Quote Originally Posted by scratchin dog View Post
Looking back, do you wish you had put some semen on ice or are you happy with your decision not to do it?
Happy with my decision not to do it.

My belief is that saving semen on a stud is like admitting you don't know how to breed dogs.

Three things are true:

1) NOTHING will make the dog, Silverback, come back and be my buddy again

2) If a dog's ability to produce was good, then his "traits" that made him worthy as a stud dog should pass onto a significant # of his offspring (if his traits didn't pass on then he's not much of a stud )

3) Silverback's good traits did pass on, to a number of his pups, so if I wanted get back in and keep Silverback's key traits alive, then I could do that easy as pie ... by taking his daughter, Amazon, and breeding her to a few key sons.

If all those dogs die off, then that's just the way it goes I guess.

I am kind of Buddhist in my views that you have to learn to let go. Also, using the crutch of stored semen kindof takes the magic out of breeding dogs. If I wouldn't have given Ouch a try as a stud, because I was constantly using "Poncho's stored semen," I never would have produced either Silverback or Ch Vengence. Sure, I could have produced good dogs with "Poncho's stored semen," but to me that would get boring after awhile. New potentially-good stud dogs deserve their own chance as studs, and if they're bred right they should produce too.

I am 100% confident in my ability to assess, and breed, great dogs ... which is more important to me than "the stored semen" of any dog

Jack