The Importance Of Registration and Responsible Breeding by Ian McGrother

Since the Sporting Lucas Terrier Club formed in mid 1999 approximately 300 SLTs have been registered with us. Whilst this is a tremendous achievement, bearing in mind that we started with only 35, and a number of these were well below breeding age. However, this figure would be higher if all litters bred had been registered. Although the club cannot force anyone to register their litters the importance of doing so cannot be stressed too highly. Not only will any progeny of unregistered dogs be ineligible for registration but entire breeding lines could be lost to us forever. With the already limited gene pool available to us this would be a tragedy.

Bearing in mind this small gene pool, and the small number of SLTs around at the moment, every litter is important if we are to safeguard the future of the breed. Careful thought should go into not only registering the litter but a number of things prior to deciding to breed it in the first place:

Why do you want to breed a litter? If it is for financial gain then forget it. Firstly it is the WRONG reason to breed any litter and secondly it just won’t happen. With stud fees, vet bills, feeding a hungry litter, etc you will never become rich and may not even break even after selling the pups. I know only too well myself.

Do you have the time, space and patience to look after the bitch and her litter especially if things go wrong? It is very hard and demanding work if a litter needs to be hand reared for any reason for example.

Do you have homes ready for the pups to go to when they are ready to go? Although the club will help with this whenever possible.

If after considering the above you decide to go ahead then there are still a few things to think about. First, your bitch must be fit and healthy and free from any hereditary problems such as luxating patella which is a problem in a number of terrier breeds. This problem is caused when the knee cap (patella) dislocates either temporarily or permanently causing the dog to skip on 3 legs. No litter can be registered with the SLT Club unless both parents are firstly registered themselves and secondly that they have been checked and cleared by a vet for this problem. A copy of a letter from the vet should be sent to the Club’s Breed Registrar, Carlos Oliveira. Secondly, find a suitable stud dog. As Breed Registrar he not only has a record of all dogs cleared of luxating patella problems but also, in a lot of cases, their pedigree going back many generations.

The Club is only too happy to assist anyone looking for a stud dog. We have for a number of years been trying to set up a stud book, without much success, so can I appeal for anyone wishing to help me, to send us details of their dog – height at withers, weight (when fully fit), details of coat texture, temperament and, if it is worked, please include those details as well. It would also be very helpful if you could send a good side-on photo.

This information is very useful when trying to match studs to bitches as although breeding lines may be ideal the physical attributes may not match up, for example, if both dog and bitch are at the upper end of the height limits or both have soft coats. Armed with this information I can discuss things with the bitch’s owner and hopefully arrive at a suitable match. There is no guarantee that the resulting pups will be the best ever born but there is a better chance that they will be decent examples of SLTs than from a random mating.

The subject of tail docking is, I know, a sensitive one and the choice to dock or not is entirely up to the individual but should you decide to do so then the recommended tail length is one third removed. Not all vets will carry out tail docking but information on those who will in your area can be obtained from The Council of Docked Breeds. Some pups are born with dew claws on their hind legs and it is recommended that these are removed by a vet, particularly in working dogs, but again this is a matter of personal choice.

Now comes the important part and the main reason for this article, Registering the Litter. Before taking the bitch to be mated please download from the relevant forms from the website. These should be returned to our Breed Registrar along with the registration fee when completed. The first form is the Litter Registration Form and must be completed by the owners of both the bitch and the stud dog at the time of the mating. The second is a New Owner Registrationform which will allow us to register the pups in their owner’s name and to send them a pedigree. I would recommend that you do not register the litter until shortly before they go to their new homes as it is a sad fact of life that puppy deaths can and do occur in the first few weeks of life.