So, I entered Yaddle in the Open Show and brought her home.

Nota bene: Dog shows have all males compete against each other for Winners Dog. Females have the same competition, between all females. The winners from each sex compete for Best of Winners. Not all Open Shows, i.e. points shows for Foundation Stock Service and Miscellaneous Group dogs, are set up that way, but it's always better to have both sexes to compete against each other. Dog shows are (or should be) competitions to help breeders select breeding stock, after all.

Timing is Everything

A week later, she was showing signs of coming into season.

Terriers always seem to have "perfect" timing. Just ask them. After a period of scrambling around, trying to figure out what we could do to get her back to Texas and then back for the show, Kathleen, the stud owner, and I conceded defeat. Even if I could deliver her back to Kathleen in time (I couldn't) and the stud owner could get him to Kathleen's in time (she couldn't), there was still the issue of getting her back for the Open Show in a mere two weeks. If we'd had unlimited time and money, it would have been ideal for me simply to drive Yaddle to Kathleen's, stopping to pick up the stud on the way there, staying for a week while the deed was done, driving Yaddle back home, and dropping the stud off on the way.

Now, in case you think that this is the ordinary way of doing things, it isn't. Kathleen, the stud owner, and I have been friends for decades and trust each other implicitly with our dogs. But even decades-long friendship can't print money in our basements (even if we had basements). That meant it was either on to Plan B or skipping this season and going on to the next one for which logistics made breeding possible. That delay would have meant breeding Yaddle in May/June 2025.

I was not happy about skipping this season. Yaddle is not, to put it politely, getting any younger. I do not favor breeding a maiden litter later in a dog's life, any more than I favor breeding early. It's a delicate balance between physical maturity and fertility. The general health and welfare of the female being bred, as well as genetic testing, also come into play. Yaddle is four years of age. By the time I'd be able to try breeding her again, she'd be almost five, fast approaching my upper age limit for breeding a first litter.

Decisions . . . The Contenders!

All of those issues, big and small, left me with three choices:

• Steele (adorable, but under two years of age),
• Artoo (Yaddle's mahoosive litter brother), and
• Pip (Yaddle's sire)

Steele: Kathleen has seen Steele and Artoo recently, but she had not seen Pip for about five years. Of the three, she favored Steele, with whom I eventually wanted to breed Yaddle. It's a nice breeding, with quality dogs on both sides of the pedigree. Both Yaddle and Steele have champion parents, even though they've not been shown enough to finish their championships (UKC) or Certificate of Merit (CM, AKC). However, both Steele and Yaddle have championship/CM points and have never been dismissed from the ring, so they are free of disqualifications. However, both dogs are dilutes and both are unproven, so we decided to move Steele down the list.

Artoo: Neither of us were in favor of Artoo being bred to his sister. Now, before you make a face and cry "Incest!" it's not that bad a breeding, genetically. Kathleen and I have been around the breeding block a few times and we know the benefits and pitfalls of close line breeding and inbreeding. Pip, their sire, and Diva, their dam, are completely unrelated for at least four generations. Dogs don't realize that they're related and, if left to their own devices, Artoo would make whoopy with Yaddle without a second thought--so, it's not "gross." Regardless, two things held us back from deciding on Artoo. While he is one of the nicest Teddies that I've seen, he's big. Second, and I'll admit is, was the closeness of the breeding. Artoo is a massive 22-pound dog, while Yaddle is only about 15 pounds. That could make for some difficulties, both in terms of breeding and in terms of puppy size. Not what I wanted for a first breeding. The genetics, I'll discuss in a few paragraphs below.

Pip: When doing line breeding, uncle/niece, aunt/nephew or grandparent/grandpup are the best possible options. However, line breeding to a parent is not genetically horrible. Both breeding to a sibling and breeding to a full parent result in a 25% coefficient of inbreeding (COI)--which is VERY high. However, bred to an unrelated dog, this high COI can be undone in one generation. Such breeding is often done to "fix in" certain traits in a new breed or to restore traits in a breed that is losing them. Breeding back to Pip has benefits that breeding to Artoo and to Steele would not, such as fixing in the smaller size and breeding back in the shorter legs that are desirable in the breed.

Genetics, Breeding, and COI

When we breed dogs, we look at a number of things. The parents have to fit the standard, at an absolute minimum. That means that the parents fit the blueprint for the breed, allowing for only minor deviations that will be evident in any living representation of the standard. There's no such thing as a "perfect" dog, but at bare minimum we want to have dogs that a person will know what they are looking at, when they look at the animal. Yes, yes, I know . . . a person once asked me if Pip was a "miniature pit bull." A person who knows his breeds wouldn't have asked that, given that he's a pretty good representation of the breed. That's the bare minimum. At best, you want a person to honestly be able to see why that dog is a grand champion or question why it isn't a grand, if it is not.

Of equal importance is the health, both physical health and genetic health, of the parents. I've written before about genetic testing and how it's an expensive but valuable means of evaluating your dogs for breeding. When line breeding or inbreeding, it's even more necessary than usual to know what is inside your dog, as well as what is on the outside. Line breeding and inbreeding concentrate the available genes inside the resulting puppies, allowing both positive and negative genetic codes to find their matches and bring about the resulting traits. Without information that is as complete as the breeder can get it, line breeding and inbreeding are risky prospects at best.

In addition to those things, we look at the coefficient of inbreeding (COI). As you can see in the photo and its caption, COI is a bunch of mathematical gobbledygook that confuses the average person 100% of the time. And by "average person," I mean anyone who has an IQ under 125 and does not possess an advanced degree in math. Making it worse, there are two ways of calculating COI, meaning that two people discussing this important principle might be talking at cross purposes. For most breeders, knowing the percentages in the above photo is sufficient--which is good, because I suspect that I'm a pretty average person. I know that I can expect about a 25% COI for each puppy, which is rather high. However, it's the ongoing use of inbreeding, generational inbreeding, that can cause inbreeding depression. If I were to continually breed Pip to Yaddle and her puppies, I might be able to concentrate a really nice set of traits that set my line of Teddies apart from all other lines of Teddies. I might also end up with a series of genetic nightmares that are doomed to live horrific lives of pain and suffering--which is why it's one generation of inbreeding and out for me and why any inbred puppies that I sell are only going to pet homes with a spay/neuter contract.

Obviously, there are other things to take into account, such as temperaments, size, color, medical history, proximity, price, and a lot more. But talking about all of those things would turn this article into another "dog breeding discussion" article and not a discussion about Yaddle's potential puppies. And so, to answer the question . . .

Are We Having TRT Puppies?!

Yes. Maybe. Most likely, anyhow.

The truth is, I would like very much for her to be pregnant. I don't do x-rays to determine pregnancy and I'm not overwhelmed with confidence in ultrasounds. Yaddle's mammary glands are starting to protrude, and her waist has thickened just a little. She's getting restless and a little irritable. All of the signs are definitely there. According to everything that I know, a first litter can be small and, because the dog's abdominal muscles are still tight, the pregnancy can be masked by being carried high. I am VERY certain that Yaddle will let me know quite soon. And, as soon as I know, I will let you know, too.

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